YNOT – “Private” browsing modes in contemporary browsers do little to protect users from the embarrassment and legal implications of others discovering their dirty little internet secrets, according to a new research report from Stanford University’s Security Lab in the Computer Science Department.Often referred to as “porn mode” because surfers latched onto that use for privacy settings early on, the privacy settings in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Chrome are supposed to leave behind no tracks by which snoops can follow a user around the web. Au contraire, Stanford researchers said. Cookies, cached pages and history remain visible to those who knew where to look, especially in the case of visits to secure websites and when plug-ins are employed to manage a user’s surfing experience.

Plug-ins, in fact, represent a major risk for surfers who have something to hide. Stanford’s Dan Boneh told the BBC add-ons for all the major browsers “completely undermine” any expectations of surfing privacy. Encrypted data, in particular, never seems to go away — like the purchase info shopping sites and the membership data porn sites save on users’ computers.

The study also confirmed what has been intuitive from the start: “Privacy mode” is invoked most often when surfers visit adult websites.