Redmond (WA) – Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 is due within a few days and will not only bring bug fixes, but a range of new security features that are likely to lift the browser above Firefox, but also represents a new level of complexity how the security of a browser has to be managed by a user. At the core of Microsoft’s security ideas is the term “InPrivate”, which is designed to either block an “over-the-shoulder-view” when browsing or reveal what is happening in the background.

Microsoft posted a lengthy update explaining four new security features that add more flexibility to a user’s security preferences when browsing the Internet. “InPrivate” appears to be a new word under which Microsoft will combine a range of security configuration options, with the first ones being InPrivate Browsing, InPrivate Blocking and InPrivate Subscriptions.

InPrivate Browsing may not be without controversy, as it allows users to avoid any browsing information being stored, which means that a browsing session cannot be tracked. According to Microsoft, this feature can be enabled by simply browsing in an InPrivate Browsing window. While it is a useful feature when you are using a public PC, InPrivate Browsing is most likely not a feature that is suited for family PCs, on which especially parents may want to have access to a general browsing history.

Users who want to manage their browsing history will get more flexibility deleting certain information while leaving other data in place. For example, IE8 will allow users to delete cookies from general website you visited, but keep cookies and temporary Internet files from websites saved in your Favorites list.

InPrivate Blocking is designed to reveal a bit more information what tracking data is collected during your browsing session and enables users to block sites that have “seen” you across more than ten sites. Designed to blur the tracks of users on the Internet, the feature can manually choose items to block or allow, or obtain information about the third-party content directly from the site by clicking the “More information from this website” link. Microsoft said that Internet Explorer will only record data for InPrivate Blocking when you are in “regular” browsing mode, as no browsing history is retained while browsing InPrivate.

It is easy to see that InPrivate does not simplify the general browsing experience, but makes security decisions more complex and requires from users a deeper understanding what potential security exist on the Internet, which ones have to be taken serious and which ones can be handled in a more casual way. Microsoft appears to be reacting to a scenario in which security gets too complex with InPrivate Subscriptions, to which users can subscribe in the same way they add an Accelerator, Web Slice, or search provider to IE. In this way, granular decisions about what content to allow and which one to block can be avoided: “Under the covers, InPrivate Subscriptions are simply RSS feeds of Regular Expressions that specify sub-downloads to block or allow. Anyone can publish an InPrivate Subscription on their website, just as they can offer an Accelerator or Web Slice on their website,” Microsoft said.

The Beta 2 of IE8 is expected to be released before the end of the month.