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Security Tips - Incognito Window

A lot of people know what incognito mode (or private mode) is at some basic level. They should use it when they want to do something "private" on the web. But I think most people don't actually understand what it means and how/why to use it. Perhaps this will help.

Before we start - cookies are little bits of data used to track you between page loads. Think of it like a fingerprint. They're extremely important for session handling, so that a site can remember who you are from one page to the next. But they're also really handy for things like advertising services to track your activity on the web.

When you open a new incognito window (and don't have one open already) - you're starting a new session in your web browser that doesn't have any of the cookies or caching that your "normal" browser window has. In practical terms, this means that when you visit a site, they won't have any history of you (mostly) and you may need to relogin, etc. And when you close an existing incognito window, all cookies associated with that window are also lost. Things like history are also not tracked in incognito.

Many people think of the incognito mode as "porn" mode - but I'd argue that it should be the most that we do most of our browsing in. This is because it makes it much harder for sites to track you - and there are many, many sites and systems that can track your activity across many, many different sites now.

Ever search for a product of some sort, only to start getting emails and ads around that target all over the place? That's the advertising network (probably google) tracking you. They're always building up a profile of your interests, tastes, habits, etc. Personally, that's annoying enough. But, this is also data that they can sell to other parties. While you may trust google with your data... how about anyone they sell that data too? What if it's hacked?

The other thing to remember is that cookies, etc are still tracked within one incognito window "session" - so, just closing the tab in an incognite window isn't enough to clear cookies/history for that tab. You have to close all the tabs in that window - and not have any other incognito windows open.

Incognito is also really helpful when you're developing a site. You can have your "normal" window logged into the system, and use your incognito window to test things like user login, etc - things that would be more complicated when you're trying to use just a "normal" window - as the cookies would conflic.

My general rule is that I use "normal" browser windows only for things I really have to be logged into constantly - for example email. Or things that I control (i.e. sites I developed myself). Pretty much everything else happens in an incognite window that I close pretty much once a day at least.
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