their "private" is not private. about a month ago, i searched for some health-related stuff in a chrome incognito window and then immediately afterwards got related sponsored product ads on amazon in a logged in normal window.
"Private" and "incognito" mode are fundamentally misnamed. They provide almost no real privacy wrt counterparties over the network, just to other people using the same computer after you.
I remember upon introduction, tech news would jokingly refer to it as the porn button if they were immature enough (and let's face it, back then most of us and the web news sites were quite literally immature). Sounds like that would be more accurate, but it fell out of style and now we have this name :(
This is not true of any web browser because of fingerprinting. That’s the point of fingerprinting for ad networks.
You can try using a different device but even then, I occasionally get recommending things that are definitely influenced by my roommates (i.e. on the same WiFi)
Using something that prevents fingerprinting helps, but only if you don’t use that browser all the time — otherwise it’s just another fingerprint — and still on the same network.
One of my fav party tricks when I get on someone's Wi-Fi is to search for an obscure disease with an expensive treatment. Everyone in the geographical area seems to start getting ads for it for a while afterwards!
Try Mullvad’s browser. It does a lot more to avoid user fingerprinting, even locking the resolution of the rendered content to various sizes. There are some things that make it less practical as a daily driver, but it seems good as a secondary browser for private mode.
"Incognito", on ANY browser, is not meant for that. Is meant to not leave traces on your PC, so your son/daughter/wife/husband can't see you've been watching porn (for instance). You're still tracked by the sites you visit, unless you use some kind of blocker (and, even then, you may still be tracked server-side).
The firefox private window seems to work better than the chrome incognito mode. Maybe brave would be even better because I tested brave against fingerprinting libraries once and it was the best at avoiding any detection.
Brave confuses me. On one hand it seems to have quite good privacy tech, but then on the other hand there are instances of what seem to be quite shady actions. Both impressions come from comments and anecdotes, I have not looked into it myself.
I was trying Chrome on a work computer (because why not, I'm only doing work stuff on it). That incognito (but not really) mode made me download Firefox in an hurry.
naniwaduni|7 months ago
Amnesiac mode, if you will.
lucb1e|7 months ago
samtheprogram|7 months ago
You can try using a different device but even then, I occasionally get recommending things that are definitely influenced by my roommates (i.e. on the same WiFi)
Using something that prevents fingerprinting helps, but only if you don’t use that browser all the time — otherwise it’s just another fingerprint — and still on the same network.
kennywinker|7 months ago
Some browsers, like the one you should be using, have anti-fingerprinting tech in them.
adzm|7 months ago
citizenpaul|7 months ago
al_borland|7 months ago
EbNar|7 months ago
Nathanba|7 months ago
blahlabs|7 months ago
skydhash|7 months ago
saintfire|7 months ago
I haven't used chrome in a long time but as far as I was aware they do the same thing: wipe session data on close.