You record a video at a concert, play it back, and something's off. The crowd noise is gone. The room acoustics have vanished. Despite all that visual energy, the audio sounds clinical and lifeless, like it was recorded in a studio. Your iPhone did this on purpose.

A feature called Audio Zoom silently runs on your device, and every time you zoom while recording, it mutes background sounds to focus the microphone on your subject. Apple assumes you always want clean, isolated audio, but that kills the atmosphere that makes live videos feel real.

Most people have no idea it exists, let alone that it's been affecting their videos. iOS 26.4 finally added a toggle to turn it off.

When to use it...

Keep Audio Zoom off for: Concerts and live music videos where the roar of the crowd and the way sound bounces around a venue is half the point. Nature recordings, street footage, or anywhere the surrounding atmosphere is what gives the video its sense of place. Any time you want viewers to feel like they're actually there.

Turn Audio Zoom on for: Recording someone speaking over a noisy crowd where you only want their voice coming through clearly. Isolating a specific sound source at a busy event. Video calls or interviews where background noise would undermine the whole thing. Any time clean, focused audio matters more than immersion.

More from Tom's Guide

• Apple buried a genius browsing feature in your iPhone settings — and it's genuinely useful
• Apple buried these 5 secret productivity tools in iOS 26, and you should use them every day
• My photos were always crooked until I found this hidden iPhone camera trick

You're deep in a rabbit hole: comparing hiking boots, researching a trip, reading a piece with seventeen footnotes. Every time you tap a link in Safari, it yanks you away from the page you were on. Open a link, navigate back, open another, navigate back. It gets old fast.

The fix is a single toggle buried in your iPhone settings. Flip it and Safari stops hijacking your attention every time you open a new tab. Links open quietly in the background instead, waiting for you whenever you're ready for them. Here's where to find it.

Why this feature is a game-changer

It's a small change that quietly improves a lot of daily browsing. Comparing products before buying something is the obvious use case. Open everything you're considering as background tabs, then flip through them at your own pace rather than bouncing back and forth to search results.

But it's just as useful for anything research-heavy: reading a long article with citations, fact-checking something, or trying to get your head around a topic that requires taking in a few different perspectives at once.

There's also a faster way to open background tabs once you've got the setting enabled. Instead of long-pressing and going through the menu, try tapping any link with two fingers simultaneously.

More from Tom's Guide

• Apple buried these 5 secret productivity tools in iOS 26, and you should use them every day
• Your iPhone keyboard can do math — here's how to use the secret calculator
• My photos were always crooked until I found this hidden iPhone camera trick

WWDC 2026 is closing in on us fast, and that's where Apple is going to spill the beans on all the new software it has coming our way before the end of the year. There's still a lot we don't know about iOS 27 right now, but it sounds like the Safari web browser will be copying a particularly neat trick from Google Chrome.

According to Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, Apple has started testing a feature that will automatically group tabs in Safari. The ability to group tabs in Safari is nothing new, but this feature will likely take some cues from Google Chrome and start grouping things together without specific directions from the user.

This doesn't mean Safari will be grouping tabs without your permission. Sources say that test versions of iOS 27 feature a button labeled "Organize Tabs" at the top of Safari's interface. So if you want to avoid your tabs becoming an unorganized mess, based solely on when you opened them, it sounds like this will be able to sort everything out with minimal effort on your part.

How automatic tab organization could work

You will apparently have to explicitly choose the automatic grouping option, so the ability to manually organize tabs doesn't seem to be going away. That's beneficial for those of us who prefer to maintain control over what our phone does, rather than handing over the work to AI. However, Gurman notes that even though this feature does seem to involve AI of some kind, it hasn't been listed as part of Apple Intelligence.

That said, I could easily see that changing if Apple wants to renew its AI push following the rumored launch of the Gemini-powered Siri later this year.

The automatic organization will apparently group tabs "into topics you browse," though Gurman doesn't cite any specific examples of how the system will decide what goes where. Presumably, things will be somewhat open-ended, with the ability to group tabs dynamically without adhering to a fixed list of topics.

Gurman also reiterates previous reports that iOS 27 won't undo the controversial changes made with iOS 26 and the launch of Liquid Glass. He claims that Apple will be refining the new design, with additional options to customize the effect. Gurman also believes that, despite the online backlash, Liquid Glass has "been a net positive" for Apple. It's unlikely that he's alone in that assessment.

WWDC 2026 kicks off with a keynote address on June 8, and it's here that Apple will reveal what it has planned for iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, and all the other pieces of software Apple devices rely on. Be sure to read our WWDC 2026 preview for the latest news and rumors, plus what we expect to see from the conference.

More from Tom's Guide

• iPhone Fold just got revealed as a mockup that shows how you'll soon be able to put an iPad mini right in your pocket
• iPhone 20 leak reveals 7 ‘jaw-dropping’ features for the 20th anniversary model
• Steve Jobs was wrong — it's about time we stopped acting like the stylus isn't a useful phone accessory

Not too long ago, iPhones didn't offer high refresh rate displays. Apple only switched to 120Hz screens with the iPhone 13 Pro in 2021, and only in 2025 brought its "ProMotion" tech to the base iPhone 17.

That said, if you've owned an iPhone for a while, you've probably noticed that not all animations feel consistently smooth. There are still quite a few places where the experience can feel a little choppy.

Sometimes I notice it while unlocking my iPhone, sometimes while scrolling through call logs in the Phone app, and sometimes in Spotlight search. But for me, the app that has consistently bugged me the most is Safari.

I use Safari a lot on my iPhone, whether it's staying updated with tech and soccer or just scrolling through random Reddit threads. It was only recently, though, that I realized you can actually force Safari to use the full 120Hz refresh rate, and make the whole browsing experience noticeably smoother.

Safari on iPhone doesn't use 120Hz refresh rate by default

Even though Apple added 120Hz support to the iPhone years ago, Safari still renders most webpages at 60fps by default. This can make things feel jittery, especially when you're scrolling through text-heavy websites (like this one).

If you want, you can actually verify your iPhone's refresh rate while using Safari by visiting this refresh rate test page and checking the live frame rate and refresh rate sections. However, if you are using your iPhone out of the box without changing any settings, Safari is limited to 60Hz.

By default, at 60Hz, your iPhone refreshes the display every 16.7 milliseconds. At 120Hz, it refreshes every 8.3 milliseconds, meaning the screen updates twice as fast. The result is smoother scrolling and a noticeably more fluid browsing experience.

Thankfully, you can force Safari to use the full 120Hz refresh rate of your iPhone's display. Once enabled, scrolling through webpages feels smoother almost immediately. Here's how you can turn it on on your iPhone.

How to enable smoother 120Hz browsing in Safari on iPhone

Enabling 120Hz in Safari on an iPhone requires a device with a ProMotion display. If you own an iPhone Pro model from the iPhone 13 Pro or later, or any model from the new iPhone 17 lineup, you are good to go. On other iPhones, you will have to stick with 60 Hz.

Even if your phone supports it, you still need to enable the setting by digging through a few deeper menus. Here's how:

Once Safari is reopened, webpages should now render at the full 120Hz refresh rate. You can verify this by visiting the same refresh rate test website that we used above and checking the live readout. When this feature is enabled, text-heavy websites, in particular, should feel noticeably smoother.

That said, if you spend a lot of time in Safari, keep in mind that forcing 120Hz can have a small impact on battery life. If needed, you can always turn the feature back off or rely on other battery-saving tips to balance things out.

More from Tom's Guide

• 5 hidden iPhone features that are genuinely useful
• Your iPhone has a secret photo vault to keep pictures hidden
• Your iPhone's Notes app can do way more than you realize

Liquid Glass is giving the whole of iOS 26 a new look, and that becomes readily apparent the first time you fire up the Safari browser on your iPhone after installing the update.

But even with the look of the toolbar and tab design changing, you have some say in iOS 26 Safari's layout, thanks to some customization tools that Apple has included in the update.

As you may be aware, Liquid Glass is the new interface Apple is introducing across its different platforms — not just for the iPhone, but for tablets, Macs, watches and Apple TV as well. The idea is a more unified experience across Apple's devices and a general streamlining of menus.

