Porn Mode; it’s not just for IE8 anymore

I find it fascinating how quickly the industry is moving from deriding the IE8 Porn Mode to emulating it. Chrome and Safari apparently already have it, and now it’s coming to the Firefox world (via TechCrunch):

At one time, it was tough to cover your tracks after visiting some, uh, questionable sites, but now it’s getting easier than ever. According to Mozilla, Firefox is joining Safari, Internet Explorer 8, and Google Chrome in providing its users with a “private mode” that will not collect any of your browsing history or cookies in the upcoming release of Firefox 3.1.

Much like Chrome, users will be able to open a separate window in Firefox 3.1 that will let them browse the Web in any way they see fit without worrying about the wife or kids entering the History menu and seeing why they spent the last hour in the office with the door locked.

Despite the obvious porn driver, I am surprised that privacy advocates aren’t praising this feature. When using this mode the one of the most prevalent means of user tracking (permanent cookies) is done away with.