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.

Avatar for Username

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

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

does private browsing mode store files within your pc on an ntfs system?

  • 1 reply
  • 1 has this problem
  • 45 views
  • Last reply by tombo

m0rg1n
m0rg1n
more options

during an attempt to wipe my pc drive, i realised just how much info on my pc was retained (in secret places) which i could not access, but a forensic examination could! ntfs sytem filing seems to be more vulnerable than a fat32 system. i know overwriting helps reduce scrutiny, but does private browsing reduce the need to "delete" files (which just seems to store hidden files on your hard disk, rather than actually deleting)? formatting an ntfs system, it seems, does not get rid of everything either!

during an attempt to wipe my pc drive, i realised just how much info on my pc was retained (in secret places) which i could not access, but a forensic examination could! ntfs sytem filing seems to be more vulnerable than a fat32 system. i know overwriting helps reduce scrutiny, but does private browsing reduce the need to "delete" files (which just seems to store hidden files on your hard disk, rather than actually deleting)? formatting an ntfs system, it seems, does not get rid of everything either!

All Replies (1)

tombo
tombo
more options

I did test this last year, it seems that private browsing does not write to disk at all. It caches in RAM and is cleared when the browser is closed. If your PC hibernates then some data will be cached to disk - but to answer your question yes it will help since private browsing will prevent information being stored on your drive in the first place. If you really want to be safe also ensure that your page file is turned off, or that pages are not kept open long enough to be written to virtual memory

Formatting a drive will not help, you will need to use a secure deletion tool like SDELETE or CCleaner to clean a drive properly