That's certainly in evidence with the tab redesign in Safari. The new default look is more compact — you get a back button, the URL/search toolbar and a more button that houses remaining controls for adding favorites and bookmarks, sharing a web page and opening new tabs.

Those commands appear in a pop-up window that reflect the translucent look of Liquid Glass interface elements.

This new default design is certainly minimalist — perhaps too much so for some users. Fortunately, you've got two other options for tab layouts in iOS 26 Safari, including one that will look pretty familiar to long-time iPhone users.

Here's how to adjust the appearance of tabs in iOS 26 Safari, followed by some highlights of other changes you'll find in the iPhone's default browser once you install iOS 26.

How to change Safari tab layouts in iOS 26

To find the tab layout in Safari that suits you best, you actually need to leave the browser and head to settings.

Not sure from the silhouettes in Safari settings as to how those tab layouts will look in the browser itself? Here's a closer look at each one.

I've already described Compact, which is the default option in iOS 26 Safari. But to repeat, the emphasis here is on a minimalist layout, with most of the tab and bookmark controls available through that more menu on the right side.

The emphasis is on the toolbar, where you can type in URLs and search terms as well as tap the control to access web page summaries, hide distracting items on the page, search for specific words on the page or change the font size.

Bottom looks a bit more like the tab layout in iOS 18. The toolbar get its own line with back, share, bookmark and new tab buttons immediately underneath. This is actually the design I've opted for, since I find the familiar layout helps make the transition to the Liquid Glass interface feel a bit smoother.

Top does exactly what you think it would — the URL and search toolbar moves to the top of the page. The other buttons — back/forward, share, bookmark and new tab — remain at the bottom. This option should appeal to anyone who balked when iOS 15 moved the Safari toolbar to the bottom of the screen.

Other iOS 26 Safari changes

We should talk a little bit about the toolbar since it's the other interface element that's most directly affected by Apple's Liquid Glass push. As in the iOS 18 version of Safari, the toolbar shrinks as you scroll down a web page, though the transition is a little more fluid in iOS 26.

The translucent look of the toolbar also adjusts to reflect the look of the page you're on — see how shaded the toolbar looks up above in the iOS 26 display of Disney's webpage.

Safari sees some changes beyond layout in iOS 26, too. Advanced Fingerprinting Protection — a way for the browser to obscure data so that no one sees your digital fingerprint — moves beyond private browsing and into all browsing within Safari in iOS 26.

The Add to Home Screen feature has been updated with an option to open any page as a web app so that you can open it in full screen and see it in the App Switcher.

iOS 26 Safari outlook

Overall, the layout is the big story in iOS 26 Safari. And the addition of customization features is consistent with Apple's approach in some other apps, such as the ability to adjust the look of photo collections in iOS 26 Photos.

As with any design change, Liquid Glass will likely divide opinion, with some iPhone users embracing the new look and others objecting to different design elements. But in some apps at least, Apple is giving you the option to adjust the look and feel of Liquid Glass to better suit your taste.

More from Tom's Guide

• iOS 26 Messages: 7 biggest changes you need to know
• All the changes coming to Music in iOS 26
• Many iOS 26 features can’t be used without Apple Intelligence — what you need to know

The internet is designed to collect your data. Whether it's cookies, trackers, or permissions, your data is always up for grabs – and your browser is one of the most guilty suspects.

One of the best VPNs, Surfshark, has analyzed 10 of the most popular mobile internet browsers to determine how much data each one collects.

Google Chrome collects the most data by far, and 30% of the browsers analyzed share your data with third-parties.

Safari also collects a large amount of data, and together with Chrome, the two occupy 90% of the mobile browser market share. That's a lot of data.

But not every browser analyzed collects huge amounts of data, and there are steps that can be taken to avoid mass data collection – here's what you need to know.

This article was edited on May 19, 2025, to clarify "coarse" location data and its implications.

20 different data types

Surfshark's research found that Google Chrome was the most data-hungry browser, collecting 20 different data types.

Contact information, financial details, location, browsing history, usage data, and identifiers are just some of the data Chrome collects. It is thanks in part to the Google ecosystem, with Google Drive, Maps, and Mail all seamlessly integrated into the browser.

Chrome is the only browser analyzed that collects financial information such as payment methods, card numbers, and bank account details. It's also the only one to collect contacts from the user's phone or address book. However, it is worth noting that some of this information is provided voluntarily by users – having Chrome remember card details for example.

Bing was the second-hungriest browser, collecting 12 data types. Pi Browser was third, collecting nine types of data. Safari and Firefox were tied for fourth place, each collecting eight data types.

Some browsers are better than others

The average number of data types collected across the 10 browsers was six, and only two browsers collected fewer data types than this.

The privacy-focused browser, Brave, collected only two data types – identifiers and usage data.

The Tor Browser was by far the most secure browser analyzed, collecting no data. Tor is a decentralized network designed to protect user anonymity and prevent tracking. It's certainly not the fastest or feature-packed browser, but is an excellent choice for maximizing privacy and security.

DuckDuckGo and Firefox are two browsers that have decent privacy credentials, and Surfshark rated their data collection as "moderate" – Opera also falls into this category.

They avoid collecting sensitive data, but do collect contact information, identifiers, usage data, and diagnostics.

They could be seen as browsers for those with moderate privacy concerns who still require robust browsing capabilities.

Third-party data sharing

30% of the browsers analyzed shared data with third-parties. Data is collected for advertising purposes, with Opera, Bing, and Pi Browser being able to do so.

40% of browsers were also found to have the capability to collect your location. However, Surfshark's data needs a little clarification, here.

Bing was the only browser to collect precise location data, which is a big red flag.

Safari, Chrome, and Opera are stated to collect "coarse" location data.

In human terms, collecting a user's "coarse" location means that the user can give consent to the browser to know their location, but it is not necessarily active by default.

This does not mean that these browsers are tracking your every move, and they require you to accept these terms before any location data is stored.

Given Opera's reputation as a privacy-focused browser, we asked them about these findings.

Michael Tegos, Product Marketing Manager, Privacy and Security, at Opera said it is open about its data collection and does so in order to "make better browsers" and monetize its free products. It details the data collected in its privacy statement.

"We do this only upon consent and in such a way that our users remain anonymous to us, through the use of randomized user IDs that are not associated with any real-world identity," Tegos added.

Opera users can revoke this consent at any time through their browser settings, and all data collection can be opted out of – which is more than can be said for many other browsers.

Tegos also highlighted Opera's built-in Ad Blocker and Tracker Blocker, as well as its built-in VPN.

"Opera VPN is also a no-log service, meaning that it never collects or stores user data," said Tegos.

"Our no-log policy has been independently audited by Deloitte, a trusted auditor of VPN services. We also publish a bi-annual Transparency Report, outlining how many requests for data we get from law enforcement authorities."

First steps to take

Tomas Stamulis, Chief Security Officer at Surfshark, shared initial steps users can take to secure their personal data.

• Allow permissions: Storage (to save downloads), a camera and microphone if you use video calls.
• Deny or restrict permissions: Location, contacts, SMS, and phone access – unless absolutely required.
• On Android: Use “Only While Using App” or “Ask Every Time” when granting permissions like location or microphone.
• Choose privacy-focused browsers that collect data strictly necessary for browsing.
• Turn off the personalization settings on your browser app: Syncing with your Google/Microsoft account, Ad personalization, Activity tracking (location history, web & app activity)
• On Android: Go to Settings > Privacy > Ads > Opt out of ad personalization
• Revisit app permissions monthly – many apps request more than they need over time.

"In public, it is often explained that browsers collect the data to personalize and improve a user's experience," Stamulis said.

"If we rely on this explanation, it appears that the more data you provide, the smoother and seamless your browsing should be. In any case, this study from Surfshark is a reminder to look through your browser app permissions," he added.

Use a VPN and a tracker blocker

In order to protect your data when browsing, you might want to consider using a VPN. Your data and internet traffic is encrypted, plus your IP address is masked.

Leading, reputable VPN providers will not log or share your data, keeping it safe from hackers and third-parties. Verified no-logs policies back these claims up, and Windscribe's recent legal case proved just how important they can be.

