Private Browsing Explained
We all like to think our browsing is private. In reality, there is a significant gap between what most people believe incognito mode does and what it actually does. A University of Chicago study found that most internet users overestimate the privacy protections of private browsing—and Google's $5 billion class-action settlement in 2024, which revealed that data was collected even during Incognito sessions, confirmed how widespread that misunderstanding is.
Incognito mode is useful, but it is not invisibility. Here is what it does, what it does not do, when to use it, and what you need for genuine online privacy.
What is Incognito mode?
Incognito mode (called Private Browsing in Firefox and Safari, or InPrivate in Microsoft Edge) opens a temporary browser session that is separate from your main browsing profile. When you close the window, the browser deletes the local traces of that session: browsing history, cookies, site data, and form entries are not saved to your device.
The core principle is the same across all browsers: Incognito mode ensures your own device retains no record of what you did during that session. You arrive at websites as an apparently unknown visitor—no stored cookies, no auto-filled forms, no personalized content from previous visits.
What Incognito mode does
Prevents local history storage. Pages you visit will not appear in your browsing history once you close the Incognito window. This is useful when sharing a device with family members, coworkers, or guests—especially when researching gifts, making personal searches, or handling sensitive topics you prefer to keep private.
Deletes session cookies. Cookies set during the session are erased when you close the window. This means you are not logged into any accounts by default, and tracking cookies from that session do not persist. This can also help you bypass some content paywalls or see non-personalized pricing on travel and shopping sites.
Keeps shared devices clean. On a hotel business center computer, a library terminal, or a family laptop, Incognito mode prevents your login credentials, search history, and browsing activity from being accessible to the next person who uses the device.
Manages multiple accounts. You can sign into a second account (email, social media, work tools) in an Incognito window without logging out of your primary account in your regular browser.
What Incognito mode does not do
This is where the misconceptions are most dangerous.
It does not hide your activity from your ISP. Your internet service provider can still see every website you visit, regardless of whether you are in Incognito mode. They can produce this data if requested for legal purposes.
It does not hide your activity from your employer or school. If you are on a company or school network, your IT department and network administrators can monitor your browsing activity. Blocked sites remain blocked. Incognito changes nothing about network-level visibility.
It does not hide your IP address from websites. Every website you visit can see your IP address, which reveals your approximate location and can be used to identify you across sessions—even without cookies.
It does not prevent browser fingerprinting. Websites can identify your device based on a combination of your browser type, operating system, screen resolution, installed fonts, and other technical characteristics. This fingerprint is unique enough to track you across sessions without any cookies at all.
It does not protect you from malware or phishing. Incognito mode provides no security against malicious websites, keyloggers, or phishing attacks. If you click a malicious link in Incognito, your device is just as vulnerable as it would be in a regular window.
It does not delete downloads or bookmarks. Files you download and bookmarks you create during an Incognito session remain on your device after you close the window. You must delete them manually.
How to open Incognito mode
Chrome: Click the three-dot menu in the upper right corner and select "New Incognito Window," or press Ctrl+Shift+N (Command+Shift+N on Mac).
Firefox: Click the menu button and select "New Private Window," or press Ctrl+Shift+P (Command+Shift+P on Mac).
Microsoft Edge: Click the three-dot menu and select "New InPrivate Window," or press Ctrl+Shift+N.
Safari: Click File in the menu bar and select "New Private Window," or press Command+Shift+N.
To exit, simply close all private/Incognito windows. Your session data is deleted automatically.
What do you actually need for online privacy?
If you want privacy beyond your local device—meaning you want to prevent your ISP, network administrators, and websites from seeing your activity—you need additional tools.
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) encrypts your internet connection and routes it through a remote server, hiding your browsing activity from your ISP and making it much harder for websites to identify your true location. A VPN paired with Incognito mode provides significantly more privacy than either tool alone. McAfee+, which comes preinstalled on HP PCs, includes a secure VPN with all plans.
Tracking protection and ad blockers reduce the effectiveness of browser fingerprinting and cross-site tracking. Firefox includes Enhanced Tracking Protection by default. Browsers like Brave block ads and trackers natively. Extensions like uBlock Origin provide similar functionality in Chrome and Edge.
Secure DNS (such as DNS over HTTPS) prevents your DNS queries—the requests that translate website names into IP addresses—from being visible to your ISP in plain text. Most modern browsers now support encrypted DNS.
Hardware-level security protects against threats that no browser setting can stop. If your device itself is compromised—through malware, a firmware attack, or a stolen laptop—your browsing privacy is irrelevant. HP Wolf Security provides hardware-enforced protection below the operating system, including HP Sure Click, which isolates browser tabs and downloaded files in micro-virtual machines so that even if you visit a malicious site, the threat cannot escape to infect your system.
Incognito mode and public or shared computers
Using a public or shared computer without Incognito mode means your browsing history, login credentials, and form data may be accessible to the next user. Incognito mode mitigates this risk by ensuring nothing is saved locally after you close the window.
However, it does not protect data in transit. On an unsecured public Wi-Fi network, your browsing data can be intercepted between your device and the router. A VPN addresses this gap by encrypting all traffic before it leaves the device.
For business users who frequently work on shared or public devices, HP business laptops with built-in privacy screens, fingerprint readers, and HP Wolf Security provide a more secure alternative to relying on borrowed hardware. And HP Protect and Trace with Wolf Connect can locate, lock, and erase a lost HP PC remotely—even when powered off—preventing anyone from accessing your data if the device goes missing.
The bottom line
Incognito mode is a useful tool for keeping your local browsing history private on a shared device. It is not a privacy solution for the internet as a whole. Your ISP, employer, and the websites you visit can still see your activity. Browser fingerprinting can identify you without cookies. And no browser mode protects against malware, phishing, or device theft.
For genuine online privacy, pair Incognito mode with a VPN, tracking protection, and a device with hardware-enforced security. Incognito keeps your device clean. The rest keeps you actually private.
