A loophole in Google’s popular Chrome browser which enables websites to not only detect but block users who access their sites through the browser’s Incognito mode is going to be fixed. Many users rely on the mode to not store local records of their browsing history. Websites are also prevented from tracking the user with cookies when they’re in Incognito mode.
9to5Google reports that future versions of the Chrome browser are going to address the issue which enables websites to block users that may be accessing their sites with Chrome in Incognito mode.
Websites require the tracking data for ad revenue and that’s one major reason why some sites prevent users from accessing their content if they’re using Incognito mode, this includes websites like the MIT Technology Review. Sites try to identify such users with the “FileSystem” API which is disabled when Incognito mode is being used as it allows permanent files to be created.
Recent commits to Chromium’s source code suggest that the browser may soon begin tricking websites that the FireSystem API is always operational. It would thus close the loophole that allows them to identify visitors using Incognito mode. It would do that by creating a virtual file system in RAM which will get deleted at the end of the Incognito session. It’s expected that this functionality might be rolled out to the public with the stable version of Chrome 76 that’s due in a couple of months.
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