
Chrome 76 prevents NYT and other news sites from detecting Incognito Mode - pseudolus
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/07/chrome-76-prevents-nyt-and-other-news-sites-from-detecting-incognito-mode/
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geekroutine
It's still detectable, this protection introduces a new side-effect which can
be used to detect incognito. I Wrote a blog post[1] yesterday showing how to
do that.

[1][http://mishravikas.com/articles/2019-07/bypassing-anti-
incog...](http://mishravikas.com/articles/2019-07/bypassing-anti-incognito-
detection-google-chrome.html)

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eeeeeeeeeeeee
Good. I hate that crap.

Come on NYT, I can clear your cookies and have the exact same effect as using
incognito.

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phillipseamore
\- F12 / DevTools

\- Click 'Application' tab

\- Click 'Clear storage' in the righ column

\- Click 'Clear site data' button

Now NYT or whoever, has lost all the cookies, localStorage etc. that they use
to track your usage.

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vgaldikas
Not if you're on mobile... :/

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gen3
Hopefully this means that Google is taking steps to better protect the privacy
of users. I'm curious if there are other ways that a site can identify if you
are in private mode.

~~~
jeroenvisser101
You can see the script they currently use to detect incognito in different
browsers + rules they use to allow browsers even if they haven't logged in
(e.g. social browsers and their apps)

[https://gist.github.com/jeroenvisser101/9f8119cfa91371dd6e1a...](https://gist.github.com/jeroenvisser101/9f8119cfa91371dd6e1a03d56edb0863)

Source: nytimes.com's sourcemaps

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xg15
While I absolutely agree with Google's motivation to keep the incognito mode
functional, I find their response somewhat nonsensical.

> _Sites that wish to deter meter circumvention have options such as reducing
> the number of free articles someone can view before logging in, requiring
> free registration to view any content, or hardening their paywalls._

What use would reducing the free article count be if you cannot reliably count
the articles in the first place?

And what is "hardening their paywalls" even supposed to mean? Supposedly,
you'd like to make your paywall harder to circumvent. However if you allow any
registrationless articles at all, that would necessarily require some kind of
tracking - exactly the kind of tracking the incognito mode is supposed to
prevent.

Turning into a strict registration-only site is likely also problematic
because this could cause them to be downranked by - surprise! - Google, this
time in their incarnation as a search engine.

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cameronbrown
> Turning into a strict registration-only site is likely also problematic
> because this could cause them to be downranked by - surprise! - Google, this
> time in their incarnation as a search engine.

There is steps they can take to have a registration only website while
allowing Googlebot to authenticate.

~~~
xg15
Ah, I wasn't aware that Googlebot supports that by now. Thanks for the info.

