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and i'm pretty sure the browsers have been quite explicit about this for a long time now, but of course no one bothers to read "This won't change how data is collected by websites you visit and the services they use, including Google."
For buying gifts, for example.
Or masturbating to pornography
I don’t believe for a second that they are actually going to delete any data they stole from users.
Incognito mode was always just to hide your local browser history. Think Google would NOT track you?
Do you have Google maps? They know where you are at all times.
User visits Google (logged in)
User visits Google, without cookies, but from the same IP, same user agent, same resolution, same OS, same enabled plugins, same browser version number, same fingerprint (based on al the previous information).
Google, who could this possibly be???
Do you have a phone? They know where your toilet is
Do you have Google maps? ANY UNMODIFIED GOOGLE CODE OR ANDROID PHONE, TABLET OR CHROMEBOOK IN THE HISTORY OF FOREVER?
Then they know where you are at all times. I bet the Pixel users get gold stars. Oneplus have little pluses and custom rom users have 👀.
Incognito was literally only good for opening a second session without you logged in. It did zero for privacy. Even their disclaimer said so.
Incognito, you mean porn mode?
firefox containers are amazing for this
Naming it incognito was a mistake. It was always clear to me all incognito is, is a non persistent container to keep your browsing data separate from your regular browsing data. All its hiding is your porn browsing habits from your mom. But of course, the name implies much more.
There were memes about this what feels like at least 10 years ago. Makes perfect sense when you think about it.
from your mom
...did your parents not have friends set up packet sniffers?
“Hey, so now that Chrome has been released, we’re gonna fly up to visit your son and install a packet sniffer on his network!”
Your parents seriously didnt do that, though?
Incognito/Private Browsing came about when people were sharing computers more often. It doesn’t save history and cookies and whatnot on your device. It’s to prevent the next user from getting in to your bank account.
Google and whoever else will still know your IP and can use that to cross-reference whatever other data they have on you.
I haven't used Chrome in years. Brave and firefox, that's my crowd.
Brave is also Chromium.
Firefox is also a web browser.
Oh sorry, I thought we were making meaningless comparisons.
So even though Brave is made on a Google product, Google doesn't get the data? Is that what you're saying? Because Google is such an honest company, sure they have no interest in the data of other browser instances made with their platform. Right?
Yes. That is in fact what I'm saying. Brave has built in blockers for ads, trackers, and cookies. It has a built-in VPN. It has a built-in Tor browser. It's default search engine is DDG instead of Google. Considering Firefox defaults to Google for searches, you're likely giving more data to Google through Firefox than you would using Brave.
It does have that, but don't for a minute think they actually control chromium. If Google wanted to they could make life very difficult for brave.
Currently brave still has support for manifest v2 but that will eventually be removed and the more brave diverges from the upstream the more work is required to keep it going.
You clearly have no knowledge on how browser instances work. Just because Brave has built-in stuff like ad blockers doesn't mean the Chromium platform isn't Google anymore and Google has no more access to the data. No matter the extra features it has. Using Chromium means sharing data with Google.
Why would using Firefox share more data with Google than a Chromium browser, when Firefox is the only alternative to Chromium, made by a different company and not at all affiliated with Google?
I'm not supporting brave here, but do you have any evidence that the open source Chromium browser sends data to Google in any situation? The way I see it, Chromium is like android AOSP without Google apps, less functional but generally de-googled.
I can't say I've reviewed every line of code in that huge project, but I'd be shocked if the rest of the open source community working on Chromium was willing to have tracking code in it or anything else which phones home to Google, even if the majority of the developers working on the open source project are Google engineers.
Ultimately, both Brave and Firefox are open source, so you can look through the code and verify for yourself whether either browser are doing something unethical.
This ungoogled-chromoim project is probably worth checking out, they maintain a patch set which explicitly removes the only things in chromium which send data to Google, which is pretty much just the web services for search bar autocomplete and DNS pre-fetching etc.
Using Chromium means sharing data with Google.
??? You retarded or something?
Ok smartass
https://community.brave.com/t/brave-has-become-malware/510414
https://community.brave.com/t/please-ditch-crypto-adware-crap/600951
https://www.tomsguide.com/news/brave-affiliate-links-autocomplete
https://www.zdnet.com/article/brave-browser-the-bad-and-the-ugly/
source: millenial with a search engine
I really don't have the time, or the interest, to explain it to you; but all of the things you linked are either hyperbole, misinformation, or straight up fabrications; a very small amount of digging will show you why. But hey, I don't work for Brave or care if anyone uses it or not. At the end of the day, use whatever browser you're comfortable with.
I really don't have the time, or the interest, to explain it to you
Then don't serve a check your ass can't cash
a very small amount of digging will show you why.
Then a very smalll amount would disprove me. Until then, my point of not installing this poison still stands. Enjoy your willful ignorance. Telling me off took more effort than finding your argument lmao.
Next headline: Google promises to delete the Firefox private window data they keep about you
Firefox's main funding was from Google being their default search engine. Which of course means anything searched in Google (via the URL field) is recorded to the external IP address logs. So unless you are going directly to the website or changed the search engine in Firefox, yes Google was recording said information (or at least compiling the numbers for data analytics) to use for advertising purposes.

