Overview
- A Chromium code commit discovered Monday shows developers are building real‑time Safe Browsing checks into Chrome’s Incognito mode to close a known protection gap.
- Today, Incognito relies on a locally stored list of dangerous sites while standard Chrome uses a local known‑safe list plus online queries to Google’s privacy servers for real‑time validation.
- The commit indicates Incognito may offer user choice between Standard and Enhanced Safe Browsing settings and that engineers plan designs to keep Incognito session details on the user’s device.
- Google has not announced a release date and the feature is still in development and review, so testers and users should expect further changes before any rollout.
- The change follows user distrust after Google’s 2024 settlement over Incognito privacy claims and could force a trade‑off for users between stronger phishing/malware protection and concerns about remote queries.