A Word To The Wise Concerning Google Chrome’S Incognito Mode

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A word to the wise concerning Google Chrome’s Incognito mode.by Lee Brannon

Google Chrome has the potential to become one of the major browsers used on the net. It has a simplified interface and many new features that make the browser appealing. One feature however may be confusing potential users.The Google Chrome Incognito mode is designed to let users browse the web without leaving a trail behind. Most browsers cache information about where you have been and what you have downloaded while at the websites you visit. This information is stored as part of your history file and download files. The Google Incognito mode lets you browse without collecting this information.  

The intention is to allow you a way to do things in private so that other users of the same computer won’t know what you have been up to. Need to order flowers for a loved one, but don’t want them to know you were flower shopping on the Internet? The Google incognito function won’t leave the normal signs and traces.

So what’s wrong with it? Well for one thing Google and other authors on the subject have not made the purpose of this tool clear enough. Unfortunately people are likely to misinterpret what this function is for. It implies surfing with impunity to detection, but that is not the case. To quote Google’s own warning “Browsing in incognito mode only keeps Google Chrome from storing information about the websites you’ve visited. The websites you visit may still have records of your visit. Any files saved to your computer will still remain on your computer.” In other words, the websites you visit may store information about your visit. Something else that is not made clear at all is that everything you do on the web, whether in incognito or not, is most likely recorded by your service provider.

Even more alarming is the fact that some people may take this to mean that their employer will not know what they are doing. Before you decide to pull one over on your boss or supervisors and spend the day reading sports scores you should be aware that this feature is not going to prevent your I.T. department from reporting what you have been up to. If your company periodically checks surfing habits, and many do, you could find yourself in a world of hurt. Most business networks employ some form of tracing. Internet connections generally go through a device such as a router or firewall. These devices keep a log file of all traffic. Commonly employed Syslog tracking programs or other internet protocol log file tracing programs use the log files to record every place your computer connects to on the internet and how long the connections are for. This is generally connected with the MAC address of your computers hardware.

By the way, if you do want to keep someone else on your computer from seeing what you are doing on the net you can erase the history, cookies and cache files in most browsers. Firefox for example will allow you to do a “clear private data” and Internet Explorer will allow you to delete the History and Cache files, but in both cases it clears all of the history and cache files. The benefit of the Incognito mode of Google Chrome is that it prevents this information from being collected in the browser during the time the stealth mode is on. This allows you to still take a look at your history file if you want to see where you went with stealth mode off. Again none of these methods will prevent your service provider or your employer from having a record, but it might help you keep little Jimmy in the dark about that scooter you were ordering.

To summarize.

· Google’s Chrome incognito feature is beneficial, but may be misleading.

· Incognito mode only keeps the history, cache and cookies clean on the local computer for the browser being used, during the time the mode is turned on.

· Using Incognito does not prevent records from being kept at websites you visit, your service provider or in the case of a company computer your employer.

To turn Incognito mode on in Google Chrome simply select the “new Incognito window” option from the tools menu.

You can also start Google Chrome in incognito mode on a Windows computer (Mac version not available yet) by adding the -incognito parameter to the target line of a shortcut. Keep in mind that your history will be blank for any sites that you visit while in this mode. Just remember, incognito or not, everything you do on the web is recorded somewhere.This article was originally published on the GizGadMo site.

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