Incognito mode is not a secure solution when accessing the Internet

In fact, incognito and private modes help protect user privacy. However, you also need to know which pieces of information are hidden / deleted from your computer / phone and which are not deleted. Once you understand exactly how it works, you'll know when they are most useful.

Incognito mode is as simple as that as soon as the window closes, the browser will not save your activity history and any cookies created will be deleted immediately. For example, when you visit Amazon, a cookie will remember items added to your shopping cart for days, even if you've forgotten them or help the site remember when you return. If you use the incognito tab to access your favorite website, it will not recognize your information and will require you to login again.

In fact, incognito mode offers the most convenient features, allowing each user to access it like the first time. For example, when you sign in to Twitter or Gmail, these sites won't automatically log in as usual and ask to re-enter your account information. The incognito mode is therefore especially useful for accessing free articles from a paid site (the web won't detect you've ever viewed the page, although many premium sites are programmed to do so. out of that).

The web browser will not be able to determine a user's location, searches or login information when using the incognito tab. With browsers in personalization, when you type in the URL bar or search box, the browser will suggest results that have been entered before. Anything you ever visited or searched for in incognito tabs won't appear in suggestions. In particular, users cannot reopen a recently closed tab if it is accessed in incognito mode.

Some of the uses of incognito mode can be mentioned such as: logging in with multiple accounts instead of having to perform login and logout operations; when you search for sensitive topics that do not want to show up in the web browser history or the search bar. While all activity data disappears as soon as you close the incognito tab, it's only true for your browser and device. Nowadays, tracking and data mining has extended beyond just a browser or a device. And then, there are information incognito mode can not be hidden for you.

Through incognito mode, when logging into your favorite websites like Facebook, Amazon, Gmail, your activity is not anonymized for those applications anymore. While cookies and activity history will be deleted when tab is closed, they can still collect user behavior during platform sessions or link your accounts between different websites.

When logged into Facebook, for example, the app can track what you are doing on other websites and tailor your ads accordingly. To some extent, you can set up third-party cookie blocking in incognito access, but with the advancement in technology and advertising this has been made it is difficult to completely stop it.

Websites have a variety of ways to track user activity through IP address, the type of device they visit, the browser they use to identify who you are, and link account / activity information on the network. . There are a number of newly created browsers that counter this type of tracking, known as "fingerprinting", but that cannot be completely resolved.

Incognito mode does not hide your web access from your Internet service provider or company. And it also doesn't delete the downloaded data file. In other words, incognito mode only hides online activities from your browser or on the device you're using and from others who use that device. Incognito mode gives you limited privacy.

So, even though you have used anonymity feature when using browsers to access the Internet, if you want to ensure the safety of information as well as privacy, users need to equip additional security solutions. such as add-ons built into the browser's application store, or appropriate virus scanning and Internet security software.

Isabella Humphrey

Update 25 December 2020