How ISPs Track Your Browsing Data Even in Incognito Mode

Incognito mode stops Chrome saving your history, cookies and form entries on your device. It does nothing to hide your browsing from your internet provider, your employer's network or the websites you visit. Chrome says so on the Incognito start page.

What your ISP can see

• The sites you look up. Normal DNS lookups go to your provider unencrypted, listing every website name you visit.
• The servers you connect to, by IP address, and when.
• Site names during secure connections. When your browser starts an HTTPS connection, the site's name is often sent in readable form. Newer technology called Encrypted Client Hello hides it, and Chrome supports it, but only some sites use it so far.
• How much data you use, and patterns such as streaming or downloading.

What your ISP can't see

On HTTPS sites, which is almost all sites now, your provider can't see the specific pages, your searches, what you type, or messages and passwords. It sees that you visited example.com, not what you did there.

Why it matters

In the US, Congress repealed the FCC's broadband privacy rules in 2017, before they took effect. An October 2021 report by the Federal Trade Commission found that several large internet providers collected extensive data about their customers and used it for advertising. Rules differ in other countries; in the EU, data protection law limits what providers can do.

How to limit what your ISP sees

• Turn on Secure DNS: in Chrome, Settings → Privacy and security → Security → Use secure DNS. Your lookups are encrypted and go to the provider you choose.
• Use a VPN: your provider then sees only an encrypted connection to the VPN. The VPN provider can see what your ISP used to, so choose one you trust. See how to check a VPN's no-log claims.
• Tor Browser gives stronger anonymity, at the cost of speed.
• Opt out of your provider's advertising or data-sharing programs, if it offers them, in your account settings.

Making the record less useful

Ghost Browser visits random sites in the background, so any record of the sites your connection visits includes noise that doesn't reflect your real interests. It doesn't encrypt anything, so pair it with Secure DNS or a VPN if hiding your browsing is the goal.

What Incognito is good for

• Not leaving history on a shared computer.
• Signing in to a second account temporarily.
• Seeing a site without your cookies, for example to check prices or search results.

See Incognito vs normal mode and how to check if your DNS is exposed.