MYTHS of PRIVATE BROWSING

Let's be honest: There's probably a few things you've been looking at online that you don't want anyone to know about.

Whether you're secretly searching for a gift for someone who uses your computer, planning a surprise event or just looking at websites you'd prefer to keep to yourself, there are plenty of reasons to want to keep your web history in the shadows.

There a few different ways of doing this, and they all depend on who it is you want to hide your history from. But here's the thing: The

websites you visit in private browsing modes can still be tied back to you. Even if the people on your computer can't see which websites you've been visiting, your Internet provider and the websites you're visiting can. Here's how it works.

What private browsing modes do

Safari, Google Chrome, Firefox,Opera and Internet Explorer all have private browsing modes you can use to make sure the websites you visit don't appear in your browsing history. Typically, your browser will record a running log of each website you visit and store information about what you entered into search and information forms on websites.

So, if you found an awesome T-shirt on an online store, but can't remember which store it was or what you searched to find it in the first place, your browser will store that information so you can use it later. Your browser will also store cookies from websites, which are small files of data that help tailor a website to you and your computer. Whenever you go to a website that already has you logged in, remembers what you were last looking at or displays ads that eerily fit what you've been searching for, that's a cookie at work.

When you enable private browsing modes, you are telling your browser not to record which websites you're visiting, and telling it not to use or download any cookies. So, if you set up an account with an online jewelry store to find an engagement ring for your girlfriend, and she uses the same computer as you, she won't be able to see any of that if you only do it in a private browsing mode.

If you download an SSL certificate from a website or told that site specifically to stop displaying pop-ups and downloading cookies, all of that information is still stored on Firefox.

Also, if you log into your Google account in Chrome's Incognito mode, the browser will record your history and remember your cookies, which effectively ends the private session.

Private browsing modes — by the admission of their developers — only try to hide your history from other users of the same computer, and there are still ways to get around that. If you're looking for something that prevents anyone from tracking your browsing history, a normal browser isn't going to cut it on its own.

What private browsing modes don't do

Even if the private browsing mode doesn't keep a record of which sites you visit, it's still possible to track all of that information with your Internet Protocol (IP) address. Your IP address is both an identifier and a locator, telling the Internet who you are and from where in the world and on a computer network you're connecting to the Internet. Any device that can access the Internet has an IP address, which is the Internet's version of the return address on a mailed envelope. Whenever you send a request over the Internet, your IP address is included.

Because every request sent over the Internet is tied to an IP address, anyone with the capacity to monitor which IP address sends requests to a server can figure out where you've been going online and to whom you've been sending messages. That's how the NSA metadata collection program worked in a nutshell: The agency collected information about which IP addresses were sending requests to each other with the goal of figuring out the composition of terrorist networks.

Private browsing settings can prevent your history from being recorded on your browser, but they cannot prevent your IP address from being tied to those requests. Your Internet provider, law enforcement much more local than the NSA and any website that can install tracking cookies or access your search history can track those requests. The government can legally request your Internet history, too.

Also, anything you download and any bookmarks you make during a private browsing session will remain on your computer. Expecting those to go away when the session is over is like expecting a package you got in the mail to disappear just because you threw out its box. The file is now on your hard drive, and it will take a lot more than deleting your browser history to get rid if it.