People use private or incognito browsing for a variety of reasons when looking at LinkedIn. The most common reasons are:
- Viewing profiles anonymously – People want to look up someone’s profile without that person being notified or LinkedIn tracking your visit. This allows people to research connections, former colleagues, recruiters, and potential employees without anyone knowing.
- Separating professional and personal browsing – Keeping professional and personal browsing separate by using regular tabs for personal browsing and private tabs for anything work-related on LinkedIn.
- Accessing locked profiles – Viewing profiles of people who have set their profiles to private. These profiles are not accessible to those not connected in regular browsing.
- Getting around free article limits – Sites like LinkedIn limit free articles per month. Using private browsing allows people to bypass the limit and continue reading.
- Avoiding disruptions to algorithms – Services like LinkedIn personalize feeds and recommendations based on your browsing history and activity. Private browsing prevents disrupting these algorithms.
In general, people want to browse LinkedIn anonymously so their activity isn’t tracked. This gives them more control over their privacy and separation of professional and personal identities online.
Looking at Profiles Anonymously
One of the main reasons people use private browsing for LinkedIn is to look at profiles without the person being notified. On LinkedIn, when you look at someone’s profile, they receive an alert that you visited their profile. This applies to anyone that looks at your profile as well.
For many people, getting these visit notifications is distracting and unwanted. It can disrupt their workflow if they are browsing LinkedIn to do research. The notifications can also lead to unwanted conversations if someone keeps getting notified that you looked at their profile multiple times.
By using private browsing, you can avoid these profile visit notifications. The person won’t know you looked at their profile at all. This gives you more control over when and how interactions occur.
You can research people’s backgrounds, work histories, skills, and connections without making it obvious. This is especially helpful when looking at the profiles of competitors, potential hires, key decision makers, or anyone else relevant to your business needs.
Private browsing allows for more anonymous viewing without revealing your activity and intentions. Your browsing history isn’t recorded either, adding another layer of privacy.
Researching Without Notifying Connections
Private browsing is useful when you want to research and learn more about your own connections on LinkedIn. With regular browsing, they will receive alerts any time you look at their profile. This could come across as strange if you keep looking at a connection’s profile without any clear reason.
By using private browsing, you can look up their work history, skills, education, and other details discreetly. You can learn more about common connections, what they’ve been up to lately, and any updates to their roles or experience without them knowing.
This added privacy helps you research your own network more freely without awkward notifications. It allows you to gather helpful information that can aid you in more natural future conversations, collaborations, or other opportunities.
Separating Personal and Professional Browsing
Maintaining separate personal and professional browsing is another common reason people use private LinkedIn browsing. You likely behave differently on LinkedIn compared to personal accounts. Your activity might reveal behavior you don’t necessarily want associated with your professional identity.
Private browsing contains your LinkedIn activity in a silo. Your profile, feeds, and browsing stay separate from personal browsing. Any history, cookies, temporary files, searches, and activity only exist within that silo. Once you close the tab, they are deleted.
This separation of work and personal browsing minimizes crossover. Your professional identity and brand on LinkedIn remain untainted by unrelated activity that could be deemed unprofessional.
You also may want this separation so LinkedIn activity doesn’t clutter your personal browsing history. Private browsing allows you to keep things tidy and compartmentalized.
Accessing Locked Profiles
Private browsing modes in browsers provide a workaround for accessing locked profiles on LinkedIn. Some people configure their profiles to only be visible to direct connections. This prevents the public, recruiters, and anyone else from seeing their profile.
However, in some cases, you still might want or need to access these locked down profiles. Reasons could include:
- Researching a potential business partner or vendor.
- Vetting a potential candidate as part of the interview process.
- Viewing a profile of someone in a particular role at a key partner company.
- Gathering useful information prior to requesting a connection.
With private browsing, LinkedIn thinks you aren’t logged in at all. This allows you to bypass the connection requirement to view locked profiles. While unethical in some cases, it provides a way to access profiles in a read-only public viewing mode.
Do note that private browsing isn’t foolproof here as scripts and browser fingerprints could still identify you as the visitor. But in general, it does allow you to research and view locked profiles without linking them directly to your account.
Getting Around Free Article Limits
Many sites like LinkedIn limit the number of free articles or pieces of premium content you can view per month. Once you hit the limit, they require you to subscribe or purchase a premium membership to continue reading.
Private browsing provides a shortcut around theseRestrictions. Since cookies, caches, and browsing histories are isolated and deleted in private mode, the site loses track of what you’ve viewed.
Each time you open a new private browsing window, the article count resets. You can continue reading freely without interruptions. This gives unlimited access without paying.
Do keep in mind this is against most site’s Terms of Service. Private browsing is meant for enhanced privacy, not for circumventing paywalls. But it does provide a simple workaround for those looking to read a few extra articles without a subscription.
Avoiding Disruptions to Algorithms
Your activity on LinkedIn determines what you see in your feeds and recommendations. LinkedIn personalizes this content based on profiles and topics you engage with most. These algorithms draw from your browsing history, likes, searches, follows, posts, and more.
If you want to browse LinkedIn without impacting these algorithms, private browsing prevents it. Your activity within a private browsing session won’t influence recommendations and curation in your main account.
For example, say you want to research a competitor by engaging extensively with their company page and employee profiles. Without private browsing, LinkedIn may start recommending more content from that competitor. Your browsing shapes the algorithms.
Private browsing contains that activity in a silo, limiting unintended consequences. Once you close the tab, its impact disappears. Your main feed remains personalized to your normal browsing behavior.
This allows you to research, explore, and engage freely without worrying about polluting recommendations and activity. You can prevent disruptions to the algorithms intended to aid your goals on LinkedIn.
