Tracking of incognito/privat browsing

[martin_munkn548]

Hi! 

Any insights or recommendations on how to track if a visitor uses incognito browsing when visiting a website? 

There are several ways to identify if the visitor ID was previously unseen (i.e. Visit Number = 1), but this does not infer the user using incognito browsing mode.

Ideally, an s.prop-value or an Omniture/Adobe Analytics plugin would be able to detect the browser mode, so a distinction between 'standard' and 'incognito'/'in-private' can be made.

Any help would be much appreciated :) 

Martin

[EricMatisoff]

Hi Martin,

Unfortunately, this is not possible due to the way that browsers completely clear all cache, cookies, and history when accessing Incognito/Privacy Mode. Other than those three items being cleared, there's no other way to identify that a user is running their browser in these modes. Here's some more information on why this is not possible: http://stackoverflow.com/a/22623958

[peterH3]

Hi Eric, any update on this? Running into this issue more often now. Would love to hear if Adobe has a solution now. Thx.

[martin_munkn548 · Accepted solution]

Actually, I've found a workaround that works for most major browsers except IE. I've been running some tests and not seen any misdetection. 

The javascript I'm using is this - but it might have some holes I'm missing? If you're aware of this, please let me know :) 

Script: 

// Opera 8.0+
var isOpera = (!!window.opr && !!opr.addons) || !!window.opera || navigator.userAgent.indexOf(' OPR/') >= 0;

// Firefox 1.0+
var isFirefox = typeof InstallTrigger !== 'undefined';

// Safari 3.0+ "[object HTMLElementConstructor]" 
var isSafari = Object.prototype.toString.call(window.HTMLElement).indexOf('Constructor') > 0 || (function (p) { return p.toString() === "[object SafariRemoteNotification]"; })(!window['safari'] || safari.pushNotification);

// Internet Explorer 6-11
var isIE = /*@cc_on!@*/false || !!document.documentMode;

// Edge 20+
var isEdge = !isIE && !!window.StyleMedia;

// Chrome 1+
var isChrome = !!window.chrome && !!window.chrome.webstore;

// Blink engine detection
var isBlink = (isChrome || isOpera) && !!window.CSS;

if (!isEdge && !isIE) {
    new Promise(function (resolve) {
    var db,
    on = function(){ resolve(true) },
    off = function(){ resolve(false) },
    tryls = function tryls() {
        try {
            localStorage.length ? off() : (localStorage.x = 1, localStorage.removeItem("x"), off());
        } catch (e) {
            // Safari only enables cookie in private mode
            // if cookie is disabled then all client side storage is disabled
            // if all client side storage is disabled, then there is no point
            // in using private mode
            navigator.cookieEnabled ? on() : off();
        }
    }

    // Blink (chrome & opera)
    window.webkitRequestFileSystem ? webkitRequestFileSystem(0, 0, off, on)
    // FF
    : "MozAppearance" in document.documentElement.style ? (db = indexedDB.open("test"), db.onerror = on, db.onsuccess = off)
    // Safari
    : /constructor/i.test(window.HTMLElement) ? tryls()
    // IE10+ & edge
    : !window.indexedDB && (window.PointerEvent || window.MSPointerEvent) ? on()
    // Rest
    : off();
}).then(function (isPrivateMode) {
    if (isPrivateMode) {
    b.privateBrowsing = "Yes"
    }
});
}