Has Firefox already matched IE privacy features?

Perspectives, hatched at Carnegie Mellon, thwarts so-called "Man in the Middle" attacks on SSH (secure) sites by creating a virtual notary that can check the validity of an unsigned security certificate.

I have already been burned by over-zealous security in trying to reach the site where I write these posts. The standard security warnings read like Windows error messages. The results from Perspectives promise to be more straightforward.

Versions for Windows, Linux, and OS X are already available.

The Explorer feature, dubbed "porn mode" by wags, burns your browsing trail, along with cookies and cache, with each session. Expect this to be a default at Internet cafes around the world.

The incident illustrates a key advantage of open source. Academic labs don't need permission to improve popular code -- they just offer it online as they finish the project.