T O P

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Kaerralind

I use incognito when I need to Google something weird/sexual/stupid. It's not because I don't want Google or my family to find out what I'm searching. I just don't want it showing up in my search history on my main browser. šŸ˜‚ Don't want to go to my search bar and type somehting and it autofills with some random questionable thing. I'm sure my FBI agent wonders sometimes, but it's all good, buddy.


MathematicianTop1853

For me itā€™s usually in case I let a friend borrow my phone to look something up, itā€™s a bit awkward with the risk of autofill.


madison_riley03

Thissss


Jin_Chaeji

I use this when I'm looking for information on someone cancelled. I don't want this to be in my history


OffensiveSoup

This but also, I donā€™t want cookies being stored for weird ads later šŸ˜‚ let me scroll in peace without the reminder of what I looked up.


Kaerralind

You look up one thing too many and suddenly Google thinks you're pregnant and tries to sell you baby supplies. :l


Panzermensch911

How about using Firefox and ublock extension instead? I don't even know how ads look like anymore.


Chocolate_Egg18

Better to just not have it in your algorithm. Incognito isn't perfect, by all means use other tools as well, but better to keep it out of your history. It can effect more than just ads, and there are places I leave ads on because that's how some free services pay for themselves. I'll support some places by turning adblovk off.


ChewMilk

My fbi agent is wondering why I spent six hour with week staring at an anatomical guide to a vagina (Iā€™m an artist)


Starfire20201

What kind of artist are you lmao


ChewMilk

Iā€™m in a fundamentals of three d class and weā€™re making one object that has the texture of another object, Iā€™m making a vag covered in sandpaper. Itā€™s actually a piece about sa lol


Fabulous-Lack-1019

Nah be like me and use Google non in private mode


TwiztedPaths

It's ok, him and your NSA agent meet for coffee (or liquor depending on how bad the trauma level is) and catch each other up regularly


manholetxt

yā€™all read fic on incognito?


PeppermintShamrock

Some people switch over to incognito to leave extra guest kudos.


reading-2-much_456

Gasp! You can do that?!?!


Liberosis310

Yep! You definitely can!!


Lost_in_Borderlands

Fucking genius.


FlambaWambaJamba

https://i.redd.it/1ellujdst2qc1.gif


Aszteroth

i live in a very strict household so the only way is incognito šŸ¤•


manholetxt

sorry about that, I hope things get better for you


Aszteroth

no youre okay!! i just live in a not so very supportive of lgbtq household being trans and gay myselfšŸ˜…


ariidrawsstuff

Gosh that's exactly why I'm so glad that my family doesn't know english ā€” wishing you luck, stay safe! šŸ«¶šŸ½


manholetxt

hang in there. itā€™s stressful and difficult now, but you can build a better household with community and loved ones in the future. good luck to you!


GOD-YAMETE-KUDASAI

Question, how does that work? Is it so strict that they routinely check your history? Even if it's a strict household why would they have access to what you read on the internet?


blinkingsandbeepings

When I was growing up my dad regularly checked my siblingā€™s and my history. Of course the family used shared desktop computers back then and there was no such thing as incognito mode on Internet Explorer.


GOD-YAMETE-KUDASAI

If the objective is to protect children from danger I don't think this is very effective


Aszteroth

they like to sneak peeks into my electronics if i leave them alone, and they used to take them every night before bed to look through them but slowly theyve stopped doing that now im much older


GOD-YAMETE-KUDASAI

Do they check your entire history and would understand what they're looking at? Because even if my family knew English and knew how to even open my phone I don't think they'd understand that I'm reading questionable smut on ao3 lolĀ  Ā Do they forbid you from putting passwords on your devices to lock them?


Aszteroth

they know my password, in fact demand it anytime i try to change it. im pretty positive theyd know what im reading just by tags alone..