Some VPNs offer tracker, ad, and malware protection as part of their plans. NordVPN's Threat Protection Pro is a good example of this, and has been named as the best VPN malware protection.

But VPNs alone can't protect you from every single piece of data collection or trackers. Therefore, using a dedicated tracker blocker alongside a VPN is a great way to ensure your data is not tracked.

These products often include an ad-blocker as well, with Ghostery and uBlock Origin being some popular choices.

Google Chrome has recently U-turned on its use of trackers. Considering its global popularity, there will be many people who could benefit from tracker protection.

Switch to a secure browser

Surfshark's research shows Brave is a safe choice for those seeking a more familiar browsing experience. Its design is similar to Chrome and it's packed full of features. Despite having the capability of collecting a little more data, Opera is also a good choice for those looking to increase privacy due to its clear, consent-based model.

For total anonymity, the Tor Browser is best. However, its speeds are not the fastest and you won't get nearly as many features as mainstream browsers.

Vivaldi is a browser Surfshark didn't analyze but it's another solid privacy-focused choice. Vivaldi has also partnered with Proton VPN, and Proton VPN Free is now offered as a Vivaldi browser extension.

Mullvad VPN has built its own browser, in partnership with the Tor Project. Mullvad is one of the most private VPNs and its browser is no different. It's also open source and free to use – whether you're a Mullvad VPN user or not.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example:1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

Apple is exploring the idea of bringing an AI tool like Perplexity to Safari — a potential shake-up to the decades-long dominance of Google in the search space. Google is currently the top search engine with 4.9 billion users.

The news emerged during testimony in the U.S. Department of Justice's ongoing antitrust trial against Google.

Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of services, revealed to Bloomberg that the company is seriously considering letting users select from a wider range of AI search engines in future versions of Safari.

Why this matters

Google currently pays Apple an estimated $20 billion per year to remain the default search engine on Apple devices. If Apple begins giving users more AI-driven options — even as secondary choices — it could signal a significant shift in how we access information online and search revenue flows in the tech industry.

Cue also noted that Safari search traffic declined for the first time in April 2025, attributing the drop to users increasingly turning to AI platforms like ChatGPT to answer questions and find information.

What AI search engines could be included? While no official timeline has been announced, Apple is reportedly looking into:

• OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a possible contender, especially with its voice and memory features that rival Gemini Live.
• Perplexity AI, the fast-growing search engine known for real-time citations and concise summaries
• Anthropic’s Claude, which is earning praise for its reasoning and clarity.

Adding these tools into Safari wouldn’t necessarily replace Google as the default (at least not yet), but it would allow users to access these conversational AI engines directly from the browser interface.

Bottom line

Apple has remained relatively quiet in the AI arms race, but this move suggests it’s paying close attention to how generative AI is changing user behavior.

With its own new Apple Intelligence features expected to debut at WWDC 2025, this may be just the beginning of a much bigger shift in how Apple incorporates AI across its ecosystem.

For now, Google Search is still the default, but the way you search from your iPhone might look very different in the near future. What are your thoughts on using AI within Safari? Let me know in the comments.

More from Tom's Guide

• I put ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude through the same job interview — here’s who got hired
• I’ve tested every major AI chatbot in 2025 — these 5 prompts never fail me
• Claude is quietly crushing it — here’s why it might be the smartest AI yet

When it comes to my digital life, I've got nothing to hide. But then again, there's stuff I don't feel like broadcasting either. And what I've been searching for on the web is one of those things I'd prefer to keep for my eyes only.

Unfortunately, an addition to the iPhone version of Safari in iOS 18.4 makes that a little harder to do. Safari now lists all recent searches you've done in the mobile web browser, so that anyone looking at your screen can see what's piqued your interest, for good or for ill.

It happens when you open a new tab in Safari and tap the search bar to enter a URL or search term. A list of recent searches pops up and stays there until you start typing something in. The list also appears when you go to the search bar and tap the X button on the right to clear the current URL.

There's a method behind this madness, as you can tap any entry on your list of recent searches to go back to that particular result. I'm assuming the idea is to save you time should you want to go back to where your search started to look up more links and information.

But it's also a potential privacy nightmare. Even the most banal search terms can look shady to someone who happens to see that list of recent searches in Safari. And that could leave you in a position where you have to do some explaining to a potentially skeptical audience.

Let me give you what I hope will come across a a fairly benign example. I was telling my daughter about a photo I had seen in a news article about the "Snow White" movie premiere where Rachel Zegler was greeting a line of young girls wearing Snow White costumes. My daughter wanted to see it for herself, so I launched Safari and typed "rachel zegler meeting snow white girls" into the search bar. You'll be happy to know we found the photo and a more heart-melting video clip of the movie star greeting those kids.

I'm decidedly less happy to see the phrase "rachel zegler meeting snow white girls" sitting there in my Recent Searches list free of any context. Just reading those words out loud make me think I should be on a watch list somewhere.

It seems other iOS 18.4 beta testers share my concern about keeping search results free from prying eyes. Because the recently released iOS 18.4 beta 4 introduces a way to turn that feature off.

Here's how to access that setting.

Now whatever you've searched for will remain between you and your out-of-sight browser history.

Looking for more iOS 18 tips? I recently talked about the ambient music feature Apple added to iOS 18.4 and how you can control it. We've also get tips on how to use Notes in iOS 18 and how to customize the Photos app to your liking.

Apple's latest iOS update isn't just about flashy features like sending messages via satellite. It's the subtle tweaks that often make the biggest difference and impact our daily lives the most. Enter Safari Highlights, the unsung hero of iOS 18 features you can take advantage of right away. 

Think of Highlights as your personal web-surfing assistant, that extracts and presents you with key information, saving you time and effort. And while we're all buzzing about Apple Intelligence — set to roll out later this year and promising to turn your iPhone into an even smarter sidekick — Safari Highlights is here now, ready to revolutionize your browsing game. 

Whether you're looking up a restaurant, researching a historical figure, or checking out a new movie, Safari's clever feature provides the essentials you need. Curious how it works? Let's explore how make the most of your browsing experience.

iOS 18 brings a wealth of new features and customization options to enhance your iPhone experience. Looking to customize your Photos app? Here's how you can do it. For those looking to boost their output, check out the 10 best iOS features for productivity And for those who love to explore, Apple Maps iOS 18 lets you create custom routes — here's how to do it. 

Apple's latest software update introduces some exciting new features for iPhone users — with iOS 18, you can hide apps, customize your home screen, and even enhance your Photos app experience. But one of the most underrated additions is Safari Reader, a tool designed to streamline your web browsing like never before.

Think of Safari Reader as your personal reading assistant, stripping away distractions like ads and pop-ups to provide a clean, focused view of the content you want to read. In a world where web pages can often feel cluttered, this feature makes reading long articles or news stories a breeze.

Whether you're diving into a blog post or checking the latest headlines, Safari Reader ensures a distraction-free experience. Let’s explore how to activate it and elevate your browsing game.

Safari Reader is just one of many great features in iOS 18. To get more out of your device, check out the 9 iOS features you need to try first. Looking ahead? All the new AI features coming to your iPhone are set to elevate your experience even further. And for those off the grid moments, iOS 18 lets you send messages via satellite — here's how it works.

It’s not every day that we come across a vulnerability that’s almost two decades old but cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new zero-day flaw that impacts all major browsers.

As reported by The Hacker News, the Israeli app security firm Oligo found what it’s calling a “0.0.0.0 Day” that can be exploited by hackers to access sensitive services running on local devices. The most surprising thing about this critical vulnerability though is that it has laid dormant in popular browsers for 18 years.

The 0.0.0.0 Day impacts all of the top browsers including Google Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers like Edge, Safari and Firefox. However, it’s worth noting that it only affects devices running macOS and Linux. The reason why the best Windows laptops aren’t affected is due to the fact that Microsoft blocks this IP address at the operating system level.

This critical vulnerability can be used to weaponize harmless IP addresses like 0.0.0.0 to exploit local services to allow for unauthorized access and remote code execution by hackers that are not on the same local network.

