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As announced in the press, Chrome v74 finally introduced a way to bypass websites which detect InCognito mode. Funny enough, none of the news sites actually bothered to check if it really does what it's supposed to do.

However, I've tried it (by enabling chrome://flags/#enable-filesystem-in-incognito) in multiple sites and they still detected the mode.

Even this short JavaScript detected it, and it even specifically checks for filesystem, not anything else.

Update: As of Chrome v75 (and simply by default since Chrome v76!), the only site I found that still detects this mode is Netflix. Does it mean sites like Netflix rely on other methods to detect InCognito mode? I read elsewhere it might simply be about running a DRM protected player that technically can't run in InCognito mode.

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At this point, you also have to disable web security (same origin policy etc.) to get Chrome to enable the filesystem in incognito mode.

Something like the below.

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --disable-web-security --user-data-dir="c:/temp"

Reference (from that same thread): https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2909367/can-you-determine-if-chrome-is-in-incognito-mode-via-a-script#comment99592904_27805491

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  • This is dangerous, irresponsible advice. Do not run Chrome with --disable-web-security.
    – user89623
    Jun 10, 2019 at 20:19
  • You can create a separate shortcut for your Washington Post incognito browsing. I'm not recommending it for general use, but since the current feature is clearly locked behind --disable-web-security, if you want the feature you have no other option.
    – Richard Campbell
    Jun 10, 2019 at 20:21
  • I've just added a comment that Chrome v75 fixed the original question, so this answer may not be needed anymore. The question now is how come some specific sites still bypass it.
    – LWC
    Jun 11, 2019 at 20:32

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