How to Keep Your Mobile Browsing Private

Keeping your mobile browsing private

There are lots of ways that your mobile browser can compromise your privacy, but there are a few precautions that you can take when you are using a popular mobile browser on the go.

While none of these precautions are completely foolproof, they do offer a little more control on how websites track you and what information is saved on your mobile device.

Safari

To adjust your privacy settings in your Safari browser, go over to Settings > Safari. Scrolling down to the Privacy & Security, you will find the following settings that you can toggle on and off:

• Prevent cross-site tracking: These settings would help to stop sites from tracking where you go and what you look at when you go to another site.
• Block all cookies: Cookies are developed when you visit a website and can be very helpful when you are loading sites that you frequently visit. If you want, Safari can allow you to block the cookies completely.
• Ask websites not to track me: This allows websites to know that you do not want to be tracked across the internet. In reality, however, websites are free to decide if they do not want to respect your do not track request settings.
• Fraudulent website warning: With this feature turned on, Safari would allow let you know if the current website that you are visiting is known for phishing scams in the past.
• Camera & microphone access: Keep this setting turned off if you do not want to grant any web application access to your camera and mic automatically.
• Check for Apple Pay: Keep this particular setting turned off if you do not want to use your Touch ID or Face ID for browser purchases when you are using Safari.

If you do not want Safari to save your history on your phone, you will need to browse in private mode. You can do this by opening up your Safari, tapping the tabs button in the bottom right corner of the screen, and tapping Private.

To wipe your browsing history, go over to Settings > Safari and tap Clear History and website data.

Chrome

To tweak your privacy settings in the Chrome browser, open the application, and go to Settings > Privacy. You will want to adjust the following settings:

• Safe browsing: With this feature turned on, Chrome would let you know if the website that you are visiting is known for phishing scams.
• Do not track: This setting lets sites know you do not want to be tracked across the internet.

To browse in private mode, you will need to open up Chrome, tap the menu button (three dots), and tap the New incognito tab.

If you want to clear your search history, go over to Settings > Privacy > Clear browsing data. You can delete your browsing history; cookies, and site data; and cached images and files and settings.

Firefox

To adjust your privacy settings in Firefox, open up the application, and go to the Menu and tap Settings > Privacy.

You can adjust the following settings:

1. Do not track: This tells sites to know you do not want to be tracked across the internet.
2. Tracking protection: By default, this is enabled in private browsing only, but you can as well turn it on it for regular browsing.
3. Clear private data on exit: Firefox will automatically clear your data when you quit the app.
4. Remember logins: If you don’t want Firefox to save your login info, you can turn this feature off.

DuckDuckGo

If you want a much simpler approach to a private mobile browsing experience, among the many apps DuckDuckGo offers, is a free mobile browser for iOS and Android users.

DuckDuckGo automatically does the following:

1. Blocks hidden trackers.
2. They make sure that the sites use an encrypted connection where available.
3. It defaults to DuckDuckGo as the search engine. DuckDuckGo doesn’t track any of your search histories, unlike popular alternatives like Google.
4. You can clear all your tabs and browsing history with the Fire Button.
5. The browser will also come with a Privacy Grade rating for sites from A to F, allowing you to know how much a site is trying to track your activities.