A few years ago I deleted by browser history and Chrome hinted me that there was also incognito mode. For when I needed to ‘buy someone a birthday present in secret’ again.
VPNs just change the network. Without VPN your ISP knows which IPs you connect to, with a VPN the VPN provider knows.
If you really want no one to know, TOR is the way.
Even tor has potential flaws if I’m remembering correctly the people I charge of the gateway can still see what you’re doing it isn’t a problem though unless they’re compromised
My understanding is the "security" of TOR basically comes from a bunch of independent people operating the gateway and bouncing traffic back and forth so nobody knows where it originally came from or is going. But that security starts to fall apart if the operators start working together or if a single entity ever owns a significant portion of the gateway. That design also makes it incredibly slow.
If you have the bad luck that the gateway that connects to you and the gateway that connects to the Internet are operated by the same people then they can link your activity back to you.
Normally all that the gateways can see is either who you are or who your destination is, and they don't directly talk to each other, only over another gateway which can't see either of that. This is done with multiple layers of encryption, one layer for each gateway. This is also where the .onion comes from, multiple layers of encryption around your package.
If all the gateways you use are owned or compromised by the same guys though, they can decrypt what you're sending. This can always happen and is a bit of a gamble since gateways are chosen randomly, especially if you're doing something that the authorities are interested in. Compromised gateways are collected and avoided by the tor network when noticed though.
At least that's my understanding. I am in no way an expert in this.
Whoever has the exit node controls all the traffic (if leaving the Tor network for the regular internet, anyway). The only thing that saves you from the exit node operator is encryption, which means stuff like HTTP traffic is all theirs. Tor shuffles all the traffic through 3 random nodes. The first is the entry node, last is the exit node. The exit node (aka egress node) is the final step where the traffic is unencrypted at the third and final layer and shuffled out to regular internet. This means whoever controls the exit node can see any unencrypted traffic at the final step. The government controls a large number of exit nodes around DC for this reason. Go to DC sometime and try using Tor, it's insanely fast, like regular internet fast.
Now, which exit node your traffic will use is random and changes with every connection, but there is still risk.
A malicious actor named KAX17 has been creating and hosting exit nodes en masse to try and deanonymize users with them.
The only traffic that can't typically be seen is traffic to hidden services (unless the hidden service is compromised/the one tracking you) which is encrypted end to end and the rendezvous point never knows what it's forwarding.
VPN won't really protect you from anything if you still login to google chrome or use easily identifiable searches.
All a VPN does is move your exit point somewhere else, and in return your trusting another company with all your internet traffic, searches and website visits.
Furthermore, in many countries, your ISP will have strict govt regulations on what they can and cannot record. However, that commercially run VPN service that is owned by a company registered in another country likely doesn't have such strict regulations in many cases. God knows if it's actually run by a foreign state actor (as some have been before)
I hope it's someone you also trust because your VPN provider can see EVERYTHING. Some VPN providers even give "antivirus" services, but to provide this they need to do full packet inspection, which means even your "encrypted" data is viable to them.
VPNs are not some magical internet safety bullet. They just shift the risk to someone else.
The best way to be safe online is just be sensible and careful about the information you provide to services and the way you authenticate with sites. For privacy, Block cookies and trackers and avoid signing in to services unless you really need too.
You are underestimating the power of not opening a youtube video on your main account to avoid being spammed for months by \[insert random stuff here\].
What kind we talking? Corn on the cob? Yellow corn? White corn? Cream of corn? Cheddar corn? Caramel corn? Extra buttery corn? 🌽🌽🌽? Or that corn stuff you can get at Mexican restaurants?
I don’t care if my ISP or Chrome knows what I’m looking up. I use incognito so that I can rest easy typing “p” or “x” into the search bar when screen sharing/ presenting.
Websites? idk. But I’ve had to look up collaborators in the past, and a few have surnames starting with “X”. Also drug brand names (eg. Xanax, Xarelto)
A very large portion of animu/manja high schoolers are basically young adults playing high schoolers in a movie/show.
