Google’s Incognito mode is a great tool, but truth be told, this mode gives users a false sense of security. Even though the Incognito mode is renowned for giving users a way to surf the web anonymously, this isn’t entirely true. There is still a way for websites to figure out if people are using the Incognito mode and then to block them from accessing the website. Fortunately, this is about to change.
Google is Fixing Incognito Mode Issue
The way that web developers can track people even though they are using the Incognito mode is by looking for the FileSystemAPI which is hidden when browsing the web in Incognito mode. Luckily, Google has found out about this exploit and it announced this exploit is going to be fixed.
How it Works
The new fix from Google is going to create a virtual file system in RAM. Therefore, websites will no longer notice if the API is hidden. The Android parent also announced that it plans to delete the FileSystemAPI entirely from Chrome in the upcoming future in order to make it increasingly more difficult for website developers to gather information about their viewers.
Chrome 74
The new version of Incognito mode is going to arrive in the upcoming Chrome 74 update. We don’t know when the update is going to be released OTA (over the air), but we don’t think that its going to take that long since this is the FileSystemAPI is a major exploit and Google has openly spoken about it.
We should note that the reason why web developers don’t like it when people visit their websites with Incognito mode is that the mode blocks advertisements that are specially tailored for users. Nonetheless, what really matters is that Chrome’s security is being enhanced.
