How To Switch To Incognito Mode

How to go incognito in Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari

While incognito way in whatsoever of the big four web browsers offers a mensurate of privacy, information technology doesn't completely hide your tracks online. Hither's how the feature works in each browser, and how to use it.

Gregg Keizer By

Senior Reporter, Computerworld |

face superimposed on keyboard privacy hacker — Thinkstock

Table of Contents

How to privately browse in Microsoft Edge
How to do private browsing in Mozilla Firefox
How to browse privately using Apple's Safari

Individual browsing. Incognito. Privacy style.

Spider web browser functions like those trace their roots dorsum more than a decade, and the feature — first plant in a top browser in 2005 — spread quickly as i copied another, made tweaks and small improvements.

But privacy-promising labels can be treacherous. Simply put, going "incognito" is every bit effective in guarding online privacy as witchcraft is in warding off a cold.

That's because private browsing is intended to wipe local traces of where y'all've been, what you've searched for, the contents of forms you've filled. Information technology'south meant to hide, and not always conclusively at that, your tracks from others with admission to the personal computer. That's it.

At their well-nigh basic, these features hope 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 similar passwords used during sessions. Just your traipses through the spider 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.

To end that cognitive dissonance, most browsers have added more avant-garde privacy tools, generically known as "anti-trackers," which cake various kinds of seize with teeth-sized chunks of code that advertisers and websites employ to trace where people go in attempts to compile digital dossiers or serve targeted advertisements.

Although 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. Using either individual browsing or anti-tracking carries a cost: site passwords aren't saved for the adjacent visit or sites break under the tracker scrubbing. Nor are those costs equal. It's much easier to plough on some level of anti-tracking by default than it would be to do the same for private sessions, as evidenced past the number of browsers that do the former without complaint while none exercise the latter.

Private browsing will, by necessity, always be a niche, as long equally sites rely on cookies for mundane things like log-ins and cart contents.

But the mode remains a useful tool whenever the browser -- and the calculator it'due south on -- are shared. To prove that, we've assembled instructions and insights on using the incognito features -- and anti-tracking tools -- offered past the peak iv browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft's Chromium-based Edge, Mozilla's Firefox and Apple's Safari.

How to go incognito in Google Chrome

Although incognito may be a synonym to some users for any browser's individual mode, Google gets credit for grabbing the word equally the feature'south snappiest name when it launched the tool in late 2008, just months subsequently Chrome debuted.

The easiest style to open up an Incognito window is with the keyboard shortcut combination Ctrl-Shift-N (Windows) or Command-Shift-Due north (macOS).

Another way is to click on the menu on the upper right - it'southward the three vertical dots - and select New Incognito Window from the listing.

incognito 1 — Open up a new Incognito window in Chrome using keyboard shortcuts or from the menu (1) by choosing New Incognito window (2).

The new Incognito window tin can be recognized by the dark background and the stylized "spy" icon just to the left of the three-dots carte. Chrome also reminds users of just what Incognito does and doesn't exercise each fourth dimension a new window is opened. The message may get tiresome for regular Incognito users, but it may also relieve a chore or reputation; it's important that users call back Incognito doesn't foreclose ISPs, businesses, schools and organizations from knowing where customers, workers, students, and others went on the spider web or what they searched for.

incognito 2 — Each fourth dimension a new Incognito window is opened, Chrome reminds users what Incognito doesn't salve. As of Chrome 83, it also puts a toggle on the screen for blocking third-party cookies.

Incognito's introductory screen as well displays a toggle -- it'southward on past default -- along with text that states third-party cookies will be blocked while in the privacy style. 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 inside Incognito. Such tracking might be used, for case, to display ads to a user visiting multiple sites in Incognito. This third-political party cookie blocking, which halts such behavior, debuted in Chrome 83 in May 2020.

Google has been experimenting with new language on Chrome'south Incognito introductory page, only information technology's notwithstanding to make information technology to the desktop browser. In the Canary build of Chrome on Android, however, the intro at present outlines "What Incognito does" and "What Incognito doesn't practise," to make the mode's capabilities somewhat clearer to the user. (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.)

Once a tab in Incognito has been filled with a website, Chrome continues to remind users that they're in Incognito past the dark groundwork of the accost bar and window championship.

A link on an existing page can be opened directly into Incognito by right-clicking the link, then choosing Open Link in Incognito Window from the resulting menu.

incognito 3 — What Incognito looks similar after pulling up a website. Notation the "spy" icon at the right of the accost bar.

To shut an Incognito window, shutter it like any other Chrome window by clicking the X in the upper correct corner (Windows) or the red dot in the upper left (macOS).

Pro tip: Google has been working on locking Incognito fashion tabs on mobile devices -- the tabs unlocked with built-in biometric features -- so that others can't get a look at the privacy mode'south content but by picking up another's phone or tablet. Google is currently rolling out this feature in Chrome 92 on iOS, and still testing information technology in preview builds of Chrome for Android. No give-and-take on whether desktop Chrome will go something similar.

How to privately browse in Microsoft Edge

borrowed the name of its private browsing mode, InPrivate, from Internet Explorer (IE), the finally-beingness-retired legacy browser. InPrivate appeared in IE in March 2009, about three months subsequently Chrome'due south Incognito and 3 months before Firefox'southward privacy mode. When Edge was start released in 2015 and then relaunched as a clone of Chrome in January 2020, InPrivate was part of the package, besides.

At the keyboard, the combination of Ctrl-Shift-Northward (Windows) or Command-Shift-N (macOS) opens an InPrivate window.

