The Google Chrome browser’s Incognito Mode allows users to ‘pause’ their logged web activity in order to watch adult content without a record of it appearing in their browser’s history. People the world over use this handy privacy feature when surfing for porn. But now Darin Fisher, vice president of Chrome at Google, has insisted the incognito option was designed to help people hide a different kind of secret from their loved ones.
With a straight face, Fisher told Thrillist that back in 2008 Google software engineers intended Incognito Mode as a utility for men who wanted to buy engagement rings without their girlfriends finding out when they log onto a shared computer. Helping chronic masturbators hide their tracks was merely an unintended quirk of the feature’s design.
So, a bunch of computer nerds were more conscious of the impending nuptials than watching online porn. Riiiiiiiight.
Fisher also reminded users that “when you launch the Incognito Mode tab there’s this disclaimer there where we really try to help make it really clear to people that your activity is certainly still visible to the websites you visit and could be visible to your employer, to your school your, and to your ISP [internet service provide] of course’. According to Thrillist, “Fisher explained that the Chrome team agonized over what to call IM it in the beginning, intentionally steering away from including ‘privacy’ in the name, because it didn’t want to oversell its ability.”
