Ask HN: How does sites identify you are in private or incognito mode?

5 points·vermontdevil··5 comments

I would have thought being in private/incognito mode enables you to browse without being recognized? But I'm seeing more and more sites blocking you stating you are in this mode etc.

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It's more or less a javascript hack. Here's one article on it (I think it's webkit specific though) https://medium.freecodecamp.org/disabling-browser-incognito-...

If that doesn't work on Edge / Firefox there's likely other "hacky" alternatives (probably something around localstorage or cookies not being writable).

private mode often blocks features that could be used for tracking in a way that the site can discover the feature is blocked, e.g. things like localStorage not accepting data.

Note that private browsing won’t remove every trace of your Internet activities. Any files you save will remain. Private browsing also doesn’t do anything to obscure your Web traffic from the server’s side. Websites you visit will still have your IP address, and any unencrypted data you send is as susceptible to interception as it would be in a normal browser session. Instead of incognito mode use TOR or at least Firefox...

I was using Firefox in private mode when I got blocked. But I'll give TOR a try.

That may not work. The TOR proxies are either blocked or using them means solving captchas for every website you would visit. Even google asks you to verify that you are not a robot if you are using TOR.

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