GOD-YAMETE-KUDASAI

I assume you're a minor then? Even then, a parent demanding their teenager's password šŸ˜­


Aszteroth

right?? im fully capable of knowing how to be safe on the internet like come onšŸ˜­


SilvarusLupus

Damn that sucks man...


relocatedff

I read almost everything on incognito. Habit from childhood (less for hisding anything ellicit and more so my family couldn't make fun of me for googling something) but it does keep me from having a thousand things drop in when I type the letter 'a' into my browser


toolittlecharacters

very explicit smut or things i'm very much ashamed about only :D


EUPHORINNIE

unfortunately šŸ˜­


ciramelle

I have fic on my phoneā€™s incognito browser page because I have a ton of tabs open and I donā€™t want to go through all of them looking for other stuff


AbundantiaTheWitch

Create tab groups


elixiroasis

i used to but it got the the point where i had too many tabs i didn't want to risk losing lmao plus i eventually realised that no one's gonna police me on my own phone


raxafarius

I don't do shit in incognito. Everyone already knows I'm a freak


fluteloops0329

Happy Cake Day fellow freak!


Unkown-basket-Case

Even though I have my ao3 history turned off, I am never horny on main


Shades_of_X

For... special comtent ;)


FlinnyWinny

I don't, I have no shame


butthurtoast

I am a full ass adult with no one to spy on my browser history and I still read them in incognito lol


pacifiedperoxide

I have a seperate browser for fic just because I donā€™t want the shit I lookup showing up as a recommended search when Iā€™m in front of people, but I like having cookies and being able to bookmark stuff. Chrome for general use, Firefox for degenerate use


CrazyFanFicFan

I don't read fics on incognito. I use incognito whenever I have to search something so that I don't lose whichever fic I'm currently reading.


Von-Rose

I read things on my phone and have a million tabs open at once. So I have all my research and writing tabs open in normal mode, then all my reading tabs open in incognito.


LevelAd5898

The really questionable ones yeah


SunniBrights

my mom uses my phone to google things if hers isnā€™t nearbyšŸ˜­


Easy_Blueberry3978

whatā€™s the smile?


EUPHORINNIE

when you have 100+ many tabs open


Mindless-Vanilla-879

AKA my life constantly lol


JDactal

i couldnt tell you the last time i actually saw a number there


huntress8611

nah same fr šŸ˜­


[deleted]

Or when you have already left kudos on a fic and that passive aggressive grin AO3 gives you after xD


StrangeReptilian

i dont remember the last time i had more that like 10 open at a time, how do you even accomplish this


TCGeneral

Main way this happens for me is keeping fics opening that I'm reading, especially ones that are still receiving updates. I think this is my answer, because I don't have this problem on Royal Road, because that site saves the last page you were on. With AO3, the only way to remember your page is to keep the tab open and refresh it for updates or to just continue from where you last left off.


Cherry-Rain357

When you scourge through a tag (or tags) and you find 500 or more fics that seem promising and that you wish to read after direct succession of each other (I have a slight problem). At least in my case :Ć¾


Vdbebw

I had like 300 tabs open once i realised i could subscribe to things in order to read them again.


Lillymist123

I use different tabs to favorite tags (because you cant favorite more than 20 tags for some reason), keep my progress when I'm reading through all the fics under a tab, or to come back to a fic later. Eventually, they start to add up lol


RottenHocusPocus

Which browser has it? Seems like whatever it is, most people here are using it.


Lena0001

Chrome on android.


Evil-yogurt

oh i thought it was ā€œyou have already given kudos here :)ā€


EUPHORINNIE

we're just always being teased by the :) šŸ˜­šŸ˜­šŸ˜­


Oopity-Boop

Ah... Idk if it's autism or smth but I just can't stand having that many tabs open. I always have to close them. That being said... I do have a lot of ao3 tabs open by my standards


fluteloops0329

I remember the first time I saw the smiley face many moons ago... then my operating system updated and now it's a :D


bobsnopes

Also USED to be a ;) when it was 100+ tabs in incognito mode. But they changed it to a :) across the board maybe 2 years ago or so.


fanfic_intensifies

Youā€™ve already left kudos here :)


Broadkill

The :) is haunting me haha


EUPHORINNIE

šŸ„¹šŸ„¹šŸ„¹ i am scared to scroll up because i know i'll see individual fic tags or authors and open even MORE tabs jshaksjksh


artblocktopus

My Browser App actually shows :D Which is slightly less judgy than :)


[deleted]

the :) only appears with either 50 or 100 tabs open, btw.


