The short version
FocusDragon's AI assistant pauses while private browsing windows are open as a privacy guard. URL-level and DNS-level blocking is unaffected and works fine in private windows.
Why we designed it this way
Browser extensions do not, and should not, read page text in incognito mode — that's the whole point of incognito. Rather than silently degrade classifier quality on private tabs, we explicitly pause the AI assistant while any private window is open. Treating private browsing as private is the honest contract.
What still works in private/incognito tabs
If your block doesn't use AI-classified focus and is just a URL/DNS block, it works completely normally in private windows, provided you granted the extension Private Browsing access (Safari) or Allow in Incognito (Chrome and other Chromium browsers).
- DNS-level (whole-domain) blocking — always works, every browser, every window mode. /etc/hosts doesn't care about incognito.
- URL-level blocking via the extension — works in private windows IF you granted the per-browser private-mode permission. Without it, private windows bypass URL-level blocking.
- AI classification — paused while private windows are open as a privacy guard.
Most users miss the per-browser private-mode permission. If you depend on URL-level blocking and sometimes use private windows, go back to each browser's extension settings and explicitly opt in. See the Safari and Chrome pages for the exact toggles.