Can my internet service provider, administrator , or websites i visit view my searches?
Does this just erase browsing history like normal incognito tab, or does it block my service provider, administrator, and websites from seeing what I search. I am using this app on a personal device, not owned by an administrator.
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Annaonmyus said
Does this just erase browsing history like normal incognito tab, or does it block my service provider, administrator, and websites from seeing what I search.
Sorry, but what do you mean by this in your question?
Firefox's private windows combine incognito browsing -- no local record on your device -- with Tracking Protection. See: Enhanced Tracking Protection in Firefox for Android.
When you use HTTPS requests, the network routers and service providers in the path between you and the website know what host name you are requesting. For example, they could see the www.google.com in this request:
https://www.google.com/search?q=firefox
However, everything after that -- /search?q=firefox -- is sent in an encrypted form so the service providers wouldn't know the specific Google page you visited or what search you ran.
The exception would be if there is a proxy server, security software, or other "man in the middle" that Firefox trusts to decrypt and read the request. Usually Firefox has to be set to trust any intermediary like that.
That probably doesn't answer all of your question, but does it make sense so far?
What i mean by"this" is this app. In short, does this mean if I search for say, a car, can the service provider see that I searched for that car?
If you search on a search engine that uses a secure connection -- most of them do -- the query is only known to you and the site. See my earlier explanation of how HTTPS connections work.
But... when Firefox follows a link from the results to another HTTPS site, Firefox will usually provide some or all of the address of the search results page to that site. This is called the HTTP_REFERER header.
In a regular window, Firefox may provide the search results page URL. In a private window, Firefox may provide the host name portion of the URL (for example, https://www.google.com/).
There may be some settings to provide less information to websites about how you got to them, but it would involve digging through some settings (that I don't know off the top of my head).
Since you seem professional enough to explain the whole fucking browser to me, answer in a yes or no. If I use Firefox focus using the bing browser, can my service provider, or anyone that may have tapped my device, see my searches .
Sorry, I was answering about Firefox for Android, which is a different product from Firefox Focus for Android. I actually do not know how Firefox Focus works. I will flag your thread for a moderator to move this question to the Firefox Focus forum.