Want to disable Incognito mode of Chrome in Windows 10? In this post, you will read step by step guide on how to do that.
Image: geekermag.com/vinedhiman
Whenever you visit any website in Google Chrome, it keeps the vital data on the page on your hard drive. These files are used for various purposes varying from storing the history of the website which you have visited in a text file called as cookies.
Although, this data is used to improve the browsing experience. On the other hand, if you’re concerned about your privacy, then it also a privacy breach. To help users with this, all the modern browser offer Incognito mode including Google Chrome.
Google Chrome Incognito mode protect your overall privacy by not keeping local data that could be regained later. This mode disables web cache and browsing history in the Chrome browser. Incognito mode is also known by various names like Private Browsing, Private Window, InPrivate Browsing, Porn mode, and Private mode.
Incognito Mode is a handy feature of the Chrome browser. To open Incognito mode in Chrome:
1. Click on three-dot menu icon available at the top right side of the screen.
2. From the menu click on New Incognito Windows.
Alternatively, you can press CTRL + SHIFT + N keyboard combination to open it quickly.
You might also want to learn about How to Start Google Chrome in Safe Mode.
But some users want to disable Incognito Mode of Chrome in Windows 10. There might be a variety of reason why they want to disable Incognito mode. Maybe their smart kids taking advantage of Incognito mode to visit websites which are not suitable for them. Or there might be other strong reasons about which I’m not aware of.
Disable Incognito Mode of Chrome in Windows 10
Whatever is the reason behind disabling Google Chrome incognito mode, the truth is there is no official setting available in the browser to disable chrome the Incognito mode. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do that.
There is a workaround which you can use to disable Incognito mode in Chrome browser. Here’s what you need to do:
Things to Keep in mind:
- This will only work if you’re running Chrome 68 and Windows 10 April 1803 update. As of writing this blog post, both are the latest and stable version for Windows and Chrome.
- You need to have the administrative right for the account or the credentials of admin account.
1. In the Windows 10 Start menu search bar, you need to type regedit and when it appears in the search results, right click and Run as administrator.
When UAC dialog box comes up, click Yes to continue.
2. Next, in the Address bar of Registry editor, you need to copy-paste the following address and hit Enter.
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies
3. Here on the left panel, Right click on the Policies -> New -> Key.
Note: If Google Key is already available under Policies, then skip this step.
You need to name it Google.
4. Now you need to create a new subkey under Google key. For that, right click on the Google -> New -> Key.
You need to name it Chrome.
4. Select the Chrome subkey and head over to right pane, here you need to create new DWORD (32-bit) value with name IncognitoModeAvailability.
Note: In case, you’re running 64-bit machine, still you need to create 32-bit DWORD value.
5. You need to set Value data 1 for the IncognitoModeAvailability DWORD value. For that, double-click on the key, type the value and click OK.
6. Close the Registry editor.
In case, Chrome browser is already running, then close and relaunch it. You will notice that the “New Incognito Window” option is not available in the Chrome menu.
At any point, if you want to bring back the Incognito mode in Chrome browser, then you need to repeat the same steps and change the Value data of IncognitoModeAvailability from 1 to 0.
Frankly speaking, if you follow the steps correctly, this workaround will disable Incognito mode of Chrome in Windows 10. I’m so sure because I have personally tested this workaround and it worked flawlessly.
Find this workaround useful? Do you know any other trick to achieve the same thing? Let me know your thoughts in the comments?
sadly there is no local group policy editor in windows 10 home 🙁
Sorry to hear that you’re running Windows 10 home edition. But I got a solution for you why don’t you check out the most post on how to get Group Policy Editor in Windows 10 Home edition (https://goo.gl/TgEBvH). Once done, you can easily employ the same workaround to disable incognito mode of Google Chrome. I hope this helps you 🙂
This Windows Home workaround didn’t work for disabling incognito mode, unfortunately. I was able to perform all the steps and it shows the mode to be set as disabled, but it’s not.
Update: Found elsewhere that installing Google Canary (dev version of Chrome) will work with Win 10 Home and the gpedit workaround to disable incognito mode. I can confirm that’s the case. In fact, you don’t need to leave Canary installed. I initially installed it side by side with standard Chrome and found Incog mode was gone. I uninstalled Canary, and it is still gone.
I needed to disable incognito on the work computer to help keep receptionists more focused and accountable. This worked perfectly! Thank you!
I’m glad this helped you 😀
THANK YOU!! After much searching, *this worked* when the “IncognitoModeAvailability” regedit would not work for windows 10 and chrome.
I second this comment. I am so relieved to have found a workaround. I *thought* I had completely locked-down the internet for my kids until I found out they could bypass my filters with Incognito Mode . I am beyond thankful that you offered this solution. My main reason for wanting Incognito Mode blocked is because of all of the porn that is everywhere on the internet, and will even show up during otherwise innocent Google and YouTube searches. My children deserve to have their innocence protected as long as possible. Thanks for helping with that!
Everything works except the last step. I have IncognitoAvailability enabled and set Incognito Available Disabled.
At step 8 I cannot open it. I got an error:
The file that you specified it is not valid or too long
Am I supposed to install the program?