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Chrome 76 prevents NYT and other news sites from detecting Incognito Mode
Google Chrome 76 will close a loophole that websites use to detect when people use the browser's Incognito Mode.
Over the past couple of years, you may have noticed some websites preventing you from reading articles while using a browser's private mode. The Boston Globe began doing this in 2017, requiring people to log in to paid subscriber accounts in order to read in private mode. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and other newspapers impose identical restrictions.
Chrome 76 - which is in beta now and is scheduled to hit the stable channel on July 30 - prevents these websites from discovering that you're in private mode. Google explained the change yesterday in a blog post titled, "Protecting private browsing in Chrome."
Google wrote:
Today, some sites use an unintended loophole to detect when people are browsing in Incognito Mode. Chrome's FileSystem API is disabled in Incognito Mode to avoid leaving traces of activity on someone's device. Sites can check for the availability of the FileSystem API and, if they receive an error message, determine that a private session is occurring and give the user a different experience.
With the release of Chrome 76 scheduled for July 30, the behavior of the FileSystem API will be modified to remedy this method of Incognito Mode detection.
Using the Chrome 76 beta today, I confirmed that the Boston Globe, New York Times, and Los Angeles Times were unable to detect that my browser was in private mode. However, all three sites were able to detect private mode in Safari for Mac, Firefox, and Chrome 75.
Google acknowledged that websites might find new loopholes to detect private mode, but it pledged to close those, too. "Chrome will likewise work to remedy any other current or future means of Incognito Mode detection," Google's blog post said. [...]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 22 2019, @06:26AM (17 children)
Why should it? And, for the matter why Chrome should?
After all, that's everybody at the table being kept honest:
1. you - "I don't want to be tracked" and
2. the provider site - "The content I serve is for paying customers. If you can't prove you are paying, I'm not serving you"
Are you trying to eat your cake and have it too?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 22 2019, @08:08AM (3 children)
So, I walk into a ̶r̶e̶s̶t̶a̶u̶r̶a̶n̶t̶ news site, and look at the menu. Except, there is no menu, I'm told that I must pay before seeing the menu. I don't think this is reasonable, so I get up and walk back out the same door I came in. Along with me goes whatever I might have paid for the news, plus whatever tips I may have left. There is something wrong with that business model.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 22 2019, @08:22AM (1 child)
Yeah, maybe. But those newspapers think it makes business sense.
Why should the browsers contradict them?
Should the doorman at a movie theatre allow the potential customers walk in for a "preview" with no ticket?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday July 22 2019, @12:59PM
The difference between a single news article and a movie ticket is that the latter has a greater total price. Each electronic payment incurs a cost that the payment processor bills to the merchant. Some of this cost depends on the total; some does not. For credit cards in the United States, it might be 30 cents plus 3 percent.
This is why a lot of lower-margin brick-and-mortar businesses don't take cards for transactions below $5, and why a lot of online businesses don't sell small goods at all (or sell them only in large multi-packs).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @03:25AM
"So, I walk into a restaurant in Yakima, WA, and slip on a puddle of dog pee on the floor..."
There, FTFY.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mer on Monday July 22 2019, @09:50AM (4 children)
From what I understand, this is about the sites that do let you access a small number of articles for free before paywalling refusing to show anything in incognito mode. Not entirely paywalled sites.
You can still manually remove the cookies and browse in normal mode.
A better analogy would be "We have free samples. A hippie had to be ousted after trying to eat the whole platter. Now we won't allow you in the store unless you have a fresh haircut."
Except to the media site, their whole stock is free samples because they don't understand how the tech works and prefer being spiteful about it rather than get a business model that makes sense.
Shut up!, he explained.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday July 22 2019, @02:13PM (3 children)
First of all, I'm pretty sure they "understand how the tech works." They just implemented a solution that will work with 98% of people browsing their site, because PEOPLE (in general) don't understand how tech works.
Second, I don't view this as "spiteful" at all. They want to set the terms for a user to use their content/service. You don't like it? Don't use their website. The New York Times has no legal or moral obligation to serve people browsing in Incognito Mode. Too many people don't like it? Well, then their business model fails. On the other hand, maybe the "hippies" aren't enough of their potential subscriber base that they care about whether they're excluded -- and maybe they can get enough people to sign up otherwise to pay their bills.
Frankly, it's clear what their intent is. If you do something like delete cookies to get around their restrictions, it's somewhat dishonest (and probably against terms of service). Note that I'm NOT saying they have a "good" business model or that I agree with how they are setting things up. But it's their content, and they've pretty clearly set up a system to tell you how they'll allow you to access it. If you find a technical loophole around it, it's not very different from finding a way to fake an electronic key signal to sneak through a door into a movie theater without paying. Should the theater have implemented better security on its doors? Maybe. But you're still taking an end-run around how the managers clearly intend for you to access their service.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday July 22 2019, @03:36PM (2 children)
I don't think you have to be a tech genius to notice that all news sites carry 99% the exact same content and that reading about the latest story on different sites is an exercise in experiencing redundancy. When I hit one of those "you've read three articles" things, almost invariably I can find the exact same content by running the the exact same headline through a search engine.