In a report on the matter, Oligo’s security researchers explain that public websites which have domains that end in “.com” are able to communicate with services running on a local network and execute arbitrary code by using the address 0.0.0.0. The vulnerability also makes bypassing Private Network Access (PNA), which prevents public websites from directly accessing endpoints on a private network, possible.

How to stay safe from browser-based attacks 

After discovering this vulnerability back in April, Oligo quickly reached out to the companies behind all of the major browsers so that they could implement a fix.

Instead of releasing a security update, Google, Apple, Mozilla and others plan to block the IP address 0.0.0.0 going forward. With the release of Chromium 128 last month, Chrome is already blocking access to 0.0.0.0 but Google’s full fix for this issue won’t be completed for all users until Chrome 133 is released. Meanwhile, Apple has already made changes to the browser engine WebKit which is used by Safari to block access to 0.0.0.0 and Mozilla has also blocked the IP address in Firefox.

When it comes to protecting yourself from other browser-based attacks, the first and most important thing you can do is to keep your browser up to date. I know this may get annoying given how frequently Google releases new updates for Chrome but they only take a minute or so to install and all of your current tabs will be reopened once an update is complete.

Since your browser can be attacked by hackers to infect your computer with malware, you should also consider using the best antivirus software on your Windows PC and the best Mac antivirus software on your Apple computer. Both Windows and macOS ship with built-in antivirus software but paid options provide you with even greater protection along with some useful extras like a VPN or a password manager.

New vulnerabilities like the one described above are discovered and subsequently patched every day which is why you want to stay on top of updates and not let them pile up if you want to stay safe from hackers.

More from Tom's Guide

• FBI issues warning over scammers impersonating banks to steal your debit cards
• New Android malware drains your bank accounts and wipes your device
• 2.9 billion hit in one of the largest data breaches ever — full names, addresses and SSNs exposed

Apple has released the next beta for iOS 18 to developers in advance of its release to public beta users. Beta 5 brings exciting new features, including sizable changes to two of the most used iOS apps — Safari and Photos. 

The release comes just a couple of weeks after Apple dropped beta 4, so the company is keeping up a steady pace of delivering new features to those brave enough to install the developer beta on their devices (something we don't recommend to everyday iPhone users).

Safari changes in iOS 18 beta 5

Starting with iOS 18 Safari updates, Apple revealed a new feature called Distraction Control. The new feature aims to hide distracting items such as sign-in banners or content overlays within a website window, addressing some of the more distracting design elements that have come to web pages in recent years.

To use the Distraction Control feature, go to the Page Menu in the Smart Search field. Tap on Hide Distracting Items and select the elements of a website you don't want to see. You can undo anything you've hidden by clicking the hide icon in the search field and tapping Show Hidden Items. 

While it sounds great if there's a particularly annoying element on a website, the feature does sound like a lot of work to enable all the time. That said, we still need to get our hands on the updated Safari in iOS 18 beta 5 to see how Distraction Control works.

Backtracking in the Photos app

Apple heavily modified the way the Photos app works in iOS 18. The company introduced a new home view, with beefed-up Collections and plenty of customization options for organizing Photos the way you want.

Apple has apparently listened to user feedback (which really is the whole point of a beta) and walked back some of the changes in Photos. First, the Carousel view has been removed to simplify the overall look and feel of the app. Apple's All Photos area has also been updated to display a larger portion of the grid. Rather than having them separated, Apple has added Recently Saved content to the Recent Days collection. Finally, the placement of photo albums has been elevated for users with multiple albums.

Overall, those changes seem to address many of the initial criticisms about the Photos redesign. We'll find out for certain once Apple introduces these changes to the public beta of iOS 18, though.

Coming this fall

If beta software scares you (and we can't blame you), Apple reiterated that iOS 18 is scheduled to be released in the Fall, so you won't have to wait too long to get the final release on your iPhone, iPad and other Apple devices. (macOS Sequoia and iPadOS 18 are in the works, too, for Macs and iPads, respectively.) 

Changes to the developer beta usually find their way to iOS 18 public beta in a week or so, which gives you a much more stable version of the software update to test.

More from Tom's Guide

• 5 Apple Intelligence features to try in iOS 18 — here’s what you can do
• Forget iPhone 16 Pro — why the iPhone 16 will be the one to get this year
• iPhone 16 Pro just tipped for big battery life leap

If you’ve been having issues with the web browser on your Apple devices over the past several hours, then you’re probably not alone. Apple has reported that the iCloud Private Relay has been experiencing an outage since 2 p.m. ET yesterday, and according to the status page it’s still ongoing at the time of writing (4:32 a.m. ET).

iCloud Private Relay is a system bundled as part of Apple’s iCloud+ and Apple One subscriptions. It sends internet requests through two different (and separate) secure internet relays — one controlled by Apple and another by a third party. All Apple devices produce those requests when you’re browsing, regardless of whether it’s an iPhone, Mac or even a Vision Pro. 

The general idea is that by using this second relay, Apple isn’t able to see who users are or the kind of content they're viewing online. That means an outage like this is a problem, and may be affecting your web browsing experience until it’s fixed. Apple’s status page notes that service may be “slow or unavailable” but only specifies that “some users are affected”. 

It’s not clear how many affected users there are, or how widespread the issue is. But if the browser on your Apple device is not behaving as it should, and you have Private Relay enabled, then this may explain some things.

If you don't have subscriptions to iCloud Plus or Apple One, or if you already have Private relay switched off, then any browsing problems you might experience will likely be due to something else. Wi-Fi or cellular signal issues, most likely.

Thankfully for those affected Private Relay can be switched off until Apple fixes the problem. Simply head to Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud > Private Relay. You then have the choice to Turn of iCloud Private Relay temporarily, which will switch the feature back on tomorrow morning, or you can Turn off iCloud Private Relay completely. That’s a more permanent solution, and requires you to switch Private Relay back on manually. 

More from Tom's Guide

• CrowdStrike issues apology for global IT outage in the form of $10 Uber Eats gift cards — which then don’t work
• iPhone SE 4 rumor claims it could arrive by the end of the year — what we know
• Apple’s first ever 5G modem could finally debut on iPhone SE 4 — and hit iPhone 17 next year

When it comes to using an iPhone, there are several browsers to choose from but the vast majority flock to either Chrome or Safari. It’s a competition that has heated up in the midst of a complicated relationship between Apple and Google.

Well, Apple’s latest scary attack ad is not going to make that relationship any less complicated. While it doesn’t overtly tell people to stop using Chrome, it is a rather blatant shot at Google’s browser for the ton of tracking cookies it uses — claiming that Safari is “a browser that’s actually private.”

Why now?

Currently, 30% of iPhone users are running Chrome as its default browser, and Google wants to up this to 50%, according to a report from The Information. That would equate to another 300 million iOS devices, and in a time when keeping people loyal to apps is the most direct path to revenue, Apple does not want to lose this majority grip on iPhone browser usage.

So the company seems to have hatched a plan to prey on the two key problems with using its competition:

• Chrome’s hunger for tracking cookies: You’ve seen it all across the internet — those pop ups that ask whether you accept third-party cookies. Once you go into the privacy settings of Chrome, you’ll probably be stunned by the many thousands of sites tracking your whereabouts on the internet. Even worse, they look set to be around until 2025 according toGoogle's Privacy Sandbox report.
• Incognito mode is not private: This is one of a few different features of Chrome where the Mountain View company has said it cares about privacy, but its actions are a little different. For example, Google promises security in its Incognito Mode, but then had to admit this privacy shield isn’t really that private in a $5 billion class-action lawsuit.

These are things that Safari stomps out from the get-go — including preventing cross-site tracking by default, and hiding your IP address (provided you have an iCloud+ account on the latter). That makes this fertile ground for Apple to advertise on and drum up fears about its main competition.

Google's response

We reached out to Google for a response to this latest ad campaign, and the response doesn't necessarily answer the issues rather bluntly hinted at here by Apple. 

A Google spokesperson told Tom's Guide that: "Chrome is built with the goal of keeping your data safe by default and ensuring users can control when and how their data is used in Chrome to personalize their web browsing experience. We believe users should always be in control, which is why we've built easy to use privacy and security settings directly into Chrome."

