How to Turn On, Turn Off or Deactivate Chrome Incognito

The incognito mode in browsers has long become a mandatory feature, especially in light of increased attention to your, albeit usually anonymized, data by statistics and marketing services. After all, not everyone wants to be bombarded with similar services on various websites after searching, for example, for “Spanish courses”. For ad-blocking, there are alternative tools, while the incognito mode in Google Chrome can be used simply when you do not want to save your browsing history or authentication data.

Here is what the Chrome Incognito window looks like

Features

Incognito is a special type of built-in profile with a set of specific limitations. The indicator that the current window is open in incognito is a special icon in the top right corner . If there are multiple such windows, their total quantity will be indicated in parentheses. By the set of limitations, this mode is partially similar to the guest mode.

Incognito will help if:

You don’t want to save browsing history, cookies, form data, Google search history, or other search engine history
You want to log in to the same site again, but under a different account

It won’t help for:

Ensuring complete anonymity
Bypassing restrictions when blocking websites in some countries
Bypassing logging of visited domain addresses by your Internet service provider (network administrator), although DoH can help here

Mode features:

By default, all extensions are disabled
After closing the window, only created bookmarks and downloaded files will be saved

How to enable

There are several options available to launch incognito mode in the Windows version of Chrome:

Menu → “New Incognito window”
Using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+N
By right-clicking on a link, then selecting “Open link in incognito window”
By adding the special parameter --incognito to the application shortcut:
1. Create a Chrome shortcut, for example, on the desktop
2. Right-click on the shortcut, select “Properties” from the context menu
3. In the “Shortcut” tab, add the parameter --incognito to the end of the “Target” field, separated by a space
4. Click “OK”

In Chrome for Android, there are 2 ways to enable incognito:

In already opened application, tap on the three-dot icon in the top right corner and select “New Incognito tab”
On the home screen, press and hold the Chrome shortcut, then select “New Incognito tab” from the context menu

How to disable

Simply close the incognito window (not tab!) to clear all data viewed in it.

If you need to close 1 window, simply click the “Close” button in the top right corner of the window
- alternative: Menu → “Exit” or Alt+F4
If there are multiple windows, it is much more convenient to:
- click the “Incognito” button in the top right corner → “Close Incognito”

In Chrome for Android, the presence of at least one incognito tab is indicated by the corresponding icon in the Status Bar. To access the list of incognito tabs:

Tap on the icon indicating the number of tabs
Switch to the list of incognito tabs using the familiar icon with glasses

To close all incognito tabs, use:

Menu → “Close incognito tabs”

How to deactivate

You cannot completely remove incognito from Chrome, however, you can deactivate the feature using Windows group policies. More precisely, through the system registry. Below, we will consider 3 ways to implement this, starting with the simplest.

Ready-to-use reg file

We have prepared a couple of ready-made reg files for you, which will make the necessary changes to the Windows system registry to disable (enable) incognito support in the browser. Simply download and run the required file, after closing Chrome:

PowerShell script

Similar to reg files, you can perform the same procedure using the Windows PowerShell:

noticeTo run ps1 file, right-click on it and select “Run with PowerShell” from the context menu

Manual registry editing

If you are a true Windows enthusiast and like to do everything step by step, then this method is for you:

Open regedit in any convenient way, for example:
- Win+R → type regedit → press Enter
- Win+S → in the search bar that appears, type regedit
In the left hierarchy of sections, open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies
Right-click on Policies → “New” → “Key” → enter “Google” and press Enter
Right-click on the created Google → “New” → “Key” → enter “Chrome” and press Enter
The path should now be HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome
Click on the Chrome section with the right mouse button:
- from the context menu that appears, select “New” → “Key” → “DWORD (32-bit) Value”
- paste the name “IncognitoModeAvailability” without quotes and press Enter
- right-click on “IncognitoModeAvailability” and select “Modify…”
- instead of 0, set 1 and click “OK”

If everything is done correctly, after restarting Chrome, you will find that the incognito launch is now blocked:

in the main and context menus
the combination Ctrl+Shift+N will open a standard new browser window

noticeTo revert everything back or delete the created Google section, or set the value 0 instead of 1 for the IncognitoModeAvailability field

Incognito in Google Chrome