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"And, to be clear, the Incognito Mode new window has always made this clear." But the spy icon and the name hint something different. I mean we technical folks
by hutzlibu 4y ago
"And, to be clear, the Incognito Mode new window has always made this clear."
But the spy icon and the name hint something different. I mean we technical folks do understand the words and explanations with one short glance, because we know a browser cannot make us anonymous nor invisible just like that.
But common folks who understand computers as dark magic not so much.
So it is somewhat missleading, even though I do not see a evil intention here, rather misscommunication.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoFirefox and Safari call this "private browsing". Firefox also uses a mask icon. Are these any different? And, to be clear, the whole focus of this lawsuit is the plaintiffs are saying that since Google also owns server-side Google Analytics, that incognito mode is inaccurate because "Google is still tracking you". But the only way for Google to handle that would be if (a) Incognito mode specifically handled GA differently, and that would be a privacy violation, or (b) GA detects you're in Incognito and stops tracking, but all the browser vendors have gone to great lengths to try to make private modes as "unsniffable" as possible, and I view the very effort to sniff for privacy mode as a violation.
- hutzlibu 4y ago"Firefox and Safari call this "private browsing". Firefox also uses a mask icon. Are these any different?" Well, "private" is clearly different from "incognito". But the mask with firefox is misleading, too. And the article is misleading as well, because it implies that chrome is still tracking you in incognito mode, which is not right. Google might be tracking you. But to comment on the lawsuit, I lack details.
- BeefWellington 4y agoFirefox and Safari actually behave differently with the cross-domain tracking requests being complained about here. So yes, they are different.