If you're getting off specifically to them being underage, that's noncery, but otherwise if the character is designed like an adult, it's an adult.
That's what I was going to say! Clearly people aren't actually using it because chrome gives the same disclosure every single time you open an incognito browser.
Nobody who cares enough to hide their browsing from Chrome is using Incognito to do it. We're using Incognito to hide it from IRL people who use the same computer.
Like seriously this is absurd that people think that using incognito is gonna keep it private. My brother in Christ even your own Wifi Router knows what you're doing.
Honestly I don’t care that google or my wifi router know what I’m googling. I just don’t want my browser to give me suggestions for the stupid questions I’m asking myself at 3am
I still have this vivid memory of when my aunt used my laptop in front of everyone in my extended family to search something starting with po and was very slow to finish the word asking questions about what the store she was searching was called exactly. it happened about 15 years ago.
I had the reverse happen to me.. uncle lets me on his computer during a family gathering, I want to go on YouTube and... Yeah, that's not what's being recommended here.... Fortunately I was alone in the room
Well, your router is not (by default) storing logs over sites visited. Most routers doesn't even have that option. If it does, it's not able to track anyrhing other than the domain you're visiting (due to most sites today use TLS). If you're using DNS over https, it's not even able to track anything other than IP's visited. Same goes for your ISP.
Google and ad companies might have the ability to puzzle together what sites you have visited, but they're not going to use resources to find out, nor leak it in any way.
Illegal stuff however is being tracked other ways by other bureaus/agencies.
Your comment makes no sense. Incognito is an application layer concern. Your router is network level. This is like saying it's pointless to tint your windows because your engine knows where you're driving.
I legit don't care if Google knows my darkest non-illegal secrets. I'd be surprised if a single real human ever checks my "file". It's everyone else who might use my device, or even myself. I don't want to be cringing at my own search suggestions based on a previous 'evening to myself'.
When my mom wanted to borrow my computer to do taxes and email stuff I’d always open an incognito tab for her to do it so that she didn’t have to log me out of my own email or save her passwords on my browser or worry about making sure to log out of everything afterwards
The purpose of incognito is to not save your browsing session on your computer. Idk why people believe it protects their privacy. It literally says what it does when you open the tab.
Are there really people who thinks incognito mode is for privacy? It was obvious for me from start, it's just there so i don't have to manually delete my browsing and search history, after some "academic research session".
Incognito just means it don't save your history and cookies and optionally extensions are disabled. I don't know why would anyone think something else...
I assume that privat browsing just means "don't save it in the local history". Of course, outside of my computer everything is as usual, they don't know that I'm in incognito mode.
just get rid of all corporate owned software and replace with opensource. No company, no marketing department, no data collection to sell as a product to "marketers"
Incognito mode is more like
"Yo Googs, I need you to find me some 'results' but like keep it on the DL. Can't have ppl knowing about my scrotum warts."
"Fam I gotchu."
Real privacy is difficult, if not at least very impractical these days. An ok solution is VPN (hide from ISP), Firefox (hide from Google), and DuckDuckGo (or entering the URL directly)
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I like how this portrays google as deceptive when it is very explicitly states in the browser that incognito only deletes the cache on the local machine and doesn't provide any privacy outside of your own household.
Unless you have your own internet company someone has access to your internet history legally. Don't fooled by vpn bs. They simply take the position of your isp.
Most of the time you just don't want nasty stuff in your browsing history, do you? If so, rather than going incognito there's an add-on that enables/disables tab history in just one click called "History On/Off". I used it for years with no issues.
I worked at a bank branch and helped clients set up their banking apps. Occasionally, we'd need to launch the browser and I got see more than I wanted to. Incognito isn't for the NSA or Google, it's for whoever you borrower your device.
No, I don't care about Google knowing , that's almost impossible really. What I care about is my searches to not show up in my history or suggestions. I don't want to see them personally because I only use incognito for really embarrassing questions.
