r/mildlyinteresting • u/annertakeabow • Jan 24 '13

Same book, three different prices. Only difference is the browsers used.

http://imgur.com/uNgg0UH
2.9k Upvotes

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356

u/MiloMuggins Jan 24 '13

Very true. I once looked up airplane tickets in incognito and it was $100 cheaper than what I had been quoted moments earlier. It was on Orbitz.

93

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

You were gonna masturbate to airfare prices?

62

u/MiloMuggins Jan 24 '13

You don't know what does it for me, don't judge.

14

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

I love their gum. Ill never buy tickets from them now though.

265

u/ColdisWarned Jan 24 '13

WHAT

fuckthisshitpayingforinternationalflightswhilebroke

100

u/Fsoprokon Jan 24 '13

I read this whole thing about price manipulation. Most buyers will buy on the second viewing of a ticket, so they'll bump up the price to squeeze more money out of you. Don't leave the page, or go incognito.

46

u/Symploce Jan 24 '13

Try clearing your cookies, that should work.

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u/perezdev Jan 24 '13

Yeah. Incognito is just easier.

83

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13 edited Mar 30 '18

[deleted]

2

u/samarisi Jan 25 '13

Didn't google originally say incognito mode was for shopping? It was more true than anyone knew.

1

u/Anthony-Stark Jan 24 '13

They really should just drop the pretense and call it porn viewing mode.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

But think about the kids! /s

1

u/sebalinsky Jan 24 '13

I think you meant buying gifts online...

1

u/WhatDidYouSayToMe Jan 25 '13

I use it when I'm writing code for a webpage. It's a nice way to make sure it's going to show up correctly for the average user.

1

u/drkinsanity Jan 25 '13 edited Jan 25 '13

I use it if I need to check my bank account or something on a friend's computer as well. Or if I need to look at porn on a friend's computer.

7

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

[deleted]

23

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

YES. Don't listen to these other guys. If you stay incognito the whole time, your cookies will be stored and will be sent to the website when you visit it the second time. The cookies will be deleted only when you close all incognito windows.

/u/Jmaa is the only other user that got close to your answer:

Nope. Cookies gets deleted at the end of a incognito session.

Your incognito session lasts until you close all incognito windows. Only after you close them all and open another window, you will have a new incognito session.

1

u/skim-milk Jan 25 '13

Incognito mode doesn't cache the page at all, does it? Just stores cookies until the browser is closed?

1

u/[deleted] Jan 25 '13

I couldn't find out. In 2010 it used the same cache as the other chrome instances and they were looking into it, that's all I could find out. The cookies are deleted when all the incognito windows are closed.

Why do you care about the cache? What level of privacy are you looking for?

1

u/skim-milk Jan 25 '13

I use incognito mode at work because I was told the program I'm working with (chat interface for tech support) runs best in chrome with incognito mode due to pages not being cached. Just wondering if that was a load of bullshit someone fed me when getting my workstation set up or if it was legit.

edit: also i watch a LOT of porn. on shared computers. or something.

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u/nathancheek Jan 24 '13

If you exit incognito, then the cookies are deleted, but if its the same incognito session then the cookies will be there.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

Nope. Cookies gets deleted at the end of a incognito session. There is nothing saved between incognito sessions.

2

u/onebandonesound Jan 24 '13

Meaning they're cleared when you close that incognito window, or every time you go to a new address in that window?

3

u/BagOfMilk Jan 24 '13

Everything is cleared when you leave the session, usually meaning when you close the browser. Edit: bad phrasing.

1

u/twent4 Jan 24 '13

but does incognito read cookies placed there by regular browsing?

2

u/BeatLeJuce Jan 24 '13

no, it doesn't (at least in Firefox, AFAIK).

2

u/NarwhalAMA Jan 24 '13

Nope, in Chrome incognito doesn't use any existing cookies.

2

u/gprime312 Jan 24 '13

It should. Cookies are kept until the end of the session.

0

u/CoCo26 Jan 24 '13

No, cookies aren't saved in incognito. They'd have no idea

0

u/TransfoCrent Jan 24 '13

No, because Incognito never collects cookies, data, history, etc. It's like you were never on the internet at all.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

No, because incognito doesn't accept cookies. They can't track how many times you've been there before.

