Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Hierdie gesprek is in die argief. Vra asseblief 'n nuwe vraag as jy hulp nodig het.

Can my internet service provider, administrator , or websites i visit view my searches?

more options

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.

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.

All Replies (5)

more options

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?

more options

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?

more options

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).

more options

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 .

more options

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.