How to use private browsing in Google Chrome?
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Private Browsing is a feature that allows you to surf the Internet without leaving any noticeable evidence of your search or history. It can help you keep your browsing sessions private from people using your laptop or desktop computer, but that’s pretty much all it does.
While private browsing offers users some privacy, it is not completely secure and should not be relied upon for anonymity on the Internet. After all, it only deletes everything you do online from the browser, not from your ISP’s servers or office router.
Regardless, let’s take a look at how private browsing in Google Chrome can help you, and what you can do to keep your browsing history completely private.
What happens when you browse normally?
When you browse the Internet normally, your browser saves information about your browsing history. Every time you load a website, your browser not only logs those visits in your browser history, but also saves cookies from websites visited and stores form data submitted for auto-completion later.
Moreover, your browser also stores other data such as passwords you have saved, files you have downloaded, web searches you have performed as well as cached versions of web pages to speed up content rendering. If someone else has access to your computer, they can find this information without you knowing.
What happens when you use private browsing?
When you use private browsing (otherwise known as hidden mode In Google Chrome) your browser is stopped from storing any information at all. Every time you load a website in private browsing mode, your browser won’t log history, cookies, form data, passwords – or anything else for that matter.
Noticeable: Some data, such as cookies for example, may be saved, but is immediately discarded when you terminate your private browsing session.
Private Browsing also allows you to start a separate browsing session. Take, for example, if you are logged into Twitter and open a separate private browsing window, you will not be logged into Twitter in that private browsing session. Moreover, you can use your private browsing session to log into multiple Twitter accounts simultaneously as well.
To sum it up, Private Browsing prevents people from seeing your browsing history. It also prevents websites from using cookies (which are stored in the form of files on your computer) to track you or serve you ads based on your online activity. However, private browsing No Ensure complete anonymity and privacy while browsing the Internet.
More on that later. For now, let’s move on to the steps for using private browsing (incognito mode) in Google Chrome, shall we?
How to turn on private browsing in Google Chrome?
If you’re wondering “how do I turn on private browsing”, don’t worry! All you have to do is follow these simple steps:
- Click Chrome’s main menu button (represented by three vertical dots) in the upper right corner of the browser.
- From the drop-down menu, tap New incognito window.
- A new window will appear with the ad.You’ve gone stealth.“
Noticeable: You can also activate incognito mode in Google Chrome with this easy keyboard shortcut (CTRL + Shift + N).
How special is that exactly?
Private browsing isn’t super private, no matter what browser you’re using. Although it will remove your browsing data, it is still quite possible to find out what you have been doing online. How might you ask?
Well, ISPs can still see every website you visit, spyware or keylogger apps on your computer may be monitoring your browsing activity, while parental control software can track everything you do online.
Even if you are browsing the internet via incognito mode, the websites you visit are still saved in the cache. It is very easy to retrieve the cache and view the list of websites you have visited in private browsing mode using Command Prompt.
Learn more about this here.
None of these processes are impeded by private browsing in Google Chrome. So, if you think that private browsing will help you keep your online activities secret in your office, let’s say you are absolutely wrong!
So why would you use private browsing in the first place?
Private browsing is still useful in some ways. For example, you can use it to access multiple bank, email, or social media accounts simultaneously. Or, if you are planning to surprise your partner with an anniversary gift, you can keep your activities quiet with private browsing.
If you want to check your Facebook account or email on a computer in the library or hotel lobby, using private browsing is a good idea as it will ensure that your activities disappear when the window is closed. However, that’s as much as private browsing can help you.
Here is a video to give you a better idea of using incognito mode in Google Chrome:
How do you keep your browsing history completely private?
If you really want to hide your browsing history from prying eyes, your best bet is to get a reliable Virtual Private Network, also referred to as a VPN. It’s able to do what Google Chrome’s incognito mode can’t: keep your online activity safe from ISPs, websites, employers, hackers, and governments.
PureVPN replaces your real IP address with one of over 88,000 anonymous IP addresses, making your browsing history completely private to the outside world. Besides changing your virtual location using the VPN server of your choice, it also secures your internet traffic and connections using AES 256-bit encryption.
The best part of it all, PureVPN offers a VPN extension for Chrome that lets you enjoy one-click encrypted private browsing right from your browser.
Haris Shahid Haris Shahid has a real passion for covering the latest happenings in the cybersecurity, privacy and digital landscape. He loves to get out and about, but often ends up spending a lot of his time behind a computer keyboard. Tweet @harisshahid01
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