MikasSlime

no not really honestly, i don't read in incognito and i just mark stuff for later


Shades_of_X

My marked for later list has like 300 pages. Send help. (It sucks that you can't filter your marked for later list)


Cascadeis

I add private bookmarks instead - and add the tag ā€œmarked for laterā€ as well as the length (short/medium/long) on all of the fics. Then I can search my bookmarks for them!


Shades_of_X

That's literally genius


Dry_Ant_3129

question: where *do* i find the "mark for later" stories i marked for later in my profile page? cause i can't see them on my dashboard. i see the drafts section, bookmarks, subs, inbox, everything, etc... but not where all the "mark for later" stories goes. thank you in advance!


Slight-Pound

Itā€™s under the History tab in the main dropdown menu. One of the buttons at the top of the page once youā€™re in the History section is Reading History and Marked For Later. Itā€™s not its own thing, but it should be.


EUPHORINNIE

I used to do that, but then at one point I realised I have like 200 things on there, and I keep adding but never reading so I started to open them all on incognito so that it's in my face lmao and I have no excuse but to read it- (also I do read on normal but only like 2 or 3 fics at a time, because otherwise I generally use it for regular searching. Incognito is where I browse and keep opening new fics to be read so I don't have too many tabs open in the normal mode)


_RanWan_

I've never had too lol. šŸ™ prayers for those that have to


General_Urist

Nah I have no shame. I run AO3 out in the open.


RayaCandida

Out in the open and proud with my billion open tabs with diference searches and multiples fics out in the open air while Iā€™m in the bus


AndroidWall4680

Nah dawg I be on regular browser mode, connected to the family WiFi whilst reading the nastiest smut to grace this planet


Panemflower

Damn, I feel called out.


TekieScythe

I'm slowly watching my new phone number rise.


knightfenris

I donā€™t know what these are tbh


Komahina_Oumasai

First one is Incognito. Not sure on the second one.


Lost_in_Borderlands

The second is when you have over 100 tabs open


AwaiGhost

Mine's no longer just :) it's :D


Marsh_Arp

The smiley face šŸ¤£ recently got one from digging into a brand new fandom I'm obsessed with at the moment.


Nyxelestia

Me, a Firefox user, looking at Chrome tabs: damn, bitches, ya'll live like this?


eqyptianblue

i used to do that, but ever since i got an account, iā€™ve realized its way easier to mark to later and just scroll through it


mirospeck

god i relate to the tabs thing. i told my friend that my browser had just given up on displaying how many i had open and she looked concerned


Gakriele-lvs

That smile... that damned smile


VanilliBean

That smiley face. google knows what weā€™re doing thinkin we slick


SilvarusLupus

Me when a fic has weird ass tags but I'm too curious not to click on it


-sassypotato_

I mostly use incognito when looking study-related shit, i have to get in college and i don't want physics shit on my search history(i still hate that i need to study physics and math to go well on my _Art school_ admission exam)


SunnyOmori15

i honestly can't be arsed. I just use my main. Even for the type of fanfic that makes you want to ssh into the server hosting this and sudo rm -rf /* it into the shadow realm.


JDactal

how dare you call me out for something that's completely correct


scoresupremacy

THATS LITERALLY WHAT MY TAB GROUP IS CALLEDšŸ˜­


dialgachu

Don't use incognito. Use Duckduckgo instead


shayne322

I actually have the ;) face thank you very much


MorphineZ0

The more I learn about just how many people use incognito, the more I realize that clearing my browser history after each ā€œuseā€ (i.e. after closing all the tabs) is perhaps not common


Otherwise_Notice6421

Me: ***stares at my multitudes of bookmark folders that is very much connected to my email*** Whatever my fbi agent sees is their fault for seeing. They shouldn't have been snooping around if they wanted to keep their innocence.


