Nowadays, protecting your privacy online has become more difficult than ever. Websites and ad networks use cookies and trackers to track your browsing habits. Apple’s Safari browser offers users a number of features to enhance their privacy. In this article, we’ll cover effective and lesser-known methods you can use to maximize your privacy in Safari and block ad tracking.
Use Privacy Report in Safari
Safari has a powerful privacy report feature to identify and block web trackers. Most users are familiar with this feature, but they tend to overlook its details. The privacy report shows you which websites are trying to track you and analyzes the number of trackers these sites are using.
How to Access the Privacy Report?
- Open Safari and click the Privacy Report icon in the upper left corner.
- The window that opens contains a list of trackers that have been blocked in the last 30 days and the websites that host those trackers.
Reviewing this report regularly can help you understand which sites are trying to track you and allow you to optimize privacy settings for those sites. For example, if you notice a website constantly tracking you, you can disable cookies for that site in Safari.
Optimize Privacy and Security Options in Safari Settings
Although Safari offers many privacy measures by default, you can achieve a higher level of protection by optimizing these settings to suit your own needs.
Block Cross-Site Tracking
- Go to Safari > Preferences > Privacy tab.
- Enable Block Cross-Site Tracking. This prevents third-party sites from tracking you using their cookies.
Managing Cookies
Blocking cookies completely may prevent some websites from working properly. However, if you want to disable cookies on specific sites:
- You can delete cookies for specific sites using the Manage Website Data option in Safari > Preferences > Privacy tab.
This will eliminate tracking cookies from your browser and make it harder for ads to target you.
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3. Use Content Blockers and Customized Filters
Safari supports a variety of content-blocking extensions that block ads, trackers, and cookies. These extensions can be effective in improving your online privacy. However, most users use the default settings of these extensions and do not explore their full capabilities.
Customize Content Blockers
- In addition to blocking ad trackers, content-blocking apps like AdGuard and 1Blocker offer customizable filters to block social media trackers, analytics trackers, and more.
- By going into the plugin settings, you can choose which types of trackers you want to block and create your own filters. For example, you can only block ad trackers on certain websites and allow other content.
This customization allows you to personalize your Internet experience and increases your privacy in areas that concern you.
4. Stronger Protection with Advanced Privacy Settings in Safari
While Safari's default privacy settings should be sufficient for most users, you can use advanced settings to provide more in-depth protection. You can control more features by opening Safari's Developer menu.
Block Trackers with Developer Tools
- Go to Safari > Preferences > Advanced tab and enable "Show Develop Menu in Menu Bar" .
- Go to Develop in the menu bar and select "Web Inspector". Here you can analyze the trackers and cookies a web page uses and block them at any time.
Using these settings, advanced users can more closely monitor tracker activity on specific sites and manually block tracking attempts in the browser.
5. Comprehensive Tracking Blocking with Ad Blockers in Safari
While many users think that ad blockers only block ads, these tools actually protect you from tracking by also blocking ad trackers and third-party cookies.
The Most Effective Ad Blockers for Safari
- Wipr : It provides comprehensive blocking for ads, trackers, and malware. If any ads or trackers are detected, it is automatically blocked by this tool.
- Ka-Block! : Increases page load time and strengthens online privacy by blocking heavy ads and third-party trackers.
Adding these ad blockers to your Safari browser will make it harder for trackers to track you and will also make websites load faster.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some answers to frequently asked questions about blocking ad tracking in the Safari browser and protecting your privacy. This section aims to shed light on the most frequently asked questions users have about Safari's privacy settings and ad blockers.
- Does enabling "Block Cross-Site Tracking" in Safari actually block ads?
No, this option doesn't block ads completely, but it does make it harder for websites and ad networks to use cookies to track you. This results in less targeted ads being shown to you.
- Will content blockers in Safari slow down my internet speed?
Generally, content blockers do not slow down your internet speed, but rather increase it. Page load times are reduced because ads and trackers are blocked from loading.
- Why are Safari's advanced privacy settings important?
Safari's advanced settings allow you to manually block trackers and inspect website behavior, giving you more control over your browser.
- Why don't ad blockers in Safari block all ads?
Some ad blockers allow websites to pass through a "reasonable" number of ads to help generate revenue, but it's possible to block all ads by customizing the settings.