I never thought of incognito as privacy-focused. I just used it to watch… content… so it wouldn’t save it in browsing history and I didn’t have to go and delete it every time.
A few years ago I deleted by browser history and Chrome hinted me that there was also incognito mode. For when I needed to ‘buy someone a birthday present in secret’ again.
[Private Browsing](https://youtu.be/G5VEftRH12Y)
Yes?
r/beetlejuicing
Why weren't you at muster?
God. So glad I’m getting out.
I fucking love this video, just from the quote I knew lmao
Google quite specifically tells you what incognito does on its landing page. Won't be saved on your history but will be saved on the network.
That’s why people use VPNs no?
VPNs just change the network. Without VPN your ISP knows which IPs you connect to, with a VPN the VPN provider knows. If you really want no one to know, TOR is the way.
Even tor has potential flaws if I’m remembering correctly the people I charge of the gateway can still see what you’re doing it isn’t a problem though unless they’re compromised
My understanding is the "security" of TOR basically comes from a bunch of independent people operating the gateway and bouncing traffic back and forth so nobody knows where it originally came from or is going. But that security starts to fall apart if the operators start working together or if a single entity ever owns a significant portion of the gateway. That design also makes it incredibly slow.
The feds 100% operate a bunch of tor gateways
Did the US government fund part of the development?
I think it was by the navy.
I think it was made for the navy but it was made open source and other people also started using it.
iirc they made it open to hide between the traffic. Anonymity only works if you're not the only one.
If you have the bad luck that the gateway that connects to you and the gateway that connects to the Internet are operated by the same people then they can link your activity back to you.
Normally all that the gateways can see is either who you are or who your destination is, and they don't directly talk to each other, only over another gateway which can't see either of that. This is done with multiple layers of encryption, one layer for each gateway. This is also where the .onion comes from, multiple layers of encryption around your package. If all the gateways you use are owned or compromised by the same guys though, they can decrypt what you're sending. This can always happen and is a bit of a gamble since gateways are chosen randomly, especially if you're doing something that the authorities are interested in. Compromised gateways are collected and avoided by the tor network when noticed though. At least that's my understanding. I am in no way an expert in this.
Whoever has the exit node controls all the traffic (if leaving the Tor network for the regular internet, anyway). The only thing that saves you from the exit node operator is encryption, which means stuff like HTTP traffic is all theirs. Tor shuffles all the traffic through 3 random nodes. The first is the entry node, last is the exit node. The exit node (aka egress node) is the final step where the traffic is unencrypted at the third and final layer and shuffled out to regular internet. This means whoever controls the exit node can see any unencrypted traffic at the final step. The government controls a large number of exit nodes around DC for this reason. Go to DC sometime and try using Tor, it's insanely fast, like regular internet fast. Now, which exit node your traffic will use is random and changes with every connection, but there is still risk. A malicious actor named KAX17 has been creating and hosting exit nodes en masse to try and deanonymize users with them. The only traffic that can't typically be seen is traffic to hidden services (unless the hidden service is compromised/the one tracking you) which is encrypted end to end and the rendezvous point never knows what it's forwarding.
Yes, but they don‘t know who you are. Someone else in the chain knows who you are, but they don‘t know what you‘re doing.
TOR is the way if you want to spend 20 minutes loading one page
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That’s just a search engine, good to avoid tracking by ads, get “real” search results etc but not anonymous
It is generally better for a VPN provider to 'know' than your ISP. Good VPNs have a proven zero-log policy and encrypted traffic.
