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this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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Privacy
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What about private browsing or running a Firefox portable exe?
No, no, no. Private browsing isn't private like that. Your ISP and network adminstrator (in this case your employer) can still see every website you access. This is usually explained on the "New private tab" on browsers.
They can see what IPs you connect to, doesn't matter what browser you use or if the connection is made from a browser at all
We record network traffic, not data from your browser. We can see every URL any device on the network hits, regardless if the traffic comes from a browser or even a phone app.
In addition, some companies install software on each employee's machine that enhances what they can monitor on that machine. It may not be labeled "corporate spyware" but something like "endpoint security", yet it may have the capacity to track pretty much everything you do.
Products such as Cisco Umbrella cover both. There's a DNS appliance inside the network, as well as a client software that installs on devices that forces them to use Umbrella's public DNS server when being used on another network.
This means we can track everything on the company owner device, even when you are at Starbucks or at home.
Never expect privacy on any device and/or network you don't have ownership and control over.
How about DoH? Firefox supports it, and not every IT admin has blocked the ability to use it. (mozilla.cfg)
That only provides a secure connection to the DNS server. The DNS server can still log your activity.
When on a private network, all DNS traffic can be forced to use a inhouse DNS server that records everything.
Anything on a work computer, or on a work network, you have to assume is recorded by the office
I mean it's not blocked, but if you're connected to their network, they can still see your traffic if they wanted to.
Yes of course. But OP is asking about Browsing history, which is basically the only think private browsing can do
"Tor browser bundle" is the version of Firefox that doesn't reveal browsing data to the local network.
The use of Tor does show up on the network. The protocol is known and understood, and has been in the detection sets of pretty much every layer 7 filtering product for the last ten or eleven years. What, exactly, is being accessed is largely concealed (but traffic patterns give away a reasonably broad picture of what's happening).
Private browsing is a fig leaf at best.
Portable Firefox is hit or miss, depending upon the work environment. It'll definitely show up in file system monitoring, might show up in the logs of the border proxy as an unexpected user agent. The initial download will definitely show up. Removable media might or might not, depending on how group policy is set up.