Using incognito mode on your browser doesn’t guarantee you complete privacy. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and other entities can still find out what websites you visited in a private browsing session.
Fortunately, it’s easy to delete private browsing data on Linux and prevent others from viewing your browsing history. But first, it’s important to learn whether or not you should trust your browser’s incognito mode.
Do Web Browsers Save Your Incognito Browsing Data?
When you visit a website, a Domain Name System (DNS) server translates the domain name (www.example.com) to an IP address, which connects you to the website’s server. This domain-to-IP address pair gets saved in your system’s DNS cache and is recorded by your ISP.
In some countries, it’s in the law that ISPs retain the browsing data of their customers for a specified time.
The incognito mode only ensures that your browsing activity doesn’t get stored on the browser in the form of history, cookies, and cache, but the DNS entries are still recorded in your system’s DNS cache.
The websites you visit might use your IP address to store preference data about your browsing session, adding to the list of entities that have access to your private browsing data. Not only that, there are several otherways you can get tracked while browsing privately.
How to Delete Private Browsing Data on Linux
Enabling incognito mode ordeleting private browsing historyhelps, but it doesn’t make your browsing session truly private. To delete records of your incognito session from your machine, you need to flush your Linux PC’s DNS cache.
Flush the DNS cache on Linux
The command to flush the DNS cache depends on the caching app you’ve installed. If you use systemd-resolved to cache domain names and IP addresses, run:
On Ubuntu 17.04 and 18.04, use the systemd-resolved command instead:
Apart from systemd-resolved, there are two other well-known DNS caching software, namely nscd and dnsmasq. It’s easy toflush the DNS cache on Linuxirrespective of the caching utility you’ve installed.
It’s Possible to Privately Browse the Internet on Linux
Flushing the DNS cache of your system doesn’t delete the browsing activity logs stored by your ISP or third-party websites. Therefore, you need to maintain precautions if you want to enjoy a truly private browsing session.
Setting up a trusted VPN, using Tor Browser, and clearing your browsing data frequently are the best ways to keep your browsing activity private.
