Lipstick on a Pig

I felt it in my bones. Everyone - even the normally sensible BBC - was running around waving their hands about the amazing Browzar. As the Beeb put it:

A web browser that leaves no trace of a user's online surfing habits on their computer has been released.

Browzar, as it is known, automatically deletes all records of the pages a person has visited when it closes down.

But the fact that it was based on IE - hardly the world's most secure or private platform - rang the alarm bells for me.

And now what do we find?

Contrary to earlier coverage, Browzar appears to be nothing but a simple shell to IE which forces Overture ads on its own users. The creators didn’t write a cache or history function, calling this a feature, and users are unable to change the search function or home page to anything other than Browzar ad results.

Pig, lipstick, on, anyone?

The other lesson to learn is that there is obviously considerable demand for such an easy-to-use beast: Firefox hackers, are you listening?