This update is a surprise
Microsoft and Google have been embroiled in a fairly intense browser battle over recent weeks, with the Chrome-maker accusing the Windows-maker of tricking its users by either hiding or mimicking its products. The contest has pitched Chrome versus Edge, with the former maintaining its unassailable lead. But in the desktop world, almost all these users are Microsoft’s as well, and so it’s really Goliath against Goliath.
In pushing Chrome users to the Edge, Microsoft stresses the security and privacy of Edge, which it says is better than Chrome. Google clearly disagrees. Now Microsoft has forced a change of browser for Chrome users, with a surprising result.
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One of the criticisms leveled at Chrome is whether it’s private browsing — known as Incognito Mode — is really private. You’d think this would be a thread for Microsoft to pull, given the thrust of its marketing case. But instead, the Windows-maker has just made Chrome better, improving its security and privacy for a billion desktop users.
As reported by the ever reliable Windows Latest, “have you noticed that Windows 11 (and Windows 10) clipboard history no longer saves content you copied in Chrome’s incognito? It’s not a bug but a feature and a part of Microsoft’s efforts to make Chromium’s private browsing more ‘private’ on Windows.”
The changes were made last year, but were not notably documented or publicized and are only being picked up now. “Normally, when you copy something in a Chromium-based browser, it gets stored in Windows’s Clipboard History,” PC World explains. “If you have Clipboard Sync enabled, that history will sync across all your cloud-synced devices. You probably don’t want that happening when browsing in private.”
This does get to a central issue as to the understood meaning of private browsing. It’s not the same across different products. For example, Safari keeps all data private within a private browsing tab, close the tab and delete its data. Whereas Chrome keeps data live across all open private tabs, and only closing all of them delete the data.
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In this case, per Windows Latest, “the whole point of incognito is to hide and protect everything you do in that private browsing session, but is it really private when Google is leaking and syncing Chrome’s copied content across your devices? Certainly not. Syncing the private clipboard content defeats the purpose of using incognito.”
There’s another similar change that has also gone live. Video thumbnails for media playing within Incognito Mode no longer show on lock screens or when adjusting the volume on your PC. Again, it’s all about redefining “private.” Good news for users, albeit an odd one given the wider context. Either way, kudos to both Microsoft and Google for working together to get this deployed seamlessly and with very little fuss.
Now, back to where we were…
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Zak Doffman