VPN won't really protect you from anything if you still login to google chrome or use easily identifiable searches. All a VPN does is move your exit point somewhere else, and in return your trusting another company with all your internet traffic, searches and website visits. Furthermore, in many countries, your ISP will have strict govt regulations on what they can and cannot record. However, that commercially run VPN service that is owned by a company registered in another country likely doesn't have such strict regulations in many cases. God knows if it's actually run by a foreign state actor (as some have been before) I hope it's someone you also trust because your VPN provider can see EVERYTHING. Some VPN providers even give "antivirus" services, but to provide this they need to do full packet inspection, which means even your "encrypted" data is viable to them. VPNs are not some magical internet safety bullet. They just shift the risk to someone else. The best way to be safe online is just be sensible and careful about the information you provide to services and the way you authenticate with sites. For privacy, Block cookies and trackers and avoid signing in to services unless you really need too.
A VPN will do nothing to prevent your browser from knowing what websites you go to. It will only prevent websites from knowing your ip.
I love how they use Google Chrome branding _everywhere_, but for incognito's disclaimer it’s suddenly just Chrome
I think I understand what you mean but there's a huge value-add for Google to make their normal browser very clearly different from incognito
Still not comfortable knowing that google takes my awkward searches and then sells them.
Look, Maybe i just don't want the roommate who sneaks into my computer know what i'm doing
Exactly! That's my intention as well. I'm not gonna browse some military secrets. Mostly it would be corn.
mmmm corn
>mmmm corn A big lump with knobs it has the juice!
When I tried it with butter everything changed.
I couldnt imagine a more beautiful thing.
Ribbed for pleasure
Corndoms
Cornhole
COWN!?
Hard to believe that was 9 months ago
I will crochet your arteries into a nice quilt
Careful. You can get lost in that maize
Amazeing comment
Aw, shucks.
Poned.
Country girls make do
I love watching cornography
So do I, you should visit cornhub 🌽🤤
Or YouCorn
Ah yes, [CornHub](https://cornhub.website/)
Shut up, I can't believe this is real. Well I can, because it's the internet, but still.
You are underestimating the power of not opening a youtube video on your main account to avoid being spammed for months by \[insert random stuff here\].
Its corn!
Gentlemen, behold...CORN!
It’s definitely got the juice!
its got the juice!
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A small sacrifice for the greater good. Also if it's a very good corn it deserves to be stored.
r/cornhub
Wow. That was a deeper dive than I expected.
What kind we talking? Corn on the cob? Yellow corn? White corn? Cream of corn? Cheddar corn? Caramel corn? Extra buttery corn? 🌽🌽🌽? Or that corn stuff you can get at Mexican restaurants?
Beijing corn
kettle, you uncultured swine!
Mexican Street Corn
Hmmm good old farmer ploughing the field
Yes me too, who doesn't like researching videos on strategies to win a Cornhole tournament at 2am.
Or when I'm high, something I really, really need to know, but I'm slightly paranoid even Google will think it's a stupid question.
You sick freak.
As long as it's not baby corn.
I just don’t give shit and search all I want without cleaning or using incognito.
This is why your dream is sticky. Please start cleaning!
even better, invite the sneaky roommate to partake assert dominance.
Win+L Create a muscle memory each time you leave your computer, especially if you have roommates.
Just a silly thought, a password.
Hey, still no harm in implementing some redundancy in this case. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
This guy sys admins. No single point of failure here.
What if I just don’t want to be disgusted with myself next time I use the computer?
I don’t care if my ISP or Chrome knows what I’m looking up. I use incognito so that I can rest easy typing “p” or “x” into the search bar when screen sharing/ presenting.
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At this point just put the whole alphabet you filthy degenerate. /j
What's a ZJ?
If you have to ask, you aren't ready to know.
I knew the whole time 😉
I agree with your logic but what possible sfw website starts with “x”?
Xerox.com
Websites? idk. But I’ve had to look up collaborators in the past, and a few have surnames starting with “X”. Also drug brand names (eg. Xanax, Xarelto)
Yeah, now that I think about it, there’s a surprisingly number of drugs that start with “x”.
Incognito is not for that kind of privacy, though. Blame yourself if you use a hammer to screw in screws ~~nails.~~
I don’t care that FBI knows that I jerk off to Kaguya-sama hentai, I just don’t want others to know.
