I'm not a privacy enthusiast, but that doesn't mean I don't care about my online privacy.
I have always used the best settings to protect my privacy since I learned about the benefits of controlling how my personal information is collected, stored, and shared online.
I still remember the day when I first learned about private browsing, and every time I went Incognito, it felt like adding one more brick to my already strong privacy wall.
For a long time, Incognito mode in my favorite web browser was one of the settings I relied on heavily for this reason.
However, that changed when I learned it doesn't protect against one of the internet's most invasive tracking systems: browser fingerprinting.
I don't blame anyone but myself for not learning about browser fingerprinting early, which gave me a false sense of privacy protection when I used Incognito mode.
Here is why I stopped using Incognito mode after learning what browser fingerprinting is.
What did I learn about fingerprinting?
Your browser always knows what you did last summer
I first learned about fingerprinting in my biology book when I was in school, but that was DNA fingerprinting, which identifies unique biological traits and confirms someone's identity with high precision.
It was a fascinating read because that's when I realized DNA is kind of like biological software inside our body, storing, reading, and executing instructions to get the job done.
But little did I know I'd revisit those days when I learned about a specific component of web technology.
Knowing what DNA fingerprinting is made browser fingerprinting easier to understand.
I instantly drew a parallel when I learned that browser fingerprinting combines several technical characteristics into a fingerprint.
JavaScript running in your browser is usually the culprit, as it gathers details like your screen resolution, GPU information, time zone, language settings, operating system, and more.
The tracking company's servers then receive this information and often use a hashing algorithm or similar technique to create a fingerprint identifier that can distinguish your browser and device configuration with high accuracy.
While this may not expose your real-world name or address, it can still track your online activity, so your browsing habits aren't anonymous.
Although not everyone does this, companies can sell this information to advertisers to target you more effectively. It's hard to tell who follows best practices and never sells customers' data to advertisers.
It isn't worth taking the risk.
Why can't Incognito protect you against fingerprinting?
Your browser still stores some data about your browsing habits
Both fingerprinting and Incognito deal with data, but in different forms and with varying methods.
Fingerprinting is tracking your data in real time. It collects what your browser exposes when you load a website.
On the other hand, Incognito mode doesn't prevent websites from collecting data. Instead, it changes how your browser stores a specific set of data locally, which is different from what websites collect in real time for fingerprinting.
In a normal browsing session, a browser stores your browsing history, cookies, cache, and site data on your device.
Incognito mode doesn't prevent any of this. Instead, it creates a temporary, isolated profile where it stores cookies, history, cache, and site data.
After you close all your Incognito windows, it erases all that data. It doesn't impact your main browser profile.
Incognito has nothing to do with controlling fingerprinting, because it deals with a different set of data. To tackle fingerprinting, you need stronger measures, as I did.
What do I use instead of Incognito?
Advanced protection to the rescue
Incognito mode doesn't control what data websites collect when you load them on your device, but browsers with enhanced tracking protection do.
I relied on Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome to browse the internet, but neither has an excellent anti-tracking system. So I had to look elsewhere.
I asked my colleagues at Android Police, who are privacy enthusiasts, to help me find the best alternative. I followed their advice, did my own research, and ditched Chrome and Edge for Brave. Brave Shields automatically blocks invasive fingerprinting by default.
Firefox also includes built-in protection against known fingerprinters by default under its Standard Enhanced Tracking Protection mode.
So, even if someone knows nothing about fingerprinting, they get better out-of-the-box protection than many rivals.
The hard truth about fingerprinting
You can't escape from browser fingerprinting, no matter how much you try, and that's the reality.
You can take extreme measures, like disabling WebGL, which is responsible for GPU and graphics fingerprinting, and JavaScript, but doing so can break websites.
Even if that were the case, I would never go that far and disable every tracking signal. The more unique you are, the easier it is to spot you.
I keep it simple and don't use too many extensions or add-ons, and I use settings to reduce fingerprinting.