(Some have speculated that the changes were made in reaction to a still-ongoing class-action lawsuit file in 2020 that alleged Google continued to track users' online behavior and movements in Incognito.) In the Canary build of Chrome on Android, however, the intro now outlines "What Incognito does" and "What Incognito doesn't do," to make the mode's capabilities somewhat clearer to the user. Google has been experimenting with new language on Chrome's Incognito introductory page, but it's yet to make it to the desktop browser. This third-party cookie blocking, which halts such behavior, debuted in Chrome 83 in May 2020. Such tracking might be used, for example, to display ads to a user visiting multiple sites in Incognito. Although cookies are never saved locally as long as the user stays in Incognito, websites have been able to track user movements from site to site while within Incognito. Incognito's introductory screen also displays a toggle - it's on by default - along with text that states third-party cookies will be blocked while in the privacy mode. As of Chrome 83, it also puts a toggle on the screen for blocking third-party cookies. GoogleĮach time a new Incognito window is opened, Chrome reminds users what Incognito doesn't save. The message may get tiresome for regular Incognito users, but it may also save a job or reputation it's important that users remember Incognito doesn't prevent ISPs, businesses, schools and organizations from knowing where customers, workers, students, and others went on the web or what they searched for. Chrome also reminds users of just what Incognito does and doesn't do each time a new window is opened. The new Incognito window can be recognized by the dark background and the stylized "spy" icon just to the left of the three-dots menu. Open a new Incognito window in Chrome using keyboard shortcuts or from the menu (1) by choosing New Incognito window (2). The easiest way to open an Incognito window is with the keyboard shortcut combination Ctrl-Shift-N (Windows) or Command-Shift-N (macOS).Īnother way is to click on the menu on the upper right - it's the three vertical dots - and select New Incognito Window from the list. How to go incognito in Google ChromeĪlthough incognito may be a synonym to some users for any browser's private mode, Google gets credit for grabbing the word as the feature's snappiest name when it launched the tool in late 2008, just months after Chrome debuted. To prove that, we've assembled instructions and insights on using the incognito features - and anti-tracking tools - offered by the top four browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft's Chromium-based Edge, Mozilla's Firefox and Apple's Safari. Private browsing will, by necessity, always be a niche, as long as sites rely on cookies for mundane things like log-ins and cart contents.īut the mode remains a useful tool whenever the browser - and the computer it's on - are shared. It's much easier to turn on some level of anti-tracking by default than it would be to do the same for private sessions, as evidenced by the number of browsers that do the former without complaint while none do the latter. Using either private browsing or anti-tracking carries a cost: site passwords aren't saved for the next visit or sites break under the tracker scrubbing. To end that cognitive dissonance, most browsers have added more advanced privacy tools, generically known as "anti-trackers," which block various kinds of bite-sized chunks of code that advertisers and websites use to trace where people go in attempts to compile digital dossiers or serve targeted advertisements.Īlthough it might seem reasonable that a browser's end game would be to craft a system that blends incognito modes with anti-tracking, it's highly unlikely. But your traipses through the web are still traceable by Internet providers – and the authorities who serve subpoenas to those entities – employers who control the company network and advertisers who follow your every footstep. It's meant to hide, and not always conclusively at that, your tracks from others with access to the personal computer. That's it.Īt their most basic, these features promise that they won't record visited sites to the browsing history, save cookies that show you've been to and logged into sites, or remember credentials like passwords used during sessions. That's because private browsing is intended to wipe local traces of where you've been, what you've searched for, the contents of forms you've filled.
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