Google is working to further improve Incognito Mode at OS Level. The company is working to prevent OS “media controls” from showing title/artists/artwork or other details during media playback in Incognito on Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS, Android, and iOS.
When playing a video in incognito mode on Google Chrome for Windows, locking your Windows PC shows the video title and thumbnail on the lock screen from the Incognito session.
Chrome tries not to display MediaSession Information to Windows, but that doesn’t work and you end up seeing video info when you lock your PC. This happens with Microsoft Edge also.
Mozilla took a better measure as it doesn’t expose video/audio details from Private Window on the Windows lock screen, but instead, it shows the “Firefox is playing media” message.
But, this is not intended behavior, even Windows shouldn’t reveal what’s playing inside an incognito window.
Google has had this issue on its radar to hide media metadata from OS while playing in incognito, for more than two years.
Though the company is happy with the Chrome result where the Android device shows the media notification from incognito as “a Site is playing media”, the Chrome team still felt the issue should be fixed at a deep level on OS wise in the case of Android as well.
Google has readied a flag called “Hide media metadata when in incognito”, when enabled, “media metadata will be hidden from your OS’ media player if you are in an incognito session”.
Chrome may modify the following parameters for OS-level media players for media being played in an incognito session:
- Media Title -“Site is playing media”
- Media thumbnail -incognito placeholder
- Media origin
These are proposed UI designs for Chrome OS, Windows, and Mac OS media Controls.
These designs may be outdated and may change when Google works on them now.
The ability to hide media metadata while playing in incognito is currently available in Chrome 117 Canary.
Chrome to apply this change to all platforms.
Final words: Google to prevent the OS (windows, Linux, MAC, Chrome OS, IOS, and Android) from displaying or revealing information such as title, artist, and artwork when video/audio is playing in Incognito Mode in Chrome.