Will people actually ditch Chrome?

The browser war on iPhone is very much Apple’s to lose rather than Google’s to win, and the Cupertino crew are going in hard on the weak spot of Chrome here. And from the perspective of someone who used to work in advertising, this dystopian setup is a rather effective way of getting the message across.

Current Chrome users won’t necessarily be blind to these cookies, but may have come to terms with them and the subsequent risk. However, new iPhone users and those who weren’t necessarily aware of just how much is learned about you through Chrome browsing activity may scare them into switching.

We will be following up with Google to get their comment and reaching out to security experts for more context. Stay tuned. 

Safari, Apple's built-in web browser across its different devices, won't get a radical overhaul as part of iOS 18. But even just two big changes to the iPhone's default browser hint at Apple's larger strategy of leaning into machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Both major additions to Safari in iOS 18 promise to skim web pages and pull out the details you need. The idea, explains Beth Dakin, Apple's senior manager of Safari software engineering, in Apple's WWDC 2024 video is to offer "easier ways to discover content and streamline your browsing."

Even better, while the new Safari features do turn to machine learning, they're not part of the Apple Intelligence capabilities being introduced across Apple devices later this year. That means Safari's improvements will be available on more phones than just the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, plus whatever iPhone 16 models come out later this fall.

With that in mind, here's what to expect from iOS 18 Safari once you upgrade to the new iPhone software, whether that's when the full version comes out later this year or Apple makes the iOS 18 public beta available in July.

iOS 18 Safari: Highlights

Think of Highlights, the biggest of the two improvements to iOS 18 Safari, as a kind of hyper-focused summary tool. Instead of merely summarizing what's on the page, though, Highlights uses machine intelligence to identify the key bits on information on a particular page and calls them out in a pop-up window as you browse. 

An example Apple uses throughout its iOS 18 preview shows a web page for a hotel where Highlights has called up a window showing the hotel's location on a map, plus quick links for driving directions or placing a call to the hotel. Other examples of Highlights include Wikipedia summaries of a person, playback links for songs, or summarized reviews for a movie or TV show.

It's unclear from Apple's demo whether Highlights appear automatically in Safari, or if you need to tap a button to get the Highlights window to pop-up. Footnotes on Apple's iOS 18 summary page indicate that the feature will only work with U.S. English sites, at least initially.

iOS 18 Safari: Reader

The Reader tool in iOS 18 Safari also picks up some summarization skills, giving you the opportunity to read a quick overview of a web page when you switch to Reader mode. Reader takes things a step further by generating a table of contents for a web article that lets you see how a page is organized. Presumably, you'll also be able to jump to specific sections of the article.

Galaxy AI tools on board the best Samsung phones add summarization features, so it's good to see them get baked into iOS 18 as well. A concise summary of a web page that you've stumbled upon can give you a better idea of what an article is about, while a table of contents can help you more easily drill down to the parts of a topic that interest you.

The summarization tools in Reader appear to be limited to English in the initial iOS 18 release, though regional support is far more extensive. Besides the U.S., Apple promises availability in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and the U.K.

Other Safari changes beyond the iPhone

Safari is available across Apple's different platforms, and there are some improvements coming to the web browser that are available for Safari on other devices. Specifically, Mac users who upgrade to macOS Sequoia will get a new way of watching web-based videos with a new Video Viewer that automatically detects when there's video on a page. Video Viewer breaks that out into a separate window with its own playback controls; click away, and the viewer becomes a separate picture-in-picture window.

Along with the Highlights and Reader additions, Safari on macOS Sequoia also promises performance improvements. In fact, Apple says the updated Mac version will be the world's fastest browser, with up to four hours more battery life than Google's Chrome browser on streaming video.

iOS 18 Safari outlook

Safari's seen more substantial changes in previous iOS updates, but that's not to dismiss the importance of what Apple's doing in iOS 18. With both Highlights and Reader leaning heavily on machine learning to power their new summary tools, iOS 18 Safari offers a taste of what Apple hopes to deliver throughout the iPhone, only without the stringent system requirements that the Apple Intelligence features demand.

More from Tom's Guide

• How to download the iOS 18 beta
• iOS 18’s best AI feature could solve my biggest issue with text messaging
• iOS 18 Notes: 5 changes coming to your iPhone

One of the coolest things I read about lately is Motorola’s concept bendable smartphone introduced at MWC 2024 that can be worn on your wrist. I was really impressed about the possibilities of a wrist-worn smartphone, up until a notification popped up on my Apple Watch, which subsequently led me to accidentally discovering its hidden Safari browser.

I’ll be the first to admit that smartphones are better suited for surfing the web, but I like having my options open. Browsing websites on an Apple Watch may not be as practical, mainly due to its tinier display, but it can certainly come in handy when I’m in a pinch.

I’m not saying that web surfing on a wearable needs to be a core feature available on the best smartwatches. However, I can see how others may lean on the option if given the opportunity. Here’s how to access it.

How to access the hidden Safari browser on your Apple Watch

No, there’s not a Safari app for the Apple Watch. I wish it were that easy, but it’s actually buried in the WatchOS software. I’ve tried loading up different sites to see how they load and function on my Apple Watch’s display.

For the most part it functions in a reduced capacity than what we’re all used to on our phones. Believe me, you don’t want to shop or fill out long forms with this hidden Safari browser — and for the most part — should be used strictly to browse sites and nothing more. That’s because it has trouble running certain web scripts, resulting in some page elements not loading properly. Here are some important things you should know about using the hidden Safari browser on your Apple Watch.

• Scrolling: You can do this either by using swipe gestures on the screen or using the digital crown.
• Page views: Sometimes it’ll load in a reader view to make it easier to see, but there’s an option for web view for the full experience.
• Navigation: The URL bar that loads at the top can’t be used to type in URLs. However, there are buttons to stop and reload the page — along with returning to the previous page.
• Zooming: On some pages you’ll be able to zoom by double tapping anywhere on the display. Otherwise, text passages will automatically fill out the entire width of the screen.
• Multitasking: If you exit the Safari browser, it should remain in memory and be accessible by double pressing the digital crown to get into the recent apps menu. 

Smartwatches like the Apple Watch aren’t meant to replace our smartphones. They’re extensions that let us access some of the most commonly used functions on our phones, like the way they discreetly show notifications.

This hidden Safari browser can be useful when you’re in a dire situation. While I was able to basically get to checkout on Motorola’s website for one of its phones, I really don’t recommend using it for this purpose — but rather — the option to quickly browse a webpage.

More from Tom's Guide

• Garmin Fenix 7 vs. Polar Vantage V3: Which rugged GPS smartwatch wins?
• I did the 12-3-30 treadmill workout for a month — here's my results
• OnePlus Watch 2 review — redemption, and then some
  

You'll definitely want to know how to clear Safari browsing history on iPhone and iPad. Know how to delete browsing history is part of basic user operation on all your devices, and is especially if you share devices with others. 

Luckily, deleting browsing history on Safari is easy and can be done in just a few taps, and is the same on iOS and iPadOS, so whether you're using an iPhone 15 Pro or an iPad Air, these steps will apply.

Remember, though, that deleting your browsing history only stops your activity being visible on that device. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) will still be able to see the webpages you have visited. If you want to stop that, for ultimate privacy, you'll need to use one of the best VPN services.

The following screenshots were taken on an iPhone running iOS 17. If you aren't running the latest version of your device's OS, we can show you how to update an iPhone or how to update an iPad.

How to clear Safari browsing history on iPhone and iPad

1. In Safari, tap the book icon
2. Go to the history tab (clock)
3. Tap Clear
4. Select how far back to clear
5. Tap Delete

Read on to see full illustrated instructions.

As you can see in the screenshot above, if you now go back to the history tab, your history will have been deleted.

For more iPhone tutorials, check out our guides on how to transfer data from iPhone to iPhone, how to clear RAM on iPhone, how to delete multiple contacts on iPhone and how to rearrange the iOS 17 Messages '+' menu.

