Incognito, or InPrivate browsing, is a browsing scheme through which users can browse the internet without leaving a trail in the browser.
Incognito browsing prevents anyone else who might be using a system from seeing the previous user’s browsing.
It doesn’t store any information related to the user’s browsing pattern.
Incognito browsing is available in almost all the browsers, i.e., Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, etc.
When the user starts Incognito browsing, it opens a new browser window. The information regarding the browsing, i.e., cookies, temporary files, etc., does get stored. Still, they are stored in a protected area controlled by the operating system, and no process is allowed access to those resources.
Once the browser closes the Incognito session, all those cookies and temporary files are deleted, leaving no trace on the system. The information that is affected because of Incognito browsing are cookies, temporary Internet files, web page history, form data, passwords, auto-complete information, etc.
All this information does get stored temporarily but cleared when the user exits the Incognito session.
Incognito browsing is a means of defense against the hackers and software which might want to access the browsing patterns of the user and, based on that, either use that information for the malicious purpose of presenting targeted ads to the user for luring them to sites that might be harmful.
Deleting the files mentioned above will prevent session hijacking attacks and avoid re-using cookies for malicious use.
However, a few things need to be kept in mind regarding Incognito browsing. Incognito browsing doesn’t protect against traffic sniffing as packets will still traverse the network. Finally, if you have added any bookmarks to the browser, they will not be removed.