IE8 has a feature called InPrivate Browsing, which prevents IE from storing data about your browsing sessions, including cookies, temporary Internet files, history, and other data. I've used this mode at conferences while on kiosk machines, and it adds to my comfort level, even though I still cannot help but delete browsing history whenever I access a public machine. Likewise, Firefox 3 has Private Browsing, which provides the same functionality and does not retain visited pages, form and search bar entries, passwords, cookies, temporary or cached Internet files, and so forth.

They both offer at least one superscary privacy-invasion tool. In the case of IE8, it is called Suggested Sites, where your browsing history is sent to Microsoft to compare to related Web sites; then a link in your Favorites Bar offers "suggestions" to help you find new items. This feature is something that many (most) people are not pleased about. Microsoft said it will not store this information, but at the same time, Windows Help and Support information says that even items deleted from your browsing History "will be retained by Microsoft for a period of time to help improve our products and services." In Firefox, there is Location Aware Browsing (aka geolocation), where Firefox takes your IP address, information about nearby wireless access points, and a temporary cookie-like identifier and passes that off to Google (through an encrypted SSL connection, if that makes you feel any better) so that searching in Google retrieves results that relate to your current location. If you are searching for pizza, there's no need to type in all the information about where you are. That's something else I opt out of.

In addition to their common items, IE8 has some cool features to make browsing and working smoother. These include:

Accelerators, which let you do in one (or a few) clicks what it used to take you more clicks, often with cutting and pasting and so forth, to accomplish various tasks. The accelerator tasks include mapping locations and translation of words. You select the text you need and then see a little blue accelerator icon that you can click to obtain directions, a definition, or a translation; to e-mail content; or to search, all with a click or two -- sort of like a contextual menu.