Most people think enabling private browsing works the magic when they do not want prying eyes to keep tabs on what they have been up to on the internet. Say a friend of yours or a relative came visiting and asks to use your computer for whatever reasons but you do not want them checking on your private business, what do you do? Put on incognito mode on your browsers before handing over your laptop right?

Another instance here – say you have to use a public computer and know you would be typing in a lot of personal information (passwords, location details, etc) on a Web page in the browser. However, you want to avoid having your personal details or the sites you have visited saved in the browser on that computer as other people are often given access to the computer. So before anything else, you enable incognito mode in the browser you are about to surf on. That’s great!

Sure most people know this, but for those that do not, incognito mode means private mode. It is a feature available in most browsers that helps users hide their online activities from other users of the computer. Normally, when you browse without incognito mode, every url and info you input on Web pages you visit will be stored in the browser. Well, incognito mode does the opposite.

However, till today, the concept of incognito mode is still widely misunderstood, and this is why – Due to what the mode implies, many believe all the info and details they input online are 100% safe, secure and private. If you are one of those people, well, sorry, but you need to scratch that belief.

Incognito mode does not offer as much protection as you think. Sure it does a few tricks like the ones stated above – It prevents your Web browser from saving info from your browsing sessions and deletes your browsing history (in other words, it deletes cookies and caches).

Now, these are what it does not do; incognito mode does not protect you from malware, hackers, and online marketers. In fact your Internet service provider, the govt and even your employer (that is if you are on your employer’s WIFI) will still be able to track your online activities).

So even when you delete most of the data on your Web session, it will only be erased on your computer, however, all data will still remain stored on the company or site’s server or any networks you went through to get to the site.

So how do you achieve total security online? Watch this space!