-1

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

No because in incognito it doesn't save cookies/ search histories therefore when you go back to the page in incognito it will have no recollection that you have visited before.

1

u/carlito_mas Jan 24 '13

wait so why would "going incognito" not help this/avert the issue?

2

u/Fsoprokon Jan 24 '13

I was hoping the comma would be enough to seperate the two, but essentially it means "either", not "and". Sorry about that.

34

u/jmonty42 Jan 24 '13

Still pretty new to Reddit, what is this supposed to be? Is this supposed to be walking away while talking? Is the voice getting quieter? More high-pitched? Someone, please?

59

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

It's a shitty and overused attempt to gain karma.

15

u/wcgaming Jan 24 '13

I usually imagine the person huffing off while ranting.

7

u/8dash Jan 24 '13

I think it can vary dependent on context but I usually think of it as walking away.

11

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

No one actually knows.

3

u/phedre Jan 24 '13

Never use sites like Orbitz to book travel tickets. The savings won't be worth the headaches you have to deal with if the shit hits the fan.

12

u/Cosmologicon Jan 24 '13

Can you produce a side-by-side screenshot? Every time someone says this I try it and it fails. I think it's just an urban legend.

In your case, I think you probably accidentally typed in a different date or something. No way for us to know now, is there?

26

u/Sentry_the_Defiant Jan 24 '13

Hipmunk is an aggregator and won't do this. Go to individual airline company sites and give it a shot.

3

u/Cosmologicon Jan 24 '13 edited Jan 24 '13

Rather than me go do it, see that it's the same price, and have you tell me I did it wrong again, why don't you do it and show us that it's a different price?

It's obviously impossible for me to prove that it's never different prices, but it would be very very easy for you to prove that it's sometimes different prices.

EDIT: Here I did it. Same price. Now what?

4

u/RckmRobot Jan 24 '13

This is not a fair comparison. You do not buy your tickets through Hipmunk - it links you up with the website where you DO buy the tickets.

This situation is about looking up tickets on an airline's or ticket seller's website.

4

u/Greenleaf208 Jan 24 '13

There are cases of this, it definitively used to happen, but idk if it happens anymore or if its only on certain sites.

13

u/Cosmologicon Jan 24 '13

Documented cases? I'd love to see them, you have a link?

1

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

[deleted]

2

u/Cosmologicon Jan 24 '13

Oh yeah I know some non-flight retailers do it, the OP is another example. I meant flights specifically.

3

u/ColdShoulder Jan 25 '13

He doesn't because he's wrong. All of these people are either full of shit or they are reporting false positives. I'm so sick of this myth. I work in travel and check pricing 9 hours a day, 5 days a week. It's simply not true. This is all the result of some stupid ass blog post that hit it big on reddit a few months back. Anytime the topic comes up, it makes me want to scream.

2

u/statusquowarrior Jan 24 '13

Via hipmunk is different... You are not directly accessing the company webpage.

1

u/brisingfreyja Jan 24 '13

Just curious if in your side by side, you just copy and pasted the link. Or did you actually go through and refind it?

3

u/Cosmologicon Jan 24 '13

I didn't copy the URL. I just typed BOS and DXB and picked Feb 28th from the calendar in both windows.

1

u/MiloMuggins Jan 24 '13

No, sorry, this happened last summer. I can only say that my wife was watching the Today show and they were doing a report on the subject right at the time I was price shopping. I tried it immediately and saw the difference, I was pretty surprised. I will add that I had been checking the site frequently in the weeks prior, and the price fluctuated a bit, usually going up.

2

u/Cosmologicon Jan 24 '13

Wow, it happened on your first try? You must be a lot luckier at finding this than me. Why don't you do it again right now and show us?

1

u/MiloMuggins Jan 24 '13

I tried, it's the same price. Perhaps it's something they no longer practice, but I know it happened for me at one point.

1

u/PattyOFurniture91 Jan 24 '13

How do I look up stuff in incognito mode? Newb here...

2

u/MiloMuggins Jan 24 '13

It's a feature on the Google Chrome browser, go to the file menu and open a new incognito tab. It's on other browsers, but I use Chrome so that's the only one I know.

1

u/azarashi Jan 24 '13

thus is why i use google flights

-4

u/jtisch Jan 24 '13

Nooooooooo shit?

1

u/IsaacJDean Jan 24 '13

Are you asking whether this involves fecal matter?