As someone else put it, it's for making sure your wife doesn't get suspicious of the weird ads you're getting, and when she checks the browser history it's clean.

Meanwhile Google, your ISP, and the NSA all know you're looking at freaky old lady bondage porn.

[–] Gork@lemm.ee 31 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yes but I trust the NSA to safeguard the integrity of the National Dick Pic Database. I can't say the same for my ISP.

[–] psmgx@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago

The NDPD is a strategic resource and there is little doubt it is guarded jealously by the boys at Ft. Meade

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[–] 0ops@lemm.ee 70 points 9 months ago (3 children)

It's handy when you need to make sure that someone else can access a url ok without having to sign in to the website or anything. If you can immediately see the page in incognito mode without signing in, they'll have no problem

[–] not_so_handsome_jack@sh.itjust.works 6 points 9 months ago

I remember having to use an incognito browser for testing at work one time, and it felt very wrong to pull it up on my work laptop instead of the personal laptop.

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[–] w3dd1e@lemm.ee 38 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I use it to get around website article limits when they try to force me to sign up.

[–] JustUseMint@lemmy.world 23 points 9 months ago

Websites with actual web devs block and track usage with ip instead of cookies/cache, nothing a vpn can't stop tho. More reliable to is to the way back machine on archive.org. Can also use a browsers reader mode to get around it too sometimes.

[–] PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

And even then, those sites can easily be retrieved by someone committed to finding them

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 9 points 9 months ago

And like the traffic at home through Adguard Home I see logs. More competent networks elsewhere will certainly be able to see what you're doing.

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[–] Sheeple@lemmy.world 101 points 9 months ago (2 children)

"privately" "chrome" pick one

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[–] cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works 79 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I use incognito so I can search for the word pork sandwich without it autocompleting to a pornhub video of fem dom bdsm.

[–] qisope@lemmy.world 53 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I use incognito so I can search for some completely normal thing that I'm embarrassed I don't already know

[–] Facebones@reddthat.com 10 points 9 months ago

Ya got me pegged.

... Which incidentally I also use incognito for.

[–] Sotuanduso@lemm.ee 9 points 9 months ago

ME.

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[–] helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 28 points 9 months ago

I think you've got when to use regular and incognito mixed up.

Everyone knows you should be using Firefox private mode to look up pork sandwiches.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago

Yeah. Though also so I can not be treated like I regularly search stupid questions I have

[–] sznowicki@lemmy.world 69 points 9 months ago (1 children)

ISP can’t see pages. They can see domains or IPS but that’s it.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 37 points 9 months ago (4 children)

They can’t even reliably see domains when you use HTTPS, because some IP addresses serve many domains.

[–] dracs@programming.dev 28 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's not entirely true. It's only very recently that browsers have started using a new system called Encrypted Client Hello which hides the domain of the request. Prior to this all requests needed too have the Host field unencrypted so the receiving server knows which certified to respond with. I imagine there's still quite a few servers which don't support the new setup still.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 6 points 9 months ago (3 children)

And we wouldn't need any of that if we implemented IPv6.

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[–] lone_faerie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 points 9 months ago

Most ISPs are also the default DNS resolver for a lot of people, so they see the domain you're requesting an IP for.

[–] kn33@lemmy.world 18 points 9 months ago

They can still (mostly) sniff SNI for now which gives them a domain even when the IP isn't unique.

[–] hakunawazo@lemmy.world 44 points 9 months ago

It's worse than that:

[–] Paradachshund@lemmy.today 42 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I use incognito so I can sign into multiple accounts on the same websites at once.

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 33 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Firefox containers is your friend. It's way better. I can sign into dozens of separate pages for different clients in a single browser window in different tabs if I want.

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[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 15 points 9 months ago

FYI most browsers have built-in options for user profiles, so you can have that benefit without the second account on a given website being logged out every time you restart the browser.

incognito is still handy when you’re logging in to a website with a lesser-used second account, though.

[–] EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted@lemmy.blahaj.zone 25 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

Especially when you do this, considering a lot of privacy extensions are disabled by default in incognito mode (at least in FF), so there's less blocking of tracking elements.

(Also, unless you change your DNS provider or use a (proper) VPN, I believe your ISP sees everything no matter what, though I could be wrong about the latter.)

On the other hand, if this is a woosh situation & it's a joke, well, then, eh, I've seen funnier. ¯\_ (•_•) _/¯

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is only true if you set your browser that way. On firefox I have all extensions be able to work in incognito. I believe you can do this on chrome too but I don't use that.

[–] EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is why I said "by default".

[–] CyberEgg@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I'm pretty sure the FF default is to ask whether you want any extension to work in private windows, too.

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[–] frezik@midwest.social 5 points 9 months ago

HTTPS sends the domain in plaintext with SNI. Has to work that way due to IPv4 address exhaustion.

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[–] fl42v@lemmy.ml 21 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Technically incorrect unless you use http for some weird reason. The ISP can see the domain only, and (afaiu) not even that if encrypted client hello is used. At least kinda: they still see the IP which is not always unique.

[–] Frederic@beehaw.org 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yes, this is why you should use DNS over TLS. My router signal to every DHCP client that it is the DNS resolver, and internally use DoT/dnssec to query IPs. It also intercepts every request on DNS port in case of some DNS are hard-coded on some devices.

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[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 6 points 9 months ago

But the IP can also sometimes be meaningless if there are proxies or vhosts used.

[–] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

As soon as Chrome first launched incognito mode, it immediately felt like the "Alert Google to start tracking you" mode.

[–] ilikecoffee@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago

start tracking you

As if they ever stopped..

[–] idunnololz@lemmy.world 13 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Homer? Who is Homer?

[–] Oiconomia@feddit.de 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh, my God, this man is my exact double! That dog has a fluffy tail!

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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 9 points 9 months ago

A simple spell, wish it was effective.

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

The simple solution if you don't want your history to be seen is to have one account per user on your computer.

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 6 points 9 months ago

Threat model. Most people never need that protection, but anonymization in front of their ISP etc

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