According to TechRadar, Firefox 3.1 is due to include a private mode, much like Safari’s “Private Browsing”, Google Chrome’s “Incognito Mode” and Internet Explorer 8’s “InPrivate”, which will mean that your browsing history, cookies and so are not recorded when enabled. The idea of this is so that if you are doing some online shopping, maybe for your husband or wife, having the private mode enabled will mean no cookies, no history, no download history or pretty much anything for the session will be recorded by the browser, so they can’t go snooping around.

The most obvious use for most people is… well I am sure you can guess. In fact, if you can’t wait for sometime next month when the beta of Firefox 3.1 will be released, a plugin called Stealther has provided pretty much the same functionality to people for a while now, and is fully compatible with Firefox 3.

It is quite surprising this feature has taken so long to reach Firefox, and it is good to know that it is finally being added to Firefox. This is probably because of the recent spurt of browsers (like the above) who are building in this feature.

Firefox lead developer Mike Connor said on Monday, “”We can and will get this into 3.1 one way or another.”

If you have just bought an iPod, then you are in for a bit of bad news as Apple have announced updates to their ubiquitous iPod line of MP3 players, mainly regarding the iPod Nano and iPod Touch. As we warned before, it was highly expected that Apple would use the event today to announce new products, and it seems many of the rumours around the new iPod Nano turned out to be true.

I managed to keep up with the event via Gizmodo’s liveblog, which provided photos and text updates through the hour. So what did Apple show us today?

iTunes 8

iTunes has been hanging on to version 7 for a while now, and one of the biggest rumours leading up to today was a new version of iTunes being released, version 8. What’s new? Apart from a new visualizer (can I have it as a screen saver, Apple?), a new feature called Genius is meant to help you find music that “go great together”. For people with huge libraries, this could be a lot of help of getting some stuff organized for once. As for me, I am someone who doesn’t use playlists that much, or in fact at all, so I can’t really see this making much of a difference to me in any way. Also updated is a new view which presents your album covers like iPhoto or iMovie skimming, where you swipe the mouse over the Artist or Genre to see album covers inside. There is something about this view which for now makes it feel as though it doesn’t really fit in iTunes, but it may just need some getting used to.

iPod Nano

As Kevin Rose had predicted (or received in a leak) the iPod Nano has reverted from its old, fatter design back to the taller one we knew before, coming in a variety of colours, and with a new, curved design (much like what is going on with the back of the iPhone, or the tapering of the MacBook Air). Also, we have seen new features such as an accelerometer so that when you turn the Nano, it will also turn what is on screen, useful for Cover Flow mode and more importantly watching videos and movies, as the screen is now taller. Also included is an update to the iPod OS with Genius, the feature seen in iTunes which recommends music to you, rather like a Pandora or Last.fm of your iTunes Library. Another feature, although maybe viewed as more of a gimmick by many, is the ability to shake the device, which uses the accelerometer to turn shuffle mode on. In my eyes, that isn’t really a selling point, but I am sure in some way to some people that will be handy.

Another change comes in the capacity of the Nano: You can now get 8GB and 16GB versions of the device, coming in at £109 and £149 respectively. This is a welcome addition to the line of iPods.

iPod Touch

The smaller brother of the iPhone, the iPod Touch has also received some updates, although not as massive as seen on the Nano. The second generation of the device is now even smaller and lighter than it’s predecessor, and includes a speaker, hardware volume control buttons (much wanted by existing Touch owners) and intergration of Genius from iTunes into software 2.1. Also included into the new Touch is Nike + iPod support, a technology which helps you with your workouts, which helps you track your progress during exercise. Oh, and the prices have been dropped slightly on the Touch, now coming in 8, 16 and 32 GB sizes at £169, £219, and £289.

What else?

Well, Apple decided that the iPod classic needed some love and upgraded the 80GB model to 120GB, but in doing so also dropped the 160GB model. Not too sure what to make of that move. And to (presumably) avoid a mass server flood, the iPhone 2.1 software, which has been described as having a multitude of fixes for bugs in iPhone OS X, and helping battery life, poor call quality, crashes and other random annoyances that have plauged the iPhone 2.0 OS since it’s release.

Qik, the Ustream/Stickam/Justin.tv/etc for mobile, is expanding to more handsets, to go along their already supported handsets such as Nokia’s popular N95 and the iPhone (although it does you require you jailbreak, due to Apple’s limitations). Most of the updates are to Taiwanese company HTCs most recent products. New Qik software will be coming to the following phones:

• HTC Touch Dual
• HTC Touch Diamond
• HTC TyTn-II
• AT&T Tilt
• Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

Qik brings the idea of lifecasting straight your 3G or WiFi enabled phone, making it easier for anyone to share their life on the go. As I tested in a 3G area on my phone, Qik works amazingly well if you have good signal, and even on 2 bars of 3G I got a good upload speed. Just don’t if for lengthy periods on a limited data plan, or you might run up some lengthy charges…

Let’s have a look at Google Chrome now shall we?

