Although Chrome for iOS hasn’t seen a steady release since November, amid a continuous pause in updates, Google continues to work on the beta channel and is currently testing a way to block anonymous guides with Face or Touch ID.
Chrome will allow you to “lock anonymous tabs” so that they are blurred in the tab switcher “until you confirm it’s you” using Touch or Face ID. Google calls it a way to “add more security” while you do multiple tasks at the same time between applications.
This is also useful when allowing someone else to use your iPhone or iPad to perform a new search. In this hypothetical scenario, a user who politely opened another tab to do his business, wants to close it after it is completed. In the process of doing this, they can see all the windows that you have opened on the switcher.
The ability to block Chrome’s incognito tabs is similar to a feature in the main Google Search app that uses biometrics to “confirm that it’s you when you return to an anonymous session after 15 minutes.”
Google Drive has a similar “privacy screen” that requires fingerprint or facial confirmation whenever you open the file storage app. However, there is an option to delay authentication by 10 seconds, one minute or 10 minutes during multitasking.
Despite being listed in the release notes, this feature is not yet available to all beta users. There appears to be a server-side component, while the public release of Chrome 89 is expected next month – assuming that Google’s iOS update is resolved by then. Once live, it will be controllable in Settings> Privacy> Block incognito tabs when you close Chrome.
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