Great point bringing up web browsing history; I considered mentioning "private" modes, like Incognito Mode, but my primary concern with this post (as a sort of PSA) was that HTTPS does not mean we should trust services.
It might be worthwhile to provide another short-and-sweet (at least, that's my goal) post clearing up what I find to be common misconceptions about such private modes and what they offer, including what's stored in history, cookies, etc.
Also I have some big issues with this statement: >Without encryption, all of your web browsing is to be considered public knowledge.
Even with encryption your web browsing history is "public knowledge", even without effective MITM attacks that break HTTPS any actor that can monitor the traffic between you and your ISP knows which websites you visit. Traffic analysis and profiling attacks can also reveal which specific pages / content you've visited based on statistical analysis of the request / response size, response time, and other factors.
Effective HTTPS doesn't hide what you are looking at, it ensures that whatever you sent and received cannot be tampered with (easily) and as well as adds some layer of secrecy to the data you send and receive if the attacker cannot gain it via other means.