Browsing Privately at Work
Many people use private browsing at work to access LinkedIn without concerns over the company seeing their activity. If your workplace monitors browsing on company devices and networks, private browsing gives some protection.
IT departments often log browsing histories, cache files, cookies, and other information to track how employees use company resources. Private browsing limits the trail left behind for your employer to see.
Key reasons people use private mode at work include:
- Applying for jobs discreetly during breaks.
- Handling personal matters like scheduling without it being recorded by employer monitoring tools.
- Researching competitors, partners, vendors without leaving obvious activity trails.
- General privacy over professional identity and browsing at work.
While company devices and networks are still monitored, private browsing contained activity to a temporary isolated session. Once closed, local traces of the activity disappear.
However, don’t assume private browsing fully protects you. Sophisticated tools can still potentially identify sites visited based on DNS lookups and network packet analysis. But it does make tracking browsing harder versus standard modes.
Discreet Job Seeking
One common workplace use case for private LinkedIn browsing is discreet job seeking. Employees often want to browse job listings and recruiter profiles privately without their employer knowing.
Regular browsing on a work computer clearly reveals this activity through various artifacts like history entries, autofill, cookies, and so on. Private browsing contains the job seeking activity so there are no obvious traces left after closing the tab.
While companies can still see the domain visited, they’ll have no local records showing specifically which jobs you viewed or who you connected with. Private browsing provides cover for discreet job hunting.
Just be careful accessing sensitive accounts or entering passwords within private browsing on a company network. Advanced monitoring and keyloggers could capture this information. But basic history and activity tracking is hidden.
Personal Scheduling and Communications
Another reason people use private LinkedIn browsing at work is to handle personal matters that blend professional and personal lives. A common example is scheduling appointments and meetings.
You might need to message someone on LinkedIn to setup a call but don’t want records of the specifics in your browsing history. Private browsing allows you to coordinate scheduling and logistics without leaving a trail an employer can see.
The same applies to other communications like chatting with friends, family members, or partners who happen to be LinkedIn connections. Keeping these personal exchanges private preserves boundaries between your work and personal identities.
Technical Concerns
While private browsing provides additional privacy, there are some technical caveats to understand:
- IPs and DNS queries are still visible – Your company or ISP can see what domains you visit.
- Browser fingerprints still identify your browser uniquely.
- Your activity is hidden locally, but servers may still log details.
- Closing the tab or window clears only local device traces.
- Active logins and services can still connect browsing to your identity.
Advanced corporate monitoring and network tools can also potentially see and reconstruct some browsing activity. Private browsing is not fully anonymous, even on your own device.
Understanding these technical considerations helps identify where some risks remain. You should use private browsing aware of its limitations versus believing it hides all of your activity.
Managing Browsing Data and History
Private browsing is not the only consideration for managing your browsing history. Most browsers also let you:
- Delete/clear history manually or set it to auto-delete after a period of time.
- Clear cookies and other site data like caches either manually or automatically.
- Use tools like tracker blockers to prevent certain activity logging.
- Manage permissions for location, notifications, camera, microphone access.
- Use extensions or settings to block scripts, fingerprints, and other tracking methods.
Combining these steps with private browsing provides added protection. But also be aware that overly restricting browser functionality can break sites and apps.
Finding the right balance depends on your priorities, level of technical comfort, and willingness to trade some convenience for privacy.
Ethical Considerations
While private browsing provides more control over your privacy, it also raises some ethical concerns depending on context.
Some potentially problematic use cases include:
- Stalking or harassing other users anonymously.
- Accessing unauthorized data or accounts.
- Impersonation or hiding your identity under false pretenses.
- Violating terms of service knowingly.
In general, consider if your private browsing puts others at risk or violates their reasonable expectations of privacy. Tread carefully if your aims include deception, accessing information you shouldn’t have, or engaging with sites and people under false contexts.
Transparency Builds Trust
Often it is better to be upfront versus hiding your identity or activity. Private browsing has valid uses but can also enable unethical behavior.
Think carefully about balancing your own privacy desires with transparency. Building trust typically requires authentic, ethical conduct aligned with your stated principles.
If your browsing aims don’t match up with this standard, re-consider why you feel the need to hide. Promoting ethical norms online ultimately benefits everyone more than selfish behaviors focused narrowly on your own interests.
Security and Privacy Best Practices
Here are some best practices to enhance security and privacy around private browsing:
- Avoid entering passwords on public networks or devices – Use your phone if possible.
- Clear all browsing data after finishing private browsing sessions.
- Close all windows fully after each use to clear temporary files.
- Use a reputable VPN to hide your IP and network location.
- Don’t mix sensitive personal accounts with private browsing.
- Limit use of browsers signed into accounts and services.
- Pair private browsing with tracker blockers, script blockers, and other tools.
- Leverage firewalls and other filters to limit network activity monitoring.
Keep in mind using private browsing itself is usually not enough to guarantee full privacy or anonymity. Combine it with other safeguards tailored to your specific context and threat model.
Conclusion
Private browsing provides key benefits on LinkedIn and other sites:
- More control over profile viewing notifications.
- Separation of professional and personal browsing.
- Access to view locked profiles and restricted content.
- Prevention of disruptions to personalized algorithms.
- Discreet browsing at work or on shared devices.
But it isn’t a panacea for full privacy or anonymity. Understanding its limitations and exercising good ethics prevents abuse while still offering useful features to responsibly manage your privacy.
Overall, private browsing enhances privacy as part of a larger strategy. Combined with other tools and prudent precautions, it can help shape your browsing experience on your terms.
