The thing about browsing the internet is that it often comes with its own risks’ specially when it comes to dealing with safety and privacy issues. And while many users may not always take into consideration how much personal information they are sharing, it is important to realize that if you aren’t careful, you could end up exposing your personal data to strangers online.

It is also for this reason that many users are advised to avoid using unsecured internet connections like public WiFi that may give hackers access to your personal data. You should always either use a private WiFi connection or better yet use a usb ethernet converter to create a wired connecting from your Mac to your router.

In this regard, if you tend to use Safari for your daily browsing, it’s easy to forget about being extra careful while browsing online because it automatically handles most of the internet security for you. However, what many Mac users may not realize is what these features are that Safari offers to keep your data private.

What Are These Safari Features?

Something you should always keep in mind is that websites often love to track users so that they can collect a lot of useful information about them and then use it to market their products or services more effectively through personalized ads. And while this can be somewhat innocuous, there is always the risk of this data that is being  collected ending up revealing where you live, your age, and other pertinent information you may not want others to know.

Luckily, Safari has many built-in features that you can use to keep your browsing experience safe, even from such trackers. On a side note, we should also recommend that you learn to avoid storing any important information, eg. bank details or account access data on your Mac and instead use usb sd adapters to store this information on an external drive like an SD Card, instead. This ensures that if your Mac ends up being exposed to malware or ransomware, you can rest assured that your private data remains secure.

#1. Intelligent Tracking Prevention

One of the best security features that Safari has to offer is Intelligent Tracking Prevention, which through the use of machine learning is designed to spot where websites and companies obtain user data and blocks that data from carrying over to other sites. In other words, it helps to ensure that any relevant data about you that is used on one site cannot be spread all over the internet. It also helps to minimize third parties from accessing any data that Apple happens to collect on you as a user. This tracker is usually automatically enabled on Safari, but you can always head to the Preferences section and select the Privacy tab to make sure that the protection is active.

On a side note, if you do usually spend a lot of time browsing the internet on your Mac then you can always utilize a MacBook pro standing dock to help potion your work station better. Not only will it hep to improve your viewing experience, but it will prevent any back or eye strain issues that you get after browsing for long hours.

#2. Privacy Reports in Smart Search 

The privacy reports that are present in the Smart Search field are another feature that do well to keep your information private. For those who may not know, the Smart Search field is the address bar in Safari and it comes with a major privacy feature. It can essentially tell you if any website is attempting to track your data while you re act on a particular site.

Moreover, it also lets you know if the site in question was successfully blocked from getting the information or not within the privacy report. Moreover, these reports can also help you keep a list of any active trackers that have been blocked in the past. In  fact, in the event that you want a full privacy report on active trackers, you can easily open a website while browsing on Safari and click on the shield icon that is usually set to the left of the Smart Search field.

Alternatively, if you want to see a full history of past trackers that your Safari browser has blocked then you can easily do this by clicking on Safari > Privacy Report. It will give you a full and detailed report of all the active trackers that your browser has successfully blocked in the past 30 days. It will also provide you with more valuable browsing information that you can use to keep your browsing experience secure in the future.

#3. Private Browsing Windows

Another simple feature that most Mac users should take advantage of is to make use of Private Browsing windows a.k.a incognito windows. These work much like default Safari windows do, but they do well to hide any valuable information from websites and data trackers. You can usually access these by heading to File > New Private Window.