Even the best MacBooks can come down with a nasty malware infection if you’re not careful online. To that end, hackers have repurposed a social engineering campaign that was previously exclusive to Windows to infect Apple computers with Mac malware.

According to a new blog post from the cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes, the popular Atomic Stealer malware is being used in a new campaign which uses fake browser updates to trick unsuspecting users into infecting their own devices with malware.

While we recently saw Atomic Stealer used to infect Macs through malicious ads, this new campaign is a bit different as it uses compromised websites to distribute these fake browser updates. First discovered by security researcher Randy McEoin back in August and dubbed ClearFake, this campaign has since gone through a number of upgrades including using smart contracts to build the redirect mechanism used to take potential victims to malicious sites.

Here’s everything you need to know about ClearFake and what you need to look out for if you’re a Mac user that’s worried about falling victim to malware.

Targeting popular Mac browsers

Just a few days ago on November 17, another security researcher named Ankit Anubhav observed that ClearFake was being distributed to Mac users in addition to the best Windows laptops.

In these attacks, clicking on a malicious link distributed through phishing emails or even on social media posts takes unsuspecting Mac users to a page impersonating Apple’s official download portal for Safari. However, as many Mac owners use Chrome instead of Safari, the hackers behind this campaign have also developed a fake portal for Google’s browser too.

If you click on either the “Download” button on the fake Safari page or the “Update Chrome” button on the fake Chrome page, a DMG file claiming to be a browser update is downloaded onto your Mac. Clicking on this file and launching it leads to a text box which asks for your administrative password. If you’re foolish enough to give it away that easily, the Atomic Stealer malware then gains full access to your Mac.

From here, the malware can steal your browsing data, cookies, passwords, credit card numbers and other sensitive data stored on your Mac which is sent back to the hackers behind ClearFake. Besides committing fraud, this information can even be used to steal your identity.

How to stay safe from fake browser updates and Mac malware

Fake browser updates like the ones described above have been a thorn in the side of Windows users for years now. However, as Macs have become more popular, hackers have shifted their focus from going after computers running Windows to those that run macOS.

This means you need to be extra careful when updating your browser and other Mac apps. Updating Safari is done through the Software Update menu which you could find by clicking on the Apple menu and then heading to System Preferences. If you prefer Google Chrome, here’s everything you need to know about how to update Chrome which can be done directly through Google’s browser.

Under no circumstances should you download or install any updates from a website claiming your browser is out of date, as neither Apple nor Google deliver updates to their users this way. In fact, if you see such a warning, you should steer clear of it entirely as hackers are most likely behind it.

For additional protection and to avoid phishing sites altogether, you should also consider using one of the best Mac antivirus software solutions. Sure, your Mac comes with built-in antivirus software in the form of xProtect but paid antivirus programs are updated more regularly and often contain useful extras like a VPN or a password manager.

In a statement to Tom’s Guide, senior director of threat intelligence at Malwarebytes,  Jérôme Segura provided further insight on how to stay safe from Atomic Stealer and other online threats targeting your Mac, saying:

"We have seen an increase in the distribution of Atomic Stealer, a piece of malware that targets Macs, in particular via malvertising campaigns and now via compromised sites. The lure is classic social engineering, redirecting victims to a decoy page pretending to be a browser update. Immediately after installing it, the malware will steal passwords, crypto wallets, and sensitive files. The best defense against this threat is to block the malicious redirects that are happening on hacked sites, preventing the fake update from being downloaded."

We’ll likely continue to see more malware strains targeting Macs which is why it may be time to retire the idea that Macs are safer from Windows machines once and for all.

More from Tom's Guide

• This notorious Mac malware has resurfaced as an office productivity app
• Intel-based Macs under attack from new MetaStealer malware
• 'Dustgate' could make your MacBook Pro unusable — what you need to know

Additions to private browsing account for many of the changes in iOS 17 Safari, but the new features don't stop with turning on locked private browsing. You can also change the default search engine you use when in private browsing mode.

Previous versions of Safari have let you designate a default search engine — out of the book, Safari uses Google for searches. But iOS 17 marks the first time you can change the search engine you use when browsing in private mode.

Why change your default search engine? Some people simply don't trust Google and don't want to feed it more browsing information even with privacy safeguards enacted. Some just prefer other search engines. Whatever the reason, iOS 17 opens up searches in Safari's private browsing mode to other players.

Here's how to change your search engine for private browsing in Safari on your iPhone.

How to change your default search engine for private browsing

You'll need to be running iOS 17 or later to use this feature. We can show you how to download and install iOS 17 if you need help.

And that's all there is to it. Now, whatever searches you conduct with private browsing turned on will be done with the search engine of your choosing.

Our iOS 17 review goes into greater depth on all the changes Apple's made to its latest iPhone software. We can also walk you through the steps to download and install iOS 17 if you haven't upgraded already.

For more tips on iOS 17 Safari, we can show you how to set up Safari profiles to separate work browsing from personal browsing. We can also walk you through how to create a Contact Poster in iOS 17 and how to set up the new StandBy Mode, along with the other iOS 17 features you should try out first.

The private browsing feature in iOS 17 Safari gets an extra layer of privacy, as the your private browsing tabs can now lock when you're not using the feature. But to make sure prying passersby don't see your browsing activity, you've first go to turn on locked private browsing in iOS 17.

When you turn on locked private browsing, you're setting things up so that your open tabs can only be unlocked with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode. The advantage of having that safeguard in place should be clear — no one will be able to see your private browsing tabs except for you. That way, you can keep those tabs open when you need to move on to other things, secure in the knowledge that whatever sites you've visited in Safari will remain private.

Here's how to turn on locked private browsing in iOS 17, as well as as a guide to the updated interface for private browsing in mobile Safari.

How to turn on locked private browsing

Once that slider is set, your private browsing sessions will now require you to unlock the page using Face ID (or Touch ID) before you can view any open tabs. You can also unlock pages by tapping Unlock and entering your passcode.

As a reminder, here's how to enter private browsing in Safari on your iPhone.

Safari was just one of the apps to get an update as part of iOS 17, as you can see in our iOS 17 review. We can also show you how to take advantage of other new iOS 17 features, such as how to download offline maps in iOS 17 Maps, how to use the new Check In features in Messages and how to use gestures in FaceTime video chats.

iOS 17 may help me correct one of my worst habits when I'm surfing online. I will see an article on a topic that interests me and think, "I should go back and read that later when I have more time."

I'll add that article to the Reading List I've got stored in Safari with the intention of coming back later to peruse the story at my leisure. And then I almost never return.

So how is iOS 17 going to correct that for me? By giving Siri a newfound power in which it can do the reading for me, instead. With iOS 17, Siri can now read web articles aloud, as if I'm listening to an audiobook or podcast.

Siri's "read this" command works with Reader Mode-compatible websites. That's a feature in Safari that strips away images, ads and other extraneous web page content so that you're just left with the article. You can further leverage Reader Mode in iOS 17's version of Safari by asking Siri to read the article aloud for you.

The feature isn't available in every region or language, but iPhone users who upgrade to iOS 17 in the U.S., U.K. and Australia are able to get Siri to read articles to them. In the U.S., the feature works with both English and Spanish.

Here's a quick rundown of how to get Siri to read articles out loud to you. The feature will arrive with iOS 17 later this fall, but if you install the iOS 17 public beta on your iPhone, you can try it out right away.

You've got two ways to turn on Siri's reading feature — with your voice or with a couple of taps in Safari. Let's walk you through both ways, starting with voice commands.

So that's how to get Siri to read articles out loud using voice commands. Here's the other method.

And that's all there is to it. Siri's a pretty good reader, though you'll notice some odd pauses in the middle of sentences every now and again, and the asistant struggles with some pronounciations. In an article profiling Argentina's women's World Cup team, for example, Siri read "resumé" as "resume," though it had no problem with Spanish names.

iOS 17 is full of unheralded features like Siri's reading capabilities, as you'll find out by reading my iOS 17 hands-on preview. We've also got how-tos on some of the new capabilities like using Reminders to automatically sort your grocery list and bringing up the levelling tool in the iOS 17 Camera app. We can also show you how to set up browsing profiles in Safari as well as walk you through the new iOS 17 StandBy mode.

