Incognito browsing image on google chrome
Everyone who uses a device to connect to the internet (phone/laptop) has had a moment when he/she thought about their privacy. Besides, very many people have dedicated their time spying and hacking. How do you browse and cruise through the web in anonymity?
Incognito is an Italian/Latin originated word to mean unknown. Incognito/private browsing is a feature embedded in browsers like Google Chrome, Safari and more to help hide the websites a web user visits from their search history. All cookies, history and search terms used in this mode are not recorded. The picture below shows Incognito birth dates into the different browsers and the shortcuts to get you started.
Contents
Here is why you might need to go Incognito;
Security
Very many of us often log into our accounts using friends devices (phones/laptops) and easily forget to log out of important personal sites. With the whole of I have no data and sharing devices, this remains an everyday encounter. How do you stay protected though! Incognito is not friends with irresponsible fellas, it will delete all signed in cookies and prevent anyone from accessing your information.
Multiple sessions
Necessity being the mother of invention, you might be sharing devices to connect to the Internet. At a time when your friend or workmate wants to log into his Personal account and you too want to remain logged into yours. There might be a haggle of who owns the device. However, Incognito is a way to go in such instances, just open an incognito window for him to use so you don’t have to log out of your account. This happens because cookies aren’t shared between normal and incognito windows in chrome/safari, you can use the incognito window to log in to a second account on any website without logging out of the first one.
Uninfluenced browsing
You must have been in a situation where you are searching about something and boom they bring ads/video suggestions of what you/a friend searched about yesterday. This kind of AI will wow you the first time but not the second,
third and fourth time. It is nagging and pretty influenced browsing. But with
Incognito, you have the whole world for yourself. Incognito performs “pure searches” that are not influenced by prior browsing history or networks or friends’ recommendations, which may weight and more highly rank certain results than others.
Way forward.
The above seems to glitter all well but it is not gold. Tech advances every second and don’t be spoon-fed to think your privacy is secured. Incognito has its gaps even when it glues a few patches.
“In 2015, researchers from Pennsylvania State University found that a
a considerable amount of extensions on Firefox violated the private browsing policy based on an investigation of the top 2,000 extensions. Many extensions maintain their own profile folders on the local machine, and most of them will not wipe the browsing data after the private browsing session ends. This violation even happens on some most popular extensions with millions of users on Firefox”. So as you browse in hiding, be cautious too.