The ONLY thing a news site might have that won't be found elsewhere is local news and non-syndicated opinion columns, but if you're looking for opinion stuff, the internet is full of it. That leaves local news but that's also easy to get around. In large markets the content is likely to be repeated over multiple local sources. If the local news is serious, it will be covered widely. The only thing that is really left to effectively block, is local news in small markets of an inconsequential nature -- like closing a public park for construction or something like that, and such news is easy to live without.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday July 22 2019, @05:48PM (1 child)
I'm not really sure what this has to do with the quotation you drew from my previous post, given that I was talking about the New York Times, which (unlike many online news sources) still produces a large amount of original content. Sure, they still report wire stories, as most newspapers do, and that's a significant chunk of their content.
But the ONLY time I go to the New York Times site is to read articles that aren't available anywhere else, and that's usually a few times per month. Some sources -- like the New York Times or the New Yorker or the Atlantic, etc. -- still produce a significant amount of longer articles ("features," investigative reporting, etc.) that originate with them.
It's pretty rare I hit the NYT cap of articles per month, but I have, because occasionally I get links sent to me from friends or see links to articles on sites (like this one) that have original content I can't find elsewhere. It isn't all "opinion" or "local news" as you assert in your reply either.
If we were discussing 99% of online news sources, I'd pretty much agree with you. That wasn't the example under discussion. The Washington Post also has more in-depth coverage of D.C. politics often too, but I've given up on WaPo links, because they clearly don't want free users at all. (And I also disagree seriously with some of their editorial decisions over the years, so I question their integrity as a news organization.) I also don't follow Wired links either, because they made it clear that they don't want people with ad blockers. But Wired too often has original technology article features that aren't published elsewhere.
What you seem to be talking about as "news" isn't really what I want to read. That's the everyday soundbite-length ephemeral crap the media spoons up every morning to keep people numb to real in-depth conversation and ideas. The kind of articles I want to read -- and do, for the most part, read -- are often content I can't find at other "news" organizations, because they tend to be feature-length in-depth reporting that doesn't go out on the AP wire.
But to each his own. If you find all of the content you want to read anywhere, and you're getting it from organizations who are legally qualified to republish it and are happy with your choice to not employ blockers, enjoy!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday July 22 2019, @08:06PM
My point was that you don't need to be a computer genius to avoid a paywall -- most ordinary users will be able to do that.
As for NYT and WaPo -- if I want war starting propaganda or Bernie hatred, then yeah, I'd go there. But I have them in /etc/hosts because I view them as far more dangerous and disingenuous than anything out there. The NYT cost how many lives cheerleading for the Iraq war? The WaPo had a major hand in giving us Hillary which is indistinguishable from giving us Trump (although I have to say, we haven't gotten in any new wars with Trump beyond a few low level skirmishes in Syria -- Trump was definitely the lesser evil because if we had HRC, I have no doubt we'd already be two years into some ground war in Syria).
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 22 2019, @11:01AM (5 children)
The browser doesn't need to make it easy for the provider site to determine incognito status.
Most sites probably care more about ad blockers than the incognito mode, and news sites should be able to determine "remaining article" status for people who are using their own IP with incognito mode.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Pino P on Monday July 22 2019, @12:50PM (4 children)
Mobile ISPs don't give each subscriber his or her own IPv4 address. Nor do home ISPs in many less-developed countries. Instead, they put subscribers behind carrier-grade NAT, where everyone connected to the same tower or in the same neighborhood has the same IP address for outgoing connections, and no one can accept an incoming TCP connection.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 22 2019, @12:57PM (3 children)
To be clear, I don't care if it doesn't work. They can just lock it up tight like Washington Post if they want to lose eyeballs.
At home and not on a phone, I have the same IP every day unless I make it not so. That may be the case for many Globe/NYT/LATimes readers.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday July 22 2019, @01:02PM (2 children)
Then the site would just tell you that five other viewers in your neighborhood with whom you share this "same IP every day" have already used up the five free articles for that IP address and month.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Monday July 22 2019, @03:01PM (1 child)
I fail to see how this is my problem. If a site has a "5 free articles a month" policy, I probably don't visit it on purpose anyhow.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 22 2019, @06:47PM
Any site with $X free articles per month, where $X is less than positive infinity, is a site I do not wish to visit. Thank you site. Good bye
buy.The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 22 2019, @12:10PM
If a site wants to limit its content to paying customers only, fine.
But don't offer a 'free loophole' to work around the paywall.
Either go 100% paywall (and watch your subscriptions and add revenue plummet) or quit trying to 'meter' usage and just let everyone view (and see your ad revenue increase).
(Score: 4, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Monday July 22 2019, @02:58PM
Then they can give a login that requires a credit card. Seems fair.
Instead, their "payment" is demanding to go through your purse of wallet and making copies of your identification, and collecting a detailed history of every other store and restaurant you have visited and your purchase history.
Fuck that, fuck them, and fuck you.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh