Google wants to make it more difficult to ban Chrome users in incognito mode

Google reportedly plans to make it more difficult for websites to detect if a visitor is using Chrome’s incognito mode. With this, the company wants to prevent website visitors from being banned or not being able to see content.

According to 9to5Google, Google plans to make a change to the so-called FileSystem API in a future Chrome release. As soon as a user visits a website in incognito mode, the api is disabled, otherwise permanent files are created. However, the disabled API is a sign to websites that a visitor is using incognito mode, after which sites block certain content, for example.

Blocking content is a tool that some websites use because tracking users through cookies is an important source of revenue for websites and the incognito mode prevents this. By then blocking content, they are probably trying to discourage these visitors from using incognito mode.

Google plans to do something about this by giving websites the impression that the FileSystem API just works and is operational, even though it uses incognito mode. This is done by having Chrome create a temporary virtual file system in the ram of the computer being used. That should make it impossible for websites to detect if someone is using incognito mode. Because it is stored in the ram, the system is removed again as soon as Chrome is closed; thus no permanent files are left behind.

The website 9to5Google reports based on internal documents that Google is considering removing the FileSystem API in its entirety. After the above solution, Google would look at how often legitimate use is still made of the api. If it turns out that little use is made of it, and so the api was actually only or mainly used for detecting incognito mode, Google could remove it.

A developer responsible for this solution reports that it is planned to be released in Chrome version 74, which is expected to be released in April. The function to block the detection of incognito mode by third sites is not yet enabled by default; users have to do this in the settings. In Chrome 76, the feature should then be enabled by default.