KEY POINTS
- Both Microsoft and Google have been criticized for their aggressive promotional strategies. While Microsoft promotes Edge and Bing on Windows 11, Google nudges users to sign in, especially when using incognito mode.
- Users have recently reported a large banner appearing on Google.com when they access the site in incognito mode, urging them to sign in. This prompt is especially evident in Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome.
- Google’s motive behind pushing users to sign in, even in incognito mode, maybe to gather more data.
Microsoft often faces criticism for its persistent promotion of Edge browser or Bing on Windows 11. However, let’s not forget that Google, the search engine giant, also begs users to try Chrome or at least sign in to the account when using incognito mode.
Microsoft shows a lot of ads on Windows for Bing. Some may argue these are simple recommendations which can be dismissed, but some critics even went as far as labelling Microsoft’s pop-ups on Windows 11 as malware-esque. Google also appears to be upping its game in encouraging users to sign in.
While I do not support nagging on Windows 11 to try Edge or Bing, it’s important to highlight the two sides of the story. Recently, users have reported seeing a large banner from Google urging them to sign in when they access the search engine (Google.com) in incognito mode.
The pop-up started appearing on Google.com in the past few months, and it seems to have rolled out to everyone over the last several weeks.
As you can see in the above screenshot, this prompt, labelled “Sign in to Google – Access your Google services with one sign-in”, predominantly appears in Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. Interestingly, this prompt only appears when Google detects a user accessing its site in incognito mode.
The same alert does not appear when you browse Google in a regular (non-incognito) window in any browser. This raises an important question: Why is Google so keen on tracking incognito users?
Due to the immense amount of data today, Google may require sign-in even in incognito mode. When browsing incognito, it becomes more challenging for Google to track your online activity. However, by prompting sign-in, even in incognito mode, Google could potentially gather more information about you.
Also, the pop-up is not ‘new’. Google has been begging users to sign in for a while, but it recently updated the banner design to increase its size and encourage more sign-ins.
Google recommends using Chrome, not Edge pop-up
If you ignore this sign-in pop-up and use Microsoft Edge, another pop-up surface, this time suggesting you download Google Chrome. This is also not new, but it shows how desperate Google is for users to sign in or use Chrome browser.
Google has decided to try and convince users to sign in to keep using Google for the best experience. Google has more than 2 billion signed-up users, and almost everyone in the internet world uses the search engine. It seems that’s not enough for Google, though.
