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Comment by camiller | Hacker News Reader

Not really private, just keeps your local machine clean. Despite TeMPOraL's labeling it "porn mode" my most common use case is if I need to log into my Google account from my wife's laptop I'll use an Incognito mode window in Chrome so that I don't have to log her out of her Google account.

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That's the problem we tried to outline in this paper. If you ask the average person what "private" should mean in this context it turns out they believe it is a large set of features providing total protection.

To a tech-savvy audience its more obvious that private browsing modes don't offer that.

This discrepancy is something that people have genuine concerns about and want to see either more features to protect their privacy, or better transparency in naming/explaining/disclaiming these modes.

> If you ask the average person

Did you actually interview her for this paper? Where'd you find her? Can I ask her a few questions when you're done? I have so much I need to know from the average person.

I do not see results broken-down by different browsers. I am not sure about FF's privacy mode but Chrome's incognito mode clearly says: "However, you aren’t invisible. Going incognito doesn’t hide your browsing from your employer, your internet service provider, or the websites you visit."

This warning appears on every tab in the incognito mode, so it is pretty visible.

This is a great point. As I've noted a few times, our surveys were conducted with different question sets for every browser that made note of different features and warnings. We also took that into consideration when aggregating the results into one whitepaper.

We wanted the whitepaper to be browser agnostic, this isn't about blaming specific browsers or actions. We wanted to highlight the larger issue that there is a gap in privacy education for a mainstream user and that it is something that members of technical communities can all step up and help with.

As for a special note for the warnings, I would say it is akin to the Terms of Service for websites. Perfectly visible, but never really read and understood.

Is there a reason you don't use the people switcher? https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2364824?co=GENIE.Pl...

I use the people switcher on computers I "control". It is convenient to have two accounts which stay logged in to various services. I do not like staying logged in, and might forget to log out of, computers that aren't mine.

I use people switcher on my laptop to switch between my two google accounts, but on my wife's laptop I see no reason to leave crumbs of my presence behind.

Because that leaves your SO in the position of being able, even accidentally, to log in to your account.

Further, I'd guess that even if you absolutely trust your SO not to violate your privacy, you might still reasonably distrust the platform they're working on, and you might not want to expose your account credentials on a platform that you don't directly control.

I see you do UX at Google. Thank you for asking users questions like this (I really hope you were asking sincerely, not rhetorically). Please talk to users more.

Certainly. I don't work on Chrome, but I'm being sincere and I'm curious of the use case. There may be a better solution here.

I don't use it because it requires that I switch back. My wife won't be bothered to deal with learning the people-switcher (there's no reason she should, it's really her laptop in question), so using incognito means that once I close the window, it's clean again. It's a lot easier to remember to close the window than it is to remember to switch back to her account.

The option I finally chose to go with, is to install firefox on her computer as well. Firefox is for me, Chrome is for her. I'm an FF guy anyway. The main UX problem stands, though, it's too easy to be the wrong person.

There's no need to "Switch back" unless... oh my, your wife closes all her browser windows sometimes?!

I'm in the same boat, well aware of chrome option to switch accounts, but the simplicity of dual browsers wins when two people use the same login regularly.

Also I get to keep up to date with changes in firefox.

For me its easier to use a different browser. Chrome for her, Edge for me, Firefox for the kids.

Exactly how I manage online personas. Firefox for my normal browsing, IE for accessing my spam accounts and anything I'd prefer not to easily link back to me. Wife uses chrome.

The icons and applications look sufficiently different that there's no confusion about what persona I am in which browser. And I can have all of them up at the same time.

The people switcher is a godsend for web dev work. I have one for my normal work window (email, ticketing, etc), and two for various types of test accounts. It's SO useful to not have to constantly log in and out. Thank you!

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