Quickly Toggle Private Browsing Mode in Firefox

Like all the other modern browsers, Mozilla Firefox also supports the private browsing mode feature. If you turn this feature on, then Firefox switches to the private browsing mode in which your browsing history is not saved to the local hard disk. The private browsing mode is very useful to browse sites without leaving any cache, cookies or history behind. You can turn on the private browsing mode using the Firefox menu or using its hotkey, but a faster way is to install the Toggle Private Browsing add-on in Firefox. This add-on shows a little button in the toolbar and the statusbar, clicking on which you can quickly toggle on and off the in-built private browsing feature. Here is how :

  1. Visit https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/toggle-private-browsing/ in your Firefox browser.
  2. Click on the green colored button labeled Add to Firefox.

    Quickly Toggle Private Browsing Mode in Firefox

  3. Click on the Install Now button in the Software Installation window that pops up. You will have to restart the Firefox browser in order to activate this add-on.

    Quickly Toggle Private Browsing Mode in Firefox

  4. After restarting the Firefox browser, you can see a new mask icon added to the statusbar in Firefox. If you are running Firefox in Windows XP, then you would also see the icon in the toolbar. Clicking on this mask like icon would toggle on or off the inbuilt private browsing mode.

    Quickly Toggle Private Browsing Mode in Firefox

  5. You can open the settings for the Private Browsing add-on, where you can set Firefox to automatically enter the private browsing mode upon start. You can also choose Firefox not to prompt you when you switch to the private browsing mode.

    Quickly Toggle Private Browsing Mode in Firefox

Private Browsing add-on is a very handy extension that can help you quickly switch to the private browsing mode in Firefox. It also allows you to automatically start the Firefox browser in the private browsing mode. If you find yourself using the private browsing mode of Firefox too often, then the Private Browsing extension is made for you.