Safari's biggest upgrade in iOS 17 is browsing profiles — the ability to create separate groups of tabs and bookmarks within a single app. These can follow you across your iPad and Mac too, but in this guide we're going to show you how to get going using an iPhone running iOS 17.

You may be a bit confused why there's no obvious place in Safari to add a profile, and we certainly were too. The trick is that you need to add the profile in Settings first, then set things up after that in Safari itself. Don't worry though; read on to get to our step-by-step instructions on how to set up browsing profiles in Safari, and you won't get lost.

Or if you've not got the iOS 17 update on your iPhone yet, check our how to download iOS 17 guide before proceeding.

How to set up browsing profiles in Safari in iOS 17

1. Create a new Safari profile in the Settings app
2. Customize the profile's name, icon and more
3. In Safari, open the Tabs menu then tap the Profiles icon
4. Select your new profile and set up your tabs and favorites

We've got full instructions and demo images below if you need more detail.

Take a look at our full iOS 17 review if you want to learn about more new features included in the update. And check out our guides on the big new abilities that just dropped on your iPhone such as how to set up StandBy Mode in iOS 17, how to create a Contact Poster or how to use Check In in Messages.

More from Tom's Guide

• How to cast Harry Potter spells with Siri on iPhone
• watchOS 10 public beta is out now — 7 new Apple Watch features to try first
• Forget the iPhone 15 — a rollable iPhone could be on the way

On September 26 Apple launched macOS Sonoma, the latest iteration of its Macintosh operating system.

New desktop Widgets, a new Game Mode and a suite of upgrades to standbys like Safari and Messages are among the most exciting improvements. While you won't notice any revolutionary changes, I think you'll find Sonoma makes your Mac more capable and easier to use.

I've been testing beta versions of macOS Sonoma for months, and those in-development versions afforded me a tantalizing look at what to expect from upgrades like interactive widgets, a more capable Safari and a dedicated Game Mode. It's not a revolutionary update, but macOS Sonoma makes your Mac more useful and more fun to use.

In this macOS Sonoma review I'll walk you through my why that is and show you what I mean when I say this unassuming update has a few exciting new features in store.

macOS Sonoma review: Release date

Apple released the full version of macOS Sonoma September 26, 2023 as a free update to all supported Macs. 

This is right in line with the company's usual fall release schedule for previous versions of macOS. We saw the company ship macOS Ventura in October 2022, and macOS Monterey in October 2021.

macOS Sonoma review: Supported devices

My time testing Sonoma has me feeling pretty good about what it adds, and I think if you can upgrade once the final version comes out you should.

Not sure if you'll have the option? Apple says these are the Macs that support macOS Sonoma:

• iMac: 2019 and later
• iMac Pro: 2017
• Mac Pro: 2019 and later
• Mac Studio: 2022 and later
• MacBook Air: 2018 and later
• Mac mini: 2018 and later
• MacBook Pro: 2018 and later

macOS Sonoma review: Minor but meaningful upgrades

I've spent months using beta versions of macOS Sonoma ahead of the full release, and while I'm still getting to grips with all the changes I'm cautiously optimistic about what's in store for those who upgrade.

Of course, the pre-release betas aren't the final version, so I can't say for sure how pleasant your experience will be when you make the leap to Sonoma. But after tooling around with some of the new features and putting them through their paces, I think there's a lot to like here no matter how you use your Mac.

At first glance, Sonoma looks awfully similar to earlier iterations of macOS. Even the new desktop Widgets aren't immediately evident, so expect to spend some time digging in to learn about all the new features.

Many are pretty minor cosmetic improvements, like the new video screensavers (here's how to use video screensavers in macOS Sonoma) and the animated Reactions you can trigger (if you're using a camera that supports the feature) during video calls.

But others are pretty useful, like the new Widgets or the option to set up multiple profiles in Safari. Sure, this feels a bit like macOS is playing catch-up — you've been able to do things like that on platforms like Windows and Edge for ages — but it's still nice to see Apple bring that functionality to its fans. And frankly, I like Sonoma's Widgets better than I like what's on offer in Windows 11.

And if you're passionate about privacy, use your Mac as part of a family group or play a lot of games on it there's a lot to like about Sonoma. You can now configure sensitive content warnings and image blurring for potentially sensitive images received via the Messages app, for example, and configure Safari to share passwords with everyone in your family group or password-protect Private browser windows.

It's easy to imagine how these little upgrades can make your life easier, especially if you're sharing your Mac or passwords with others.

And if you like to play games on your Mac, the new Game Mode that kicks in when you launch a game promises to improve your experience by deprioritizing background tasks and doubling the Bluetooth sampling rate for controllers.

None of these new features offer the revolutionary potential of a feature like Stage Manager, which debuted last year in macOS Ventura as a new way of multi-tasking on your Mac (and iPad). But frankly, after being disappointed by the final version of Stage Manager I'm glad Apple seems to be focusing more on smaller, more meaningful upgrades that offer arguably greater utility and make the experience of using your Mac more pleasant in a lot of minor but meaningful ways.

To help you see why, let's dive deeper into some of the most exciting new features you get in macOS Sonoma. 

macOS Sonoma review: Widgets are a welcome addition

Widgets are one of the notable new features that you get with macOS Sonoma, and after my time testing what's available I'm tentatively impressed.

While Widgets have existed in macOS in the past, this new iteration is more akin to the Widgets you use on an iPhone. In fact, many of the same Widgets (including ones for the Clock, Notes, Stocks, Podcasts and Weather apps) are available for your Mac desktop.

During my time with macOS Sonoma so far I've found the available Widgets helpful and easy to use. You simply pull up the Widgets menu by clicking the "Edit Widgets" option in either the Notification Center or the desktop context menu, at which point you can scroll through a list of widgets you can plop on the desktop in various sizes.

(If you want to see how it works, don't miss our guide to how to add Widgets to your Mac in macOS Sonoma!)

I like to keep things simple with just a weather readout and world clock on my desktop, so I can know what time it is where my colleagues are working and what sort of jacket I should throw on when I leave the house. Happily, macOS Sonoma's new Widgets help me stay on top of that info at a glance while I'm working, which is more than I can say for the comparatively anemic Widgets in Windows 11.

While the variety of Widgets could definitely be expanded, what I've seen so far has me feeling like I'd much rather use Widgets in Sonoma (where I can significantly customize them via the Settings menu and the Widgets menu) than Windows, where the Widgets are barely customizable and rarely worth using.

macOS Sonoma review: Safari upgrades

As usual, you can also look forward to some Safari upgrades with your new copy of macOS. There isn't anything revolutionary this time around, but what you do get gives Safari some much-needed features its competitors have had for ages.

Most notably there's a new Profiles system that lets you create a profile for different people or different ways you use Safari. If it's on a multi-user household you could use this to set up a profile for each person in the house, but if it's just you on your Mac it's still useful for setting up separate profiles for work and personal use.

I specifically use my browser that way since I work remotely from home, so it's handy to be able to open my browser in "work mode" and count on having easy access to all the bookmarks and files I use for my job. I've been waiting ages for Safari to add this feature, and now that it's here—and works well—I have a new reason to consider switching from Chrome.

Plus with Sonoma, you get the option to share passwords with a group of people in your Contacts list directly from the browser. This might come in handy if you need to share website login details with your friends and family, as it makes it far simpler to do so.

macOS Sonoma review: Game Mode

The new Game Mode debuting in macOS Sonoma kicks in pretty much any time you launch a game in full-screen mode, whether it's downloaded from the Apple App Store or a third-party platform like Steam. Apple claims it works by prioritizing the game's performance over other tasks and processes running on your Mac, and it's hard to argue given how little control you're given over how it works or what it prioritizes about a game's performance.

This aspect of Game Mode is a little daunting to me since I grew up playing PC games and thus appreciate the virtues of a nice settings menu. I would have at least appreciated the sort of general choice between prioritizing visual quality or frames per second that you get with the performance modes in many PS5 and Xbox Series X games, but in my experience, you get little control over Game Mode save whether it activates or not.

