Chrome for Android Gets Fingerprint-Protected Incognito Tabs

An anonymous reader shares a report: Here's a fun new feature for Chrome for Android: fingerprint-protected Incognito tabs. 9to5Google discovered the feature in the Chrome 105 stable channel, though you'll have to dig deep into the settings to enable it at the moment. If you want to add a little more protection to your private browsing sessions, type "chrome://flags/#incognito-reauthentication-for-android" into the address bar and hit enter. After enabling the flag and restarting Chrome, you should see an option to "Lock Incognito tabs when you leave Chrome." If you leave your Incognito session and come back, an "unlock Incognito" screen will appear instead of your tabs, and you'll be asked for a fingerprint scan.

Oh, the user's fingerprint

[Sloppy]

Got all the way to the last sentence of summary before I realized this had nothing to do Panopticlick.

Re:

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Surely you didn't believe Google went out of their way to cripple the singlemost important browser feature they use to track everything everyone does on the web and monetize the shit out of everybody, right?

Of course it's about real fingerprints. It's about yet another occasion to scan your paw prints, correlate them to "incognito" tabs and the time you unlock them, then ship that information off to the mothership presumably, so your incognito tabs are fully and thoroughly deanonymized and exploited.

It's Go

Re:

[Sloppy]

Surely you didn't believe Google went out of their way to cripple the singlemost important browser feature they use to track everything everyone does on the web and monetize the shit out of everybody, right?

No, I didn't. That's why I read all the way to the anticlimactic ending.

Re:

[fahrbot-bot]

It's Google, remember. If they do something, it's not in your best interest.

To be fair, that can be said about most companies -- unless you're a shareholder and it's about making you more money.

Re: Oh, the user's fingerprint

[Maha182]

Yes it's good http:/// [http] nehrujiherbal.com

Re: Oh, the user's fingerprint

[Maha182]

Yes absolutely right Https:// nehrujiherbal.com

Porn tabs + identity scan

[devslash0]

Sounds like a great anti-spouse-snooping feature and a potential way forward for porn sites re identity verification in general.

(in case you didn't get it, I was being sarcastic)

Re:

[bill_mcgonigle]

I tried to use Firefox Focus for work and all I can conclude is it only exists to be a porn browser. i.e. persistent cookies don't work no matter what settings you choose to make them work.

Re:

[codebase7]

Yep, great for stopping the snooping without a warrant cops or TSA agents too. /s

Re: Porn tabs + identity scan

[anonymouscoward52236]

Porn fingers + Porn tabs

Wait, fingerprint readers don't work well with wet fingers, lol...

w3m

[packrat0x]

Posting from w3m (using JOE). Because Chrome is bad.

Dammit

[sconeu]

I thought they were talking about blocking browser fingerprinting in incognito mode.

using a Google browser for privacy

[dhizzle]

Privacy is the last feature I would expect from a Google browser, given that we are the product sold and advertisers the customers. Adding my PII doesn't make it more private. Firefox is still around and still works. Using it daily.