Which is why i don't use safebrowsing but rather a separate profile located (--profile switch) in XDG_RUNTIME_DIR.
I use chrome once or twice a year, when I need to figure out if a website problem is my browser or the site.
You’ve gone Incognito. Others who use this device won’t see your activity, so you can browse more privately. This won't change how data is collected by websites you visit and the services they use, including Google. Downloads, bookmarks and reading list items will be saved.
- Google Chrome
Ah, good find. I just assumed it would have been explicit about it from the start
Yeah, one would have hoped that’d be the case - but apparently not.
I just remembered reading this a while back (start of last year, it seems?), and it honestly felt like a tacit admission of wrong-doing - so they’re likely going to be facing an uphill battle, or at least are expecting one.
Man, even then it was clear what it was doing, are they supposed to list every single website you visit that might track you?
Um was this surprising to anyone? I think we all assumed that this was the case no???
Doesn't it specifically say on a new incognito tab that this doesn't protect against sites or service providers from gathering information....and only stops you from storing local information (history, cookies, etc)? Do people actually think that incognito is adding privacy protection?
That was actually a result of this issue, where Google placed misleading statements in incognito and then proceeded to actively go around them.
It has somewhat of a privacy protection because it's incapable of keeping cookies. The bar is in hell, but it passed it.
Maybe I read it wrong but (to me) the meme makes it sound like Google's taking the local data (that's supposed to be forgotten, once you close the browser window) and sending it over to Google for them to, I dunno, run analysis on.
If they're saying that Google sites (like YouTube, Google search, etc.) were collecting data when I visit them (as, unfortunately, sites do), then I'd say, "Well, duh;" but this makes it seem like they were exporting your local data off to their cloud which, like, they could obviously, technically do but wouldn't very much be in the spirit of how Incognito mode was portrayed.
I think the techno illiterate boomers of the fediverse are probably flabbergasted
People mistaking incognito mode for a VPN or Tor.
Exactly. My understanding is that you use incognito mode if you don’t want the browser autofilling pornhub.com when you type po in the search bar.
Cmon if you use tor to search about cookie recipes then you are ill, Schizo
Healthy people use tor to hire hitman on their boss after boss fired them, or a hacker to doxx the jerk that downvoted them
The Google Incognito tab in any browser clarifies that while it prevents your browsing history from being saved on your device, it does not make your browsing completely private.
Websites you visit, your employer (if on a work network), and your internet service provider (ISP) can still track your online activity.
Hell it even has a link that leads directly to the privacy policy
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/9845881?hl=en-GB
The only thing that shocks me is that no one ever reads it
I need to check into this, but maybe someone knows.
I assumed that if you're using incognito and you don't sign into your Google account, the activity wouldn't be tied to your Google account. It might be recorded and sent to Google, but anonymously, unless you signed into Google/Gmail/YouTube/whatever, while incognito.
The obvious is that your activity wouldn't end up on your Internet history in your non-incognito Chrome.
This was silently changed it used not to have the disclaimer sentence
Incognito mode (Chrome) and Private mode (Safari/Firefox) and InPrivate Browsing (Edge/IE) have had disclaimers/explanations for years, Chrome just expanded the disclaimer after settling the suit. Unfortunately for them the judge didn't know how the internet works any better than the plaintiffs. Winding back the odometer on a car doesn't mean toll roads don't know you drove there, it just means "you" have no record of it.
Opera / Vivaldi offer an integrated VPN, but they're about the only ones other than stuff like the Tor Browser.
Silently? It's been available for developers since January 2024. Major antivirus and security websites reported on it since then, to count:
https://adguard.com/en/blog/incognito-mode-disclaimer-change.html.
It's been widely reported at least since March 2024. It's been well over a year since that
Hell even this meme is outdated, as the settlement is widely known since April 2024
So I wouldn't get why freak out like after a year?

Wait... people actually think that incognito means that they don't record your searches??
I thought everybody knew that all incognito does is preventing your searches from showing up in your search history.
Did anyone actually think that these big tech companies would willingly give you an option to keep your searches private from them?
Hello????
Always assume that everything you do online is being recorded and seen by someone. Unless you're a master computer wiz or whatever the fuck they call it these days, ALWAYS ASSUME YOUR ACTIVITY ONLINE IS PUBLIC.
If you care about your privacy, don't use products from a company whose entire business model is built on invading your privacy.

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