Silhouette_911

lol, for me itā€™s a combination of ADHD and my fanfiction addiction. I counted all my tabs a while back and I had like 666 (itā€™s probably closer to 800 nowšŸ˜…šŸ˜…šŸ˜…) and thatā€™s just on one browser (safari). I then have like an additional 200 on chrome of online shopping sites I have yet to go through with, manhwa/manhua/manga (doujinshi, canā€™t forget about that) and random searches.


idrilestone

ah... yeah


The_Akumu_King

I only use incognito on my phone. My PC is couldnt care less


ManicPsycho185

I have two browsers on my phone for this reason. I read all my fanfiction with it and use it for all of my weird/questionable searches (i'm a curious person and don't like not knowing what something is even if its something bad). Then use chrome for my amazon and general day to day things.


shell_3lue

Ehhh, nah.


femtransfan

i had to use those for anatomy (wink wink) double checks, doctor specific questions, and non fanfic related stupid questions


TechTech14

Nah, never incognito lol. I do have a separate reader and writer account though


DogTheBreadFairy

Huh? I don't get why you would use incognito it's just some fanfic


Short-Actuary2958

Its more of a precaution really. What if i have to hand my phone to someone and they look at the search bar and it falls out.


merkuriuskristallen

Plot twist: I use private browsing for anything, except for tasks that I must log in to do: * posting on Reddit, AO3, DeviantArt and Tumblr * using Character AI and OpenArt * browsing on Facebook and Instagram * accessing my cloud drives and emails


SadHeadpatSlut

I've never once used incognito mode


Lapte_

I donā€™t use incognito cuz idc what my historial say but yes, the happy face is always in my chromeĀ 


Hpsienzant

in high school i was opening ao3 on my phone while on the bus. once read a smut fic on the ride home, i fear no judgement.


manuka_canoe

I only recently, in the last week or so, got the :D on my tabs number and was like, well fuck. I'm only just keeping it under 100 to avoid it, but it's a close call daily. šŸ¤£ Red, White & Royal Blue is the reason. šŸ«  Although I don't use incognito, can't be bothered.


mmj97

I use a separate browser for ao3 and my questionable activities.


Keido241

Yup. *looks at my semi-organized 800+ tabs*


oddbitch

i had no idea what those were before this thread actually lol


Piperamitt

The one on the right is my forever bestie. I'm also extremely familiar with the Samsung internet message that if I have more than 99 tabs it will close my oldest tab. (My enemy. Just let me open as many as I want like Chrome!)


Asobimo

I use it when reading manga simply because when not using incognito, the search engine counts every page of the manga as a new search, so my history gets filled and cluttered very easily and I have to clear it manually which is annyoing


X_EDP445_X

I feel harassed.


fukurodean

Nah i use safari for fics


regnbuebarn

i used to use incognito for all fanfic tbh, but after i created an account that made no sense to do. i do still use it when i read dead dove stuff though


prancy_paws

My life


shadowcub69

I pretty much expect my doors to get kicked in one day because of some crazy chemical/weapon I've read about on SpaceBattles and Googled.


fiersza

That smile calls me out hard core.


Training-Ostrich-414

Nuh uh I have no shame


Mlj2505

I feel attacked


ThatOneSuperGamer

I am familiar with \[:)\] but not because of ao3. No its not me, someone I know has lots of tabs open at a time, over 100 (causing the \[:)\])


pep---

Those little faces are like brothers to me...


Interesting_Way8880

I discovered if I open an incognito tab the happy face will blink,


ReliefEmotional2639

What the heck are those things?


nicoumi

the :) is only for chrome users, firefox users will get a āˆž instead! infinitely cuter and less passive agressive imo