What incognito or private mode really hides

Private browsing hides your activity from other people who use the same device. It does not hide it from websites, your network or your internet provider.

What it does

Every main browser has the mode under its own name: Incognito in Chrome, Private Browsing in Firefox and Safari, InPrivate in Edge. They all do the same few things. When you close the private window, the browser throws away:

the history of pages you opened in it,
the cookies and site data those pages saved, which also logs you out of everything,
what you typed into forms and search boxes.

During the private session, sites also cannot read the cookies of your normal windows, so you appear as a visitor who is not logged in.

What it does not do

Who	Can they still see your activity?
Websites you visit	Yes. They see your IP address and everything you do on the site
Your internet provider	Yes. It sees which sites you connect to
The owner of the Wi-Fi (office, college, cafe)	Yes, in the same way
Your employer or school on a managed device	Yes. Monitoring software works below the browser
A site you log in to	Yes. Logging in tells it who you are
Other people using the same device later	No. This is the one thing it hides

It also does not protect you from viruses, fake sites or harmful downloads, and the things you choose to keep remain: files you download and bookmarks you save stay after the window closes.

Your IP address is the same in a private window. Open our home page in both kinds of window to see for yourself. Your browser fingerprint is almost the same too.

When it is useful

On a shared or borrowed computer: check your email at a cyber cafe or a friend's laptop without leaving your login behind. Close the window when done.
Buying a surprise gift on the family computer.
A second login: open another account of the same site without logging out of the first.
Seeing a page as a stranger sees it, without your saved preferences, or checking prices and search results without your history shaping them.
Sensitive searches you do not want appearing as suggestions later.

Common false beliefs

"It hides me from my internet provider." It does not.
"It makes me anonymous." It does not.
"Flight prices rise if I search twice, and incognito stops that." Private mode does hide your cookies from the site, but do not count on it to change a price.
"Nobody can ever recover what I did." The device's DNS memory, the router's logs and the network's records are outside the browser's control.

For more privacy, add the right tool

To hide the sites you visit from the local network or provider: a trustworthy VPN.
To reduce tracking across sites: a browser with tracking protection, and fewer logged-in sessions.
To hide your address from websites as well as you can: the Tor Browser.
On a shared computer: a separate user account for each person is better than remembering to use private windows.

Can my Wi-Fi owner see my incognito history?

They can see which sites the device connected to, though not the pages inside sites that use HTTPS. Private mode changes nothing about that.

Does incognito mode save passwords?

No. Anything typed in a private window is forgotten when it closes, unless you choose to save it.

Is private mode on a phone any different?

No. It works the same way in mobile browsers. Remember to close the private tabs; they stay open until you do.