यह पृष्ठ अभी आपकी भाषा में उपलब्ध नहीं है। आप अंग्रेज़ी पाठ पढ़ रहे हैं।
Glossary
Incognito mode
Incognito mode is a browser window that throws away its own storage when you close it, and changes nothing else about you.
What it actually does
The window keeps a storage area of its own and discards that area at closing time. That is the whole of the feature, and it is a useful one.
No entry in history
Pages opened there are not written into the browsing history of the ordinary window.
Storage thrown away
Cookies, local storage and cache made inside the window go when the last such window closes.
You start signed out
The window does not inherit the sessions of the ordinary one, so every site asks you to sign in again.
Extensions off by default
Most of them stay disabled there until you allow each one by hand.
What the site still reads
These values are read in the window you are reading this in. Open the same page privately and compare the rows: they come back the same.
आपकी मशीन, अभी इसी क्षण
- User agent
- आपकी मशीन पर माप जारी है
- Canvas hash
- आपकी मशीन पर माप जारी है
- Time zone
- आपकी मशीन पर माप जारी है
- Screen
- आपकी मशीन पर माप जारी है
- CPU cores
- आपकी मशीन पर माप जारी है
आपके ब्राउज़र में पढ़ा गया और यहाँ दिखाया गया। कहीं भी नहीं भेजा जाता।
Why two windows are not two accounts
Every private window of one browser shares a single storage area with the others. Signing in to a site in one of them signs you in across all of them.
Closing the last of them empties that shared area. So the second account waits for the first to finish rather than working beside it.
How a profile differs
A profile keeps its folder instead of discarding it, and that folder outlives the browser and the restart. Two profiles therefore hold two sessions at the same moment.
Forgetting is a separate choice here. A profile marked disposable is erased when its window closes, and if the erasing does not succeed you are told instead of left guessing.
Often confused with
Profile isolation
Two sessions held apart at the same moment, rather than one session forgotten at the end of it.
A VPN
It changes where your traffic comes out. A private window changes what is written on your disk, and neither of the two touches what the machine reports.
Private search
A search engine that keeps no query log. The browser around it stores exactly what it always stored.
Guest mode
A window with no profile behind it at all. It forgets in much the same way and separates no better.
How to check it yourself
Open this page twice, once ordinarily and once privately. Put the two panels side by side and read down the rows.
The values match, because not one of them was ever stored anywhere to be thrown away.
What this does not do
- It does not hide your address. The site, your provider and the network you are on see exactly what they saw before you opened the window.
- It does not change what the machine reports. Every reading in the panel above is recomputed on each visit and comes out the same privately.
- It does not hold two sessions apart at once. All private windows of one browser share one storage area between them.
- It does not remove what a service already recorded. Anything sent before the window closed stays on that service's side of the wire.
Check it
Each claim above is one place in the code and one stand.
- Each profile keeps a data directory of its own across restarts
- apps/desktop/src/lib/forkEngine.js
- Erasing a profile removes that directory and the records around it
- apps/desktop/test/delete-leaves-nothing.js
- A disposable profile is erased when its window closes
- apps/desktop/test/pinned-and-temporary.js
- The rows above are read in your own browser and sent nowhere
- apps/web/components/site/LiveReadout.tsx
Questions
- Does incognito hide my IP address?
- No. Traffic leaves through the same connection as before, and the address is the first thing any site writes down.
- Can I run two accounts in two private windows?
- No, because both windows share one storage area. Signing in to the second account signs you out of the first.
- Does it change my fingerprint?
- No. The readings come from the machine and the engine, and the storage rule touches neither of them.
- Is a private window the same as a separate profile?
- No. A profile keeps its data on purpose and runs beside other profiles, while a private window exists in order to forget. Signing out of one profile leaves every other profile signed in.
- Why do sites still recognise me there?
- Because recognition needs no storage at all. A set of device readings identifies the machine whether anything was saved or not, so a second session needs a second set.
Hold two accounts open at the same time
The free plan gives two profiles, with no time limit and no card.