Whoops! Chrome For iOS’s Incognito Mode Isn’t Really Incognito!
If you’re a regular user of Google Chrome, you know how important its incognito mode can be to save some unnecessary embarrassment when you decide you need to search for something completely strange you would rather not let your family, friends or roommates be aware of. That’s why we thought you should know if you rely on the privacy of incognito mode in Google Chrome on your iOS device running iOS 7, you might want to hold off on using it for the time being.
As TechCrunch reports, a new update for Chrome for iOS adds iOS 7 support, but there’s also a big flaw as discovered by UK development and design firm Parallax. It turns out that when you use the search/address bar in Incognito mode in Chrome, that history will show up when you return to standard browsing in Google’s mobile website search bar.
[youtube id=”61SzHpGGFRs” width=”100%” height=”300px”]
The above video is rather swift, and has no commentary, but what it shows is erasing history to start with a clean slate, entering Incognito Mode, visiting a website, returning to normal browsing and then viewing search history at Google – where the supposed private web session shows up.
Note that you do need to visit Google to see the history: it doesn’t show up when simply using the combined URL/search bar.
