Google Chrome 76 has been released and one of the features that comes with it is that websites will no longer be able to detect your Chrome browser when in incognito mode. This means that sites that have a paywall that use detection schemes to keep one from reading an infinite number of free articles will no longer be able to do so provided you are using the incognito mode.
The purpose of limiting the number of free articles articles that one can read in a month has been to steer a reader to pay for a subscription. This will definitely be a pain to sites like the New York Times and Bloomberg who have such limits on free articles. However, readers like myself are not complaining.
According to Google Chrome developer Paul Irish, the Google Chrome incognito mode has been detectable for years due to the FileSystem API implementation but the same has been fixed in Chrome 76.
Chrome Incognito mode has been detectable for years, due to the FileSystem API implementation. As of Chrome 76, this is fixed.
Apologies to the “detect private mode” scripts out there. ? pic.twitter.com/3LWFXQyy7w— Paul Irish (@paul_irish) June 11, 2019
Also, Adobe Flash has been clocked in Chrome 76, Not only are individual Flash items blocked by default, but now the entire browser feature is off by default as well. However, Users can still turn it on in settings, but next year, Flash will be removed from Chrome entirely.
You can update to the latest version now using Chrome’s built-in updater or download it directly here.