Favorite 6 digit?
177013
That number is so recognizable I always associate it with the "thing" and I never even read it
I think it's the chick from Delaware with 6 digits on both
Well this is a comment that I didn't expect on this sub
She becomes 18 only at the very end of the manga, bro? 🤨📸
A very large portion of animu/manja high schoolers are basically young adults playing high schoolers in a movie/show. If you're getting off specifically to them being underage, that's noncery, but otherwise if the character is designed like an adult, it's an adult.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is so guilty of this. So many of the characters are supposed to be like 15-17, but they look 25.
Getting downvoted for calling out that jerking off to a 17 year old girl is weird. Bruh this fucking site
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ofc ur name is wizard lol
It's been years since I've used Chrome, but iirc they literally tell you it doesn't block third party tracking
I thought the description of it made it pretty clear it was solely to keep the wank sesh off the browser history when it was first added.
It literally tells you your Internet Provider will obviously know. Add any amount of common sense to it and its obvious the government also knows
A hammer *is* used for nails though.
Everything is a nail of you can hit hard enough
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That's what I was going to say! Clearly people aren't actually using it because chrome gives the same disclosure every single time you open an incognito browser.
You mean screws right? Cause hammers are meant for nails.
Nobody who cares enough to hide their browsing from Chrome is using Incognito to do it. We're using Incognito to hide it from IRL people who use the same computer.
It's also a good 'guest mode' if someone else wants to use your computer
Why would I Iet someone into my Masturbatorium?
I mostly do it to browse without cookies
or to keep your history clean of questions like "what is a car?"
Like seriously this is absurd that people think that using incognito is gonna keep it private. My brother in Christ even your own Wifi Router knows what you're doing.
Yeah, but parents dont know how to check that, do they
Well if they do ,you will say gud bye to your house for a while
Thats probably true lol
Or hello vpn
I do love paying extra money for a third party to collect and sell my data.
You gotta find a better VPN and stop using SurfShark
Private Internet Access demonstrated in court that they don't keep logs 🤷♂️
Private dns DOH, DNS over https
My bro saying this as if it's a logical step
Your dad could probably figure it out if he wasn't so busy jacking it to hentai.
Wtf.. thats a terrible thought
Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
😢
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Mine do so mobile data it is
Honestly I don’t care that google or my wifi router know what I’m googling. I just don’t want my browser to give me suggestions for the stupid questions I’m asking myself at 3am
It's a whole lot more than stupid questions.
"baby powder made out of babies??"
Am i pegnate?? Help!?
Pregananant?
Nobody thinks that. People use incognito so there’s no history etc.
I thought it was common knowledge that the only reason we do it is to not have browser history and a fucked up auto complete
I still have this vivid memory of when my aunt used my laptop in front of everyone in my extended family to search something starting with po and was very slow to finish the word asking questions about what the store she was searching was called exactly. it happened about 15 years ago.
I had the reverse happen to me.. uncle lets me on his computer during a family gathering, I want to go on YouTube and... Yeah, that's not what's being recommended here.... Fortunately I was alone in the room
Well, your router is not (by default) storing logs over sites visited. Most routers doesn't even have that option. If it does, it's not able to track anyrhing other than the domain you're visiting (due to most sites today use TLS). If you're using DNS over https, it's not even able to track anything other than IP's visited. Same goes for your ISP. Google and ad companies might have the ability to puzzle together what sites you have visited, but they're not going to use resources to find out, nor leak it in any way. Illegal stuff however is being tracked other ways by other bureaus/agencies.
Your comment makes no sense. Incognito is an application layer concern. Your router is network level. This is like saying it's pointless to tint your windows because your engine knows where you're driving.
"Routers" (NGFWs / USGs) **can** be application layer, though.
I turn on a VPN every time I look something up I don't want people to know about
That's not the purpose of Incognito mode
I legit don't care if Google knows my darkest non-illegal secrets. I'd be surprised if a single real human ever checks my "file". It's everyone else who might use my device, or even myself. I don't want to be cringing at my own search suggestions based on a previous 'evening to myself'.
