No. Incognito mode only limits what your browser saves on your own device; websites, your employer, your school and your internet provider still see what you do.
What solves it instead
- You share a computer and do not want your history or logins left behind: incognito mode in Chrome does that, at no cost.
- You do not want your internet provider, employer or school to see which sites you visit: incognito mode does not help. That is the job of a VPN.
- You do not want a site to recognise you: do not log in, and keep in mind that sites can still gather information about you.
The facts
| About | Word for word from the source | Source, checked on |
|---|---|---|
| What incognito mode changes | When you’re browsing in Incognito, Chrome limits the information that’s saved to your device. | support.google.com, |
| Opening an incognito window in Chrome | Windows, Linux, Chrome OS, or Googlebook: Press Ctrl + Shift + n. Mac: Press ⌘ + Shift + n. | support.google.com, |
| Safari on iPhone, after tapping the tabs button | Swipe right on the tab bar at the bottom of the screen until Private Browsing opens, then tap Unlock. | support.apple.com, |
| Who can still see your activity | Websites you visit, including Google sites, and organizations that manage your network, like your school, employer, or internet service provider, may be able to observe your activity in Incognito. | support.google.com, |
| Microsoft Edge InPrivate: who still sees your activity | Other people using this device won’t see your browsing activity, but your school, workplace, and internet service provider might still be able to access this data. | support.microsoft.com, |
| Websites when you are not signed in | Sites may still be able to gather information about you even when you’re not signed in. | support.google.com, |
| What EU law says about the data your provider keeps | Read the literal textTraffic data relating to subscribers and users processed and stored by the provider of a public communications network or publicly available electronic communications service must be erased or made anonymous when it is no longer needed for the purpose of the transmission of a communication | eur-lex.europa.eu, |
What we measured ourselves
A private window does not change the address that sites see; a VPN does. Our own checks on that, from the same runs:
We measure NordVPN ourselves: 100 valid runs on 25 days, from October 8, 2026 to November 1, 2026, each next to a run without VPN.
In 100 of 100 runs the exit address was in the chosen country, and in 100 of 100 the DNS answers came from the provider's own network. The tunnel offered no IPv6.
Measured twice a day from a Google Cloud data centre in Belgium with the provider's standard WireGuard configuration: this tests the network, not the app, and not a home connection. Download is the median over three test servers; connection time is the time to open a connection to three public DNS services. Our setup does not reliably go above about 1,000 Mbit/s, so faster runs count as ‘≥ 1 Gbit/s’. How we work · Raw data (CSV)
What a VPN does change
A VPN sends your traffic through an encrypted tunnel, so the network you are on sees only the connection to the VPN server. The VPN provider can then see what your network saw before. A VPN does not clear your history and does not stop the sites you log in to from knowing who you are. Check when a VPN is worth paying for
Without a VPN
- You
- Your networkinternet provider, or the Wi-Fi of work, school or a café
Sees: which sites you visit and when. With HTTPS, not what you do there.
- The website
Sees: your IP address, and with it roughly where you are and who your internet provider is.
With a VPN
- You
- Your networkinternet provider, or the Wi-Fi of work, school or a caféEncrypted tunnel
Sees: only that you are connected to a VPN server, and how much data you send.
- VPN serverrun by the VPN provider
Sees: which sites you visit, as your internet provider did before.
- The website
Sees: the IP address of the VPN server. It still recognises you by your login and cookies.
What we did not check
2
- The private modes of other browsers, such as Firefox: the facts above come from the help pages of Google (Chrome), Apple (Safari on iPhone) and Microsoft (Edge).
- What an employer can see through software installed on a work device.
Next step
- You share a computer and do not want your history or logins left behind: incognito mode in Chrome does that, at no cost.