Chrome: Whatever you use private browsing for, sometimes you want to start your secret browsing from the page you're already on. Incognito This moves your current page to a new incognito window, so you can continue browsing privately without starting from scratch. More »

Chrome: Even though every browser has a private mode, it's not always easy to remember to enable it before visiting private sites. Ghost Incognito makes it so you don't have to by automatically opening sites of your choosing in incognito mode.More »

Private browsing is great for more than just porn (not that we're judging), but you can start a session or enable it really fast directly from the keyboard in any browser. Well, any browser except Safari.More » 

Incognito Mode is the name of the private browsing option in the Google Chrome browser. Once Incognito Mode is activated it blocks the storage of session related data on the computer’s hard drive. This includes cache files, history entries, searches or cookies.

Incognito Mode spawns a new window every time it is activated. Activation is done by either pressing Ctrl-Shift-N or clicking on the wrench icon and selecting New Incognito Window from the context menu.

Users who want to always open a website or domain in Incognito Mode have to do so manually on every browsing session as there is no option available to automate that process.

That’s where the Chrome extension Autonito offers to step in. The extension offers to store a list of websites and domains that should always be launched in Incognito Mode in the browser. Autonito spawns an Incognito window automatically whenever one of the stored domain names or IPs is loaded from bookmarks or manually in the address bar.

It basically automates the process so that selected websites and domains are always opened in Incognito Mode in the browser. The list of sites and IPs is managed in the extension’s options.

This week has produced some fantastic Firefox news. That's a good thing, but because we covered it all on Download Squad in a timely fashion, it leaves me with a bit of a problem: there's no new news to share with you. I've been left with producing a round-up for this week's Firefox column. I've never done a round-up before, but I'm sure it'll be good.

I think I'm meant to take each nibble of news and provide a refreshing, opinionated point of view that throws it into a new light. Let's start with one that got a lot more interest than we anticipated:

1. Firefox 4 Beta 5 will feature a two-column main menu

I think I actually told Lee that this one wasn't worth posting..., how wrong I was!
"It's like one of those Google-search-box-grows-by-18-pixels stories." Personally, I hate Chrome's unified wrench menu, and I'm disheartened to see it make an appearance in Firefox.

Google Chrome’s Incognito Mode is a private browsing mode, in which the recording of information about the web browsing session is blocked. No records are stored in the web browser or on the computer system. That’s helpful to improve the privacy of a web session, or to avoid problems when using public or third party computer systems.

Google Chrome users can launch the private browsing mode manually in the web browser, or automatically by launching the web browser with the private browsing startup parameter.

The Chrome extension Autonito adds a third possibility. Chrome users can define websites in the extension that should always be loaded in incognito mode. Websites are added or removed in the extension’s options. The extension will automatically launch a new incognito window whenever a Chrome user clicks on a link pointing to a website included in the list, opens the site from the bookmarks or enters the site url into the address bar.

The extension currently has difficulties with cookies, which are stored in the browser. It is likely that the developer will update the extension as this is a known issue. It is however possible to work around that issue.

google chrome incognito

It is possible to block cookies from specific websites in the Chrome options. Open the Chrome options by clicking on the Tools icon and selecting Options from the context menu. Switch to Under the bonnet, and click on the Content Settings button.

A click on Exceptions displays the configuration menu to add cookies to a whitelist or blacklist. Simply click on Add, enter the domain name in the pattern field, and select Block from the available actions.

block cookies

Autonito can automate the usage of the incognito mode in Chrome. The only possible problem that we see is that the list of sites that are automatically launched in incognito mode is available in the browser. But the list does not necessarily mean that the site is visited by the user who has configured it.

Autonito can be downloaded from the official Google Chrome Extensions Gallery.

The Google Chrome Incognito mode is a private browsing mode in which the web browser does not record information about the browsing session. This means that it is not possible to find information of that session in the browser history, cache or cookies.

The incognito mode can be started by pressing Ctrl-Shift-N or by selecting New Incognito Window from the tools menu in the browser toolbar.

There is however no option to open an existing website in incognito mode.

Incognito Switcher is an extension for the Google Chrome browser that can do just that. The extension adds an icon in the Chrome address bar that provides access to this functionality.

A click on the button will change the state of the current tab from normal mode into incognito mode and vice verse.

A double-click on the icon will switch the whole window to incognito mode and back to normal mode.

It should be noted that switching a tab or window to incognito mode will not remove the records that already exist in the browser, only future records will be removed by the private browsing mode.

This makes it for instance interesting when an Internet user encounters wants to open links on a current website in incognito mode.

Keyboard shortcuts can be configured in the options of the Chrome extension to switch to or from incognito mode with the keyboard.

Incognito Switcher can be downloaded from the Google Chrome extensions gallery.