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> It's never been misleading about what it is I would argue "incognito" is misleading when you're not actually incognito to the servers. You're still tracked b

> It's never been misleading about what it is I would argue "incognito" is misleading when you're not actually incognito to the servers. You're still tracked by many numerous data points that defeat the concept of being incognito.

KeplerBoy 2y ago
Doesn't the incognito splash screen say exactly that? As far as I recall it was always pretty clear about not doing anything apart from not saving your browser history.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  It’s called incognito mode. Isn’t the icon a little spy or something? The fine-print might indicate otherwise, but I think it is obvious why non-technical people were confused.
  - caseyohara 2y ago
    I'm curious, what would you call it instead? Safari and Firefox call it "Private Browsing". I wonder if that's any better.
    - bee_rider 2y ago
      Maybe the button could be something along the lines of “Keep website history.”
      - KeplerBoy 2y ago
        More like "pause website history"
        bee_rider 2y ago
        It could be a toggle, which actually would probably be more representative of the significance. Having a whole “mode” makes it seem way bigger of a difference than it actually is.
  - nl 2y ago
    It's not exactly fine print! It's clearly stated everytime you open an Incognito window. Your activity might still be visible to: Websites that you visit Your employer or school Your Internet service provider There's a "Learn more" link and if it was hidden there you'd have a point, but it's hard to imagine how to make this more clear.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
  New text: "This won't change how data is collected by websites you visit and the services they use, including Google." Old text: "Going incognito doesn’t hide your browsing from your employer, your internet service provider, or the websites you visit." https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:components/new_or_sad_tab_strings.grdp https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:com... The claim of the lawyers here seems to be that because users told Google Chrome that they don't want to be tracked, they should be allowed to expect that Google knew that this user explicitly didn't want to be tracked, and that this was a Google-wide, not a local-only browser setting...
TacticalCoder 2y ago
I always thought of the incognito mode as: "I can surf from incognito mode while on a friend's computer and my friend won't get my credentials / history / etc."
gretch 2y ago
Actually I think the real world physical analogy does map quite well and thus isn't misleading. In real life, if you are incognito, you put on a disguise like a wig, glasses, new clothes etc and try to conceal your identity. Incognito is not a promise from everyone else in the world not to look at you and not try to figure out who you are. And if you pull up in the same car everywhere, then it's quite easy for observers to give you a consistent ID tag even if you are changing your wig all the time.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  This doesn’t match intuition at all. Losing anonymity because you go around all day in the same car and people are keeping track of you from location to location is not something people normally worry about. Spies might worry about that sort of thing, but most people don’t (maybe we should, given the state of public surveillance in some countries, but I think it is a not intuitive concern for most people). The intent of a disguise is to, well, disguise the user. You’ve described a sort of bad disguise, like something somebody might put on in a comedy movie, but that’s because a disguise that people can easily see through is a punchline. Incognito mode isn’t like a bad disguise anyway. It is like no disguise, it does absolutely nothing to obfuscate who you are.

KeplerBoy 2y ago

Doesn't the incognito splash screen say exactly that? As far as I recall it was always pretty clear about not doing anything apart from not saving your browser history.

bee_rider 2y ago
It’s called incognito mode. Isn’t the icon a little spy or something? The fine-print might indicate otherwise, but I think it is obvious why non-technical people were confused.
- caseyohara 2y ago
  I'm curious, what would you call it instead? Safari and Firefox call it "Private Browsing". I wonder if that's any better.
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    Maybe the button could be something along the lines of “Keep website history.”
    - KeplerBoy 2y ago
      More like "pause website history"
      - bee_rider 2y ago
        It could be a toggle, which actually would probably be more representative of the significance. Having a whole “mode” makes it seem way bigger of a difference than it actually is.
- nl 2y ago
  It's not exactly fine print! It's clearly stated everytime you open an Incognito window. Your activity might still be visible to: Websites that you visit Your employer or school Your Internet service provider There's a "Learn more" link and if it was hidden there you'd have a point, but it's hard to imagine how to make this more clear.
tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
New text: "This won't change how data is collected by websites you visit and the services they use, including Google." Old text: "Going incognito doesn’t hide your browsing from your employer, your internet service provider, or the websites you visit." https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:components/new_or_sad_tab_strings.grdp https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:com... The claim of the lawyers here seems to be that because users told Google Chrome that they don't want to be tracked, they should be allowed to expect that Google knew that this user explicitly didn't want to be tracked, and that this was a Google-wide, not a local-only browser setting...

TacticalCoder 2y ago

I always thought of the incognito mode as: "I can surf from incognito mode while on a friend's computer and my friend won't get my credentials / history / etc."

gretch 2y ago

Actually I think the real world physical analogy does map quite well and thus isn't misleading. In real life, if you are incognito, you put on a disguise like a wig, glasses, new clothes etc and try to conceal your identity. Incognito is not a promise from everyone else in the world not to look at you and not try to figure out who you are. And if you pull up in the same car everywhere, then it's quite easy for observers to give you a consistent ID tag even if you are changing your wig all the time.

bee_rider 2y ago
This doesn’t match intuition at all. Losing anonymity because you go around all day in the same car and people are keeping track of you from location to location is not something people normally worry about. Spies might worry about that sort of thing, but most people don’t (maybe we should, given the state of public surveillance in some countries, but I think it is a not intuitive concern for most people). The intent of a disguise is to, well, disguise the user. You’ve described a sort of bad disguise, like something somebody might put on in a comedy movie, but that’s because a disguise that people can easily see through is a punchline. Incognito mode isn’t like a bad disguise anyway. It is like no disguise, it does absolutely nothing to obfuscate who you are.