Nobody wants to be seen by others, especially if it concerns such an important issue as Internet surfing. Anyone knows that users’ actions are monitored. Someone uses data on people’s behavior on the Internet to promote their business. And someone can use information about users’ activity on the network for other purposes: blackmail, surveillance, interception of important data, etc.
So, everyone should know the basics of anonymous surfing. Let’s look at how to open incognito on Mac and consider several ways to ensure anonymity.
It is worth saying that no one of the methods you find on the internet guarantee 100% anonymity. If you set a goal and have the appropriate skills, you can declassify anyone. However, for “peaceful” purposes not related to breaking the law, the following alternatives will be quite appropriate.
And even more… You can consider how to go incognito on Mac from 2 different positions:
- Surfing leaving no marks on your computer.
- Hiding real information about yourself on the Internet.
Let’s consider both options.
How to go incognito on Mac leaving no marks on the computer
It will be useful in different cases. For example, if you go online from not your Mac (for example, from working one or from a friend’s) or you just want to hide your online activity from your family members.
In this case, surfing information will not be visible on the computer, and others will not be able to see what sites you visited. But this information is viewed from the network side.
How to go incognito on Mac in Safari and Chrome
The mode is easily activated.
In this case, you get a message about enabling the so-called private browsing.
Here’s what it looks like in Safari on Mac:
And what it looks like in Google Chrome:
After activating the “Incognito” mode, you can easily visit the necessary pages and be sure that these actions are not stored in the browser history.
IMPORTANT. The history of visiting websites with turning on the incognito mode on Mac is not saved in the browser. But if you bookmark and download files, they remain on the computer. Be sure to clean this information after completing the work!
How to go incognito on Mac without leaving marks on the Internet
When you visit any site, the necessary information is transferred not only to you.
A lot of data is sent to the network in an unnoticeable manner as follows: information about your IP and browser, computer settings, your location, information about your provider, etc.
It is clear that there can be no talk of incognito in this case.
To make it sure, go, for example, to the following site and see how the Internet “sees” you.
It sees the author of the article as follows:
Surfing incognito means hiding this information. In fact, it is not hidden but simply substituted.
And depending on the method of ensuring anonymity, it can be very difficult to reveal real information.
There are many ways to become incognito on the Internet.
Let’s look at the 2 most popular and easily implemented for any user:
- using the Tor browser
- via VPN
Anonymous surfing on Mac using Tor
This is an absolute free way. We will not go into how it operates. To put it simply, you are connected via a browser to an imaginative “input connector” to the Internet, and a certain “output node” accesses the requested web resource on your behalf. And there can be any number of the same “nodes” with their IPs and parameters between the “input” and “output”.
You can download the Thor browser for Mac on the official site torify.me.
It is installed simply:
01. Click on the downloaded .dmg file
02. After that, the unpacking process will begin
03. Then a window will appear, as when installing any other program. You just need to drag the tor icon to the “Applications” folder.
Done. Now the browser can be launched through Launchpad.
IMPORTANT. You can go incognito on Mac only through this browser. Its installation does not allow you to hide data in other browsers.
Let’s check what the same site says about your IP and location if you access it through Tor now.
We see the following picture now:
We see that when working through this browser, you are “visible to the Internet” as an entirely different user.
So, it works. A significant advantage of Tor is the absence of annoying advertising when using it.
But there are also disadvantages in using Tor:
The software is free. And free cheese is only found in the mousetrap. There is no guarantee that your real data is not collected by the browser developers for any purpose. Therefore, you enter your usernames, passwords and other data from sites that are important to you only at your own risk.
How to go incognito on Mac via VPN
VPN also allows you to solve the problem of how to go incognito on Mac. It can be either a special program that is installed on a computer or a browser plug-in.
Let’s look at how this works with the Chrome plug-in called ZenMate.
01. You can download it in the Google Chrome store.
02. Find the ZenMate card and click “Add to Chrome”.
03. After that, an extension icon in the form of a shield will appear in the upper right corner.
04. Click on it and pass the registration (via mail).
After registration, you can get started.
By clicking on the icon you can see which country you are connected to the Internet through. If you use paid tariffs, you have the possibility to select a country.
Now, let’s see what the familiar IP verification service say us about incognito.
We see the following picture now:
So, everything works, and you can surf incognito.
Conclusion
Choose any method convenient for you to ensure anonymity and have good surfing! But still, do not forget that if you go to your personal pages on social networks through “fake” IPs, this can become a “clue”. So, if you want to surf completely anonymously, these above-mentioned means are not enough. For more confidence, you should have separate accounts for this purpose.
