I’m a Firefox user and up until recently the only way I could stay logged in to my Google account and still see non personalized Google search results was to open my MS Internet Explorer browser where I was not currently logged into a Google account and do a search. Now thanks to the Firefox plugin called IE Tab I can open a new tab in Firefox but do so viewing it as an instance of Internet Explorer. In doing this the Firefox cookies and login info are not used in this IE tab and I can can get non-personalized results. My other tabs are still logged into my Google account and I can continue using whatever I was doing without logging out and back in.

IE Tab was authored by the mozdev.org members PCMan (Hong Jen Yee) and yuoo2k and I am finding it a handy little tool. IE Tab will also work for other times where you don’t want to be known by a current login. This could even work for Danny Sullivan while he is in his MyBlogLog Stealth Danny mode and does not want to attract attention to himself while visiting sites using MyBlogLog.

Google’s push for delivering personalized search results has turned into a pain for those of us that want to remain logged into our Google Reader, GMail, Adwords, Adsense, or other account and get non-personalized search results. A simple toggle on the serps would be very easy for Google to provide but Google is intent on delivering individualized results.

In your Google account under Web History you do get the option to pause or remove history from your account. Pausing and or removing the history does not keep you from getting personalized search results though, and it does not mean Google is not storing your history. It basically means you can’t see it while logged in to your account.

As a side note I think it would be slick if Mozilla would build a feature like this right into Firefox where you could ignore selected cookies in select tabs and not depend on using MS Internet Explorer in IE Tab.