The download is under 1MB. Small compared to the 7MB Firefox, and a minuscule bit of dust in comparison to the epic 100MB+ of Internet Explorer upgrades.

So what do you get when you first start it up?

Well, as you can see, a very uncluttered bit of software. A bar to type bits of text in to get you to a website, and a box underneath to view the bits of website you want to see.

Of course, the URL bar is a bag of tricks, using a similar technique to Firefox 3, by incorporating your History, Bookmarks and the Google Index to ensure that whatever you type into the address bar will get the website you want.

Google Chrome renders all the main website quite snappily and correctly, being that it conforms to XHTML as opposed to the mess that the Internet Explorer renderer is in. Of course, the browser uses tabbed browsing like Firefox and Internet Explorer, but each tab seems to be a seperate entity.

Often I find I have an errant tab which causes the whole of Firefox to crash. Nothing big thanks to the recovery system, but annoying nonetheless.

Chrome includes its own task manager that shows all the plugins and tabs, their memory, and network usage. Fantastic for seeing just how much bandwidth all those youtube videos are using, or closing an errant website that is bogging the computer down.

Developers will have access to more advanced features, such as a JavaScript console with debug and full coloured html source files of any webpage in question.

A new feature called Incognito mode will open up a new window, which looks just like any other, however this little window will let you browse without leaving cookies, history or temporary files on your computer. Absolutely perfect for accessing an Internet Banking site for example.

The move to web application orientated tools are also apparent. Google include an Application Shortcuts tool that let’s you easily make shortcuts from your desktop or start menu to any website online. Clicking on the shortcut runs a cut down version of Chrome without the URL bar, which makes it look like you are simply running an application from your desktop at times. A true step forward in making web apps the norm.

All in all, a very good start for Google in the browser wars. Chrome is a very simple, effective and fast browser, without the frills and buttons that other browsers push in front of you. With prominent advertising on Google’s website, and the exposure already given to it, we can only wait and see just how, and if, the industry is shaken by it.

Google Chrome, the latest beta to come out the ‘don’t be evil’ company, is going to be launched in 200 countries on the Windows Platform later today.

The only leaked screenshot we have came from the Google Chrome webpage which was up yesterday in a broken form, but now redirects to the Google homepage.

As soon as Chrome gets released, a preliminary review will be posted with screenshots and initial reaction, so make sure you watch this space!

UPDATE: Google Chrome Review now available…

Google have shown off another part of the Android OS, by revealing the Android Market, their answer to the iPhone App Store. The Android Market will be free for anyone to add apps to, as it requires no approval process to have your stuff put up in the listings (although how would you control so many apps without some kind of monitoring?). This has a big advantage over the Apple App Store, which currently requires apps to be approved before they have a chance of making the store itself. Other than that, the Market is very similar to the iPhone App Store in the sense that it is one place where all the Apps are, as well as providing easy updating.

The only thing I can really see as a problem here is that Android is a free, open OS that will be available to all phone companies to use. The inherent problem with this is that there will be many different types of phones, some with big screens, some with small screens, some with certain features (maybe GPS etc), some without. How will developers make their apps so that they work across this vast selection of phones? This works on the iPhone and iPod Touch, as they have the same screen size, and mostly the same features. Obviously, the iPod Touch lacks GPS and a cell connection, but Location Services still work on the Touch if you are connected to a mapped Wi-Fi hotspot.The main issue here is how developers will Develop apps so that they work across the wide selection of Android we can expect.

Still, the “Market” is a great idea to make Android phones even more easy to use and desirable as a phone OS. It will certainly be a change from scouring the web for Apps you want like you still do with Nokia phone or BlackBerry devices. It’s good to see that the Android OS doesn’t look too shabby either, and whilst many would argue that the design doesn’t matter, in all honesty it does. People want something that looks great these days (which in some cases is the sole reason why people buy phones, especially the iPhone).

Let’s just hope that Android will be released without all the problems that the iPhone has (and still is) plagued with.

Read more about the Android OS over at the Official Blog.

A new version of popular BitTorrent client uTorrent has been released, the first update since version 1.7.7 in January, along with a catalogue of changes such as better support for Windows Vista’s Firewall, IPv6 support and other features and fixes. This version also appears to fix some memory issues, dropping RAM usage from as high as 150 MB to around 30-40 MB.

An Alpha version for Mac has also been announced, to appear in the next few weeks. There will be more work on this Mac version form this point on as they move resources from Windows uTorrent development to the OS X side, now that a multitude of problems in uTorrent have been fixed.

uTorrent was my torrent client of choice on Windows, before I made the switch to OS X, mainly because it is quite a light client compared to heavier alternatives out there such as Azureus (which is very bulky), while it still retains a load of great options. It’s RAM usage compared to other clients is also another reason why it is favoured by Windows users.

You can download the new uTorrent here.