As the age of mobile computing continues to boom, it’s becoming even more important to protect yourself and your data on your mobile devices. When Apple introduced iOS 5, they added a whole bunch of new features that many people aren’t aware of (I know I wasn’t). One of the coolest “hidden features” was in Safari for iOS. Now you have the ability to browse the web “privately” by enabling Private Browsing on your iPhone/iPad. This ensures that Safari doesn’t keep a record of your web searches, history, or save any passwords/form data. If you’re doing any online shopping or using passwords on your iOS device, this is an essential setting in my opinion. So, how do you do it? Check out the steps below for full instructions on how to enable Private Browsing on your iOS device today!
Step 1. Launch the Device Settings App
Find the device settings application and open it up… Mine is always in the dock on my iPhone, but yours may be elsewhere. Just locate it, tap it, and you’re all set!
Step 2. Find and Launch the Safari Settings Tab
Once inside of the settings section, scroll down and find the Safari Settings tab and launch it. This will take you into your browser settings on any iOS device.
Step 3. Locate Private Browsing and Switch it to “On”
Once inside the Safari Settings, you should look for the Private Browsing option. There is a small toggle switch here that you need to “flip” to the ON position.
Step 4. Close All Your Current Tabs (optional)
Once you’ve set Private Browsing to ON you will be asked if you would like to close all your existing tabs or pages before turning on Private Browsing. Basically, if you click Yes, Safari is reset to have no open pages or tabs… If you click No, all of your existing tabs/pages remain open as you had them when you last left Safari. I suggest clearing them so you’ll have a “clean slate” but it’s totally up to you.
Step 5. Clear History and Cookies (optional)
Finally, you may want to clear out your existing History/Cookies data. This just ensures that you’ve wiped everything clean and nothing more will be stored on your device (passwords, form data, history, etc.). If you choose not to do this anything you’ve previously entered may still be available, so I suggested wiping this one out as well.
As you can see it’s relatively easy to enable this security feature in iOS, so if you intend on using your device for accessing sensitive material (banking, shopping, etc.) you may want to think about taking the steps above to ensure that none of your data falls into the wrong hands.
Would this work if you are shopping online, say in an open network like a shopping mall.
Meaning could someone see my information..
All this feature does is turn off things like history, saved passwords, etc. This doesn’t keep your information “safe” necessarily, but ensures that if your device fell into the wrong hands that no one could gain access to that type of information. This doesn’t act as a firewall or anything.