Chrome 76 Makes It Easy to Opt Out of Paid Access – for Now
Google’s latest version of Chrome is finally out, and version 76 of the browser has many small features to improve the web experience: a new install button that appears in the address bar for progressive web apps, a new way to customize a dark website. mode ”if you prefer this style of browsing, and Flash is blocked in the browser by default.
Chrome has also fixed Incognito Mode, making it much harder for websites to tell you that you are using it to access their content. Google’s changes make it harder to block your shenanigans, but smart websites have already changed their settings so you can’t get a one-way ticket to free content as you should.
How Google made it harder to detect incognito mode in Chrome
As we previously reported, Chrome 76 fixes a small loophole that some sites on the Internet have used to detect when you have launched your browser in incognito mode. They were just checking to see if they could use the Chrome filesystem API. Since this did not work in incognito mode (in previous versions of Chrome), the site could detect what you were doing and respond accordingly. For example, The New York Times will add a special overlay to news articles that will prevent you from getting free content with this trick:
Chrome 76 by default enables a special flag in your browser – the “incognito filesystem API”, which makes it impossible to determine if you are using incognito mode. However, Chrome’s tweak did not open gateways to free content. Websites like the aforementioned New York Times may not stop you from viewing one free article, but they can definitely deter you from viewing the rest.
How Websites Fight Incognito Mode
The Times aside – this is just the first example that comes to mind – but his website now blocks viewing of articles with a large “Sign up to Read” overlay if you try to use incognito mode to view two items. in a row. The overlay persists if you try to open a new tab and read other articles. (Nice try.)
The same thing happened when I tried to read more than three articles in The Washington Post, or even more than two articles in Medium. Get greedy and you’re locked out no matter what setting Chrome uses to make it harder to detect incognito mode.
The incognito workaround will get very annoying
I hesitate to write about a workaround for Incognito Browsing Blocking websites as I think it’s a great compromise – you get a small amount for free if you need it , but you can’t just hose the content without obeying site rules, account registration or service payment. However, in the interests of fairness, you can reset this counter for any website if you close Incognito Mode completely and reopen it.
Is stealing content wrong? Absolutely. Am I glad that a number of website publishers are limiting their options, to the point of addressing content theft? Absolutely.
I think the current system – one, maybe two free articles per session – is a fair way to deal with an impossible situation that allows people to access content while preventing incognito abuse. And even if you are determined to do your best to read everything on the Internet without paying for it, you will have to stop reading, close the browser, reopen the browser, load the website and click on the new article after the new article is published. … ages very quickly.
Which is less annoying? Pay money for coffee every month to read whatever you want. Try this and keep it incognito in case you’re on a friend’s computer and can’t remember your favorite news site’s login.