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# Private Browsing Proxy
On Windows, Firefox ships with a small binary that always launches
`firefox.exe` in Private Browsing mode (`private_browsing.exe`). Its sole
purpose for existing is to allow Private Browsing shortcuts to have their own
Visual Elements. This is most notably seen when pinning a Private Browsing
shortcut to the Start Menu -- Visual Elements are used for the icon there
rather than the shortcut's icon.
In addition to always passing `-private-window`, `private_browsing.exe`
will forward any other command line arguments given to it to `firefox.exe`.
It will also forward shortcut information from the Windows `STARTUPINFOW`
structure to ensure that Firefox knows how it was started.