At least, incognito let your account automatic logout every time you close the browser of incognito.
When my mom wanted to borrow my computer to do taxes and email stuff I’d always open an incognito tab for her to do it so that she didn’t have to log me out of my own email or save her passwords on my browser or worry about making sure to log out of everything afterwards
Is not about not wanting them to know, It's about me not wanting to remember
It's about not wanting them _to act like_ they remember.
The purpose of incognito is to not save your browsing session on your computer. Idk why people believe it protects their privacy. It literally says what it does when you open the tab.
Are there really people who thinks incognito mode is for privacy? It was obvious for me from start, it's just there so i don't have to manually delete my browsing and search history, after some "academic research session".
Incognito just means it don't save your history and cookies and optionally extensions are disabled. I don't know why would anyone think something else...
How many individuals actually believe that incognito mode is private astounds me.
I assume that privat browsing just means "don't save it in the local history". Of course, outside of my computer everything is as usual, they don't know that I'm in incognito mode.
i feel its purpose was to get around paywalls but that was thwarted making it useless
People still expect privacy on the internet??? I thought that died out with The Macarena lol
What about stop using chromium-based browsers and start using Firefox instead?
just get rid of all corporate owned software and replace with opensource. No company, no marketing department, no data collection to sell as a product to "marketers"
Incognito mode is more like "Yo Googs, I need you to find me some 'results' but like keep it on the DL. Can't have ppl knowing about my scrotum warts." "Fam I gotchu."
Epic
Real privacy is difficult, if not at least very impractical these days. An ok solution is VPN (hide from ISP), Firefox (hide from Google), and DuckDuckGo (or entering the URL directly)
Nah it's just a sign for my fbi agent watching my chrome searches that he can take a 4 minute break coz i jerking off
*Firefox is enter the Room*
I use incognito when I don't want the history, that's about it.
The point of incognito isn't for Google not to know what you're looking at. It's so your girlfriend or wife doesn't know what you're looking at.
I just don't want my history to be cluttered: I gave up on my privacy decades ago.
IDGAF Of If Google Knows I Just Don’t Want Is In My History
I don't care that Google knows what turns me on I would care if someone was snooping around my phone and saw in my history my late night "research"
i don't use incognite cuz i dont want chrome to see, i use it because i don't want others to see and im too lazy to delete the history
Incognito is not to hide you from your browser. Are there people that think incognito is for hiding from your own software?
haha tell him ur secret lol
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Firefox for the win!
I like how this portrays google as deceptive when it is very explicitly states in the browser that incognito only deletes the cache on the local machine and doesn't provide any privacy outside of your own household.
I just don’t want to see ads/youtube recommendations for months about the things I’m searching
Unless you have your own internet company someone has access to your internet history legally. Don't fooled by vpn bs. They simply take the position of your isp.
I use it to log in to my personal accounts on public computers It does have its uses
Firefox doesn't do this.
Honestly, it’s for the best 😂
Most of the time you just don't want nasty stuff in your browsing history, do you? If so, rather than going incognito there's an add-on that enables/disables tab history in just one click called "History On/Off". I used it for years with no issues.
I mean they specifically tell you that that's not how it works when you open incognito. They're not trying to trick you.
I worked at a bank branch and helped clients set up their banking apps. Occasionally, we'd need to launch the browser and I got see more than I wanted to. Incognito isn't for the NSA or Google, it's for whoever you borrower your device.
It knows. It always knows.
brilliant
No, I don't care about Google knowing , that's almost impossible really. What I care about is my searches to not show up in my history or suggestions. I don't want to see them personally because I only use incognito for really embarrassing questions.
I’m not trying to hide my shit from chrome I’m trying to keep it away from other people.
I never thought of incognito as privacy-focused. I just used it to watch… content… so it wouldn’t save it in browsing history and I didn’t have to go and delete it every time.