A slower way to get there is to click on the menu at the upper right -- it's three dots arranged horizontally -- and cull New InPrivate Window from the carte du jour.

incognito 10 — Similar other browser, Edge will have you lot incognito from the bill of fare (one) when you pick New InPrivate window (ii).

Edge does a more thorough job of explaining what its private browsing mode does and doesn't exercise than any of its rivals, with on-screen paragraphs dedicated to describing what data the browser collects in InPrivate and how the strictest additional anti-tracking setting can be called on from within the mode. In improver, Edge 92 -- the current version as of this writing -- uses the more informal "What Incognito does" and "What Incognito doesn't do" language on its InPrivate introductory screen, something desktop Chrome hasn't still gotten to.

Microsoft'southward browser as well well marks InPrivate when the mode is operating: a blue-colored oval marked "In Individual" to the right of the accost bar combines with a total-blackness screen to make certain users know where they're at.

incognito 11 — The white-on-blue oval at the upper correct tells you Border is in InPrivate mode.

It'due south too possible to launch an InPrivate session past correct-clicking a link within Border and selecting Open in InPrivate Window. That option is grayed out when already in a individual browsing session simply using Open Link in New Tab does just that inside the current InPrivate frame.

To end InPrivate browsing, simply shut the window by clicking the X in the upper right corner (Windows) or click the red dot at the upper left (macOS).

Although Microsoft based the relaunched Edge on Chromium, the same open-source projection that comes up with the lawmaking to power Chrome, the Redmond, Wash. company has integrated anti-tracking into its browser, something Chrome has withal to do. Dubbed "Tracking Prevention," information technology works both in Edge's standard and InPrivate modes.

To set Tracking Prevention, choose Settings from the three-ellipses menu at the correct, so at the next page, selection Privacy, Search and Services. Choose one of the three options -- Bones, Balanced or Strict -- and make sure the toggle for Tracking prevention is in the "on" position. If yous desire InPrivate to always default to the harshest anti-tracking -- not a bad idea -- toggle Always use "Strict" tracking prevention when browsing InPrivate to "on."

incognito 12 — Toggle Always use Strict to the 'on' position and InPrivate volition employ the most stringent anti-tracking even though Edge'southward standard mode is set to, say, Balanced.

Pro tip: To open Edge with InPrivate -- rather than get-go opening Edge in standard fashion, then launching InPrivate -- right-click the Border icon in the Windows taskbar and select New InPrivate Window from the list. There is no similar i-pace way to practise this in macOS.

How to do individual browsing in Mozilla Firefox

After Chrome trumpeted Incognito, browsers without something similar hustled to catch up. Mozilla added its take -- dubbed Individual Browsing -- about half-dozen months subsequently Google, in June 2009, with Firefox 3.v.

From the keyboard, a private browsing session can be called upward using the combination Ctrl-Shift-P (Windows) or Command-Shift-P (macOS).

Alternately, a private window volition open from the menu at the upper right of Firefox -- three short horizontal lines -- after selecting New private window.

incognito 4 — Opening a private browsing window is as simple as choosing New Private Window (2) from the Firefox carte (one).

A private session window is marked by the purple "mask" icon in the title bar of the Firefox frame. In Windows, the icon is to the left of the minimize/maximize/close buttons; on a Mac, the mask squats at the far right of the title bar. Dissimilar Chrome and Border, Firefox does non colour-code the top components of the browser window to signify the user is in privacy mode.

Similar other browsers, Firefox warns users that individual browsing is no cure-all for privacy ills simply is limited in what it blocks from being saved during a session. "While this doesn't make you anonymous to websites or your isp, it makes information technology easier to keep what you do online private from anyone else who uses this computer," the circumspection reads.

Firefox 2021 — Firefox reminds users that while a private session doesn't save searches or browsing histories, it doesn't cloak them in consummate anonymity.

(Firefox as well uses the Private Browsing introductory screen to shill the Mozilla VPN service, a $v to $10 per month virtual private network that tin can, similar other VPNs, hibernate your actual IP accost from destination servers.)

A link can be opened into a Firefox Private Window by right-clicking the link, then choosing Open Link in New Private Window from the menu.

To close a Private Window, shut information technology down just as one would any Firefox window by clicking the X in the upper right corner (Windows) or the red dot in the upper left (macOS).

Notable is that Firefox's individual browsing way is accompanied by the browser'due south superb "Enhanced Tracking Protection," a suite of tracker blocking tools that stymie all sorts of advertisement-and-site methods for identifying users, then watching and recording their online beliefs. While the earliest version of this was offered only within Private Windows, the expanded technologies also piece of work within standard mode.

Because Enhanced Tracking Protection is enabled past default inside Firefox, information technology doesn't matter which of its settings -- Standard, Strict or Custom -- is selected as far every bit private browsing goes; everything that can exist blocked will be blocked.

incognito 6 — The shield appears in the address bar to note what trackers were blocked by Firefox in a Individual Window. Clicking on the icon brings upward an accounting of what was barred.

Pro tip: As of Firefox 91, Private Browsing sessions accept place over the more than secure HTTPS, not the once-standard HTTP protocol. Users don't demand to exercise anything: The new HTTPS-just policy is on past default. (If the destination site doesn't support HTPPS, Firefox will recognize this and go into fallback mode, connecting via HTTP instead.)

How to browse privately using Apple tree's Safari

Chrome may get far more than attention for its Incognito than whatever other browser -- no surprise, since it'south past far the most popular browser on the planet -- only Apple'south Safari was really the first to introduce private browsing. The term individual browsing was starting time bandied in 2005 to depict Safari two.0 features that limited what was saved by the browser.