Still, I can't quibble with the results, as I saw games like Resident Evil ViIIage and Total War: Warhammer 3 run quite smoothly on a Mac Studio with Game Mode enabled. I will say that I saw basically the same performance from those games when Game Mode was disabled, though, so its improvements may be slight.

We're still conducting testing to determine how much of a difference it makes on performance and will update this review accordingly, but after spending hours playing Baldur's Gate 3 on a Mac Studio M2 with rock-solid performance I can't find anything to complain about regarding Game Mode's impact.

Game Mode also cuts down audio latency on connected AirPods and doubles the sampling rate on Bluetooth controllers to cut input lag, so games should sound and feel smoother when you're playing them using those devices. 

Plus, Apple's promise to make it easier for game devs to port their games to Mac using the Game Porting Toolkit is a positive sign for gaming on Mac. The fact that the company is beating its chest about making Mac a better gaming platform, even as it rolls out a dedicated Game Mode feature in Sonoma, is an encouraging signal for anyone who loves macOS gaming.

macOS Sonoma review: Outlook

My time testing macOS Sonoma has left me feeling pretty optimistic about what's in store for Mac fans this year. If you can run it, I think there's no real reason not to upgrade.

In addition to a slew of upgrades that improve core Apple services like Messages and Safari, macOS Sonoma appears poised to deliver a handful of minor but useful improvements for Mac owners. I really appreciate the new desktop Widgets, and the fact that they're effectively identical to the Widgets I've been using on my iPhone for a while now doesn't dim the appeal of using them on a Mac.

The new screensavers and animated Reactions you can fire off during video calls make the OS feel a bit more fun, and while it leaves something to be desired the addition of Game Mode has me more hopeful about the future of Mac gaming than I have been in a long time. 

More from Tom's Guide

• Apple could be working on a 32-inch iMac — and I want one already
• Apple VR/AR headset shipments could be delayed until 2024
• New Mac malware steals passwords, credit card info and more — how to stay safe

Downloading an early version of macOS 14 Sonoma was until now the only way to try out the new Safari 17. But now users can try the Safari Technology Preview, now on version 173, on a stable version of macOS instead.

Before, trying out the new Safari and its new abilities would mean installing the full macOS Sonoma beta on your Mac, and accepting the risks that testing betas come with. However this preview is now available for macOS Ventura, so there's no need to install the full beta.

You don't need a paid-for developer account, or even to have signed up for Apple Developer at all. The download link is available for anyone to install, assuming you're running macOS Ventura of course.

Safari 17 features you can try now (and later)

Once you've installed it, the Safari Technology Preview allows you to try some fun stuff that normal Safari doesn't support. For instance, you can try selecting vertical text from images (the stable version of Safari only recognizes regular horizontal text), enable and disable developer options, or simulate browsing Safari on different devices.

The disadvantage with trying the Ventura version of the preview is that some of the big new features aren't present. Anyone wanting to try out things like Profiles or auto-locking Private Browsing windows will need the full Sonoma beta, at least for now.

It's safe to say that this preview is still meant for developers to try out rather than average users. But since it's its own separate app, leaving your current stable version of Safari in place, you can at least do a little compare-and-contrast with current-gen Safari while you wait for more headline updates to appear in the preview build.

There are more macOS Sonoma features coming beyond those found in Safari, too. Apple's introducing widgets to the desktop for the first time, new visual effects for video calls and a new suite of features to enhance gaming on Macs.

All of this, including all the Safari changes, will roll out this fall to the majority of Macs that are less than five years old. It's not that long to wait really, but at least you now know where to look if you want to try parts of the new Safari early.

More from Tom's Guide

• Your iPhone is listening to you — here’s how to prevent that
• This one thing might get me to jump ship from Windows 11 to macOS
• iPhone 15 Pro Max rumored release date, specs, price, cameras and more

iOS 17 is bringing several upgrades to Safari, the iPhone's default browser, that combined may be enough to tempt you away from a third-party browser like Chrome or Firefox.

You'll have to wait until the fall to try these for yourself (unless you want to try out the iOS 17 developer beta), but thanks to Apple's in-depth WWDC 2023 presentation, we already know a good number of features that are incoming to Safari. The updates should have the cumulative effect of making browsing simpler, more productive and more secure, so we can't wait to try them for ourselves.

You can read our summary of the top seven new iOS 17 Safari features below. If you're curious about other incoming updates for your iPhone, then have a look at our guides to FaceTime, AirDrop and the new Journal app in iOS 17 too.

iOS 17 Safari: Profiles

Apple's biggest announcement for Safari this year is the new Profiles system. Similar to Focus modes in iOS as a whole, setting up a Profile gives you an individual set of open tabs and tab groups, history, and favorites. You can swap between your work and personal profiles, or perhaps profiles for different projects you're working on, so you can focus more easily on the task at hand.

iOS 17 Safari: Private Browsing lock with Touch ID/Face ID

Whatever you're using Private Browsing mode for, chances are you don't want someone to accidentally see what's in your tabs when they happen to glance at your iPhone. Fortunately for you, iOS 17 will make lock these tabs up when you're not actively using them, requiring a Face ID or Touch ID check (depending on your iPhone) to open them back up.

iOS 17 Safari: Search improvements

If you're using Safari, there's a fair chance you're searching for something. And usefully, iOS 17 is bringing some improvements to this. Apple promises search results in Safari will be more relevant, as well as easier to read. The demo showed several regular search results below a widget showing the current scores for the MLS game the user is looking for.

iOS 17 Safari: Private Browsing tracker removal

There's arguably not much use opening a private tab if other websites can still monitor what you're doing. In a further tightening of Safari security, Private Browsing windows in iOS 17 now block tracking cookies and delete the URL tracking tags that some websites add to the end of links that would otherwise keep tabs on your adventures across the web.

iOS 17 Safari: Autofill verification codes from Mail app

Your iPhone is already smart enough to detect when a verification code for a website comes into your Messages app, popping the code up at the top of your keyboard for easy input. That system's growing in iOS 17 to include the Mail app too, hopefully streamlining even more of your log-ins.

iOS 17 Safari: Password sharing

Users of iCloud's Keychain feature will be able to share usernames and passwords with select groups in iOS 17, with credentials automatically updating if you change something. This feature works across iOS apps, but Safari is likely to be the one that gets the most use out of this collaborative feature.

iOS 17 Safari: Auto-pause for GIFs

A nice quality-of-life ability in iOS 17 is the ability to pause all GIFs that show up on your iPhone by default, including in Safari. By using the Animated Images toggle in the Accessibility settings, the only GIFs that will play when browsing the web are the ones that you set to play yourself.

More from Tom's Guide

• iPhone 15 Pro design tipped by leaked cases — here’s the changes
• Apple My Photo Stream shuts down soon — here's how to save your photos
• One of my favorite Spotify features is coming to Apple Music with iOS 17

When you know how to Inspect Element on Safari for Mac, you can delve into the HTML and CSS code of a web page, to see how it's really functioning behind the scenes or to make changes to how the site looks or functions (these are only temporary and the changes will be discarded after you close your browser). 

If you're on a website you've built, you can use Inspect Element to debug issues with a page's front end.

Chrome and Firefox users will be used to simply right clicking on a page element and then selecting Inspect Element. However, with Safari the Inspect Element feature is not enabled by default, so you may be scratching your head about where to find it, especially if you're unfamiliar with Apple's browser. To enable Inspect Element, you first have to switch on Safari's Developer Menu.

If you aren't sure how, fear not, as this guide will show you exactly how to Inspect Element on Safari. All you need to do is read on.

How to Inspect Element on Safari for Mac

1. In Safari, click Safari in the tool bar
2. Click Settings and head to Advanced
3. Check Show Develop menu in menu bar
4. On a webpage, right click an element
5. Click Inspect Element

Read on to see illustrated instructions for each step.

If you'd like to learn more ways to get the most out of your Mac, we have lots of helpful tutorials just like this one. Find out how to enable macOS beta updates, so you can see and test the new features coming to your Mac in upcoming OS releases. I

f your Mac is behaving a little sluggishly, learn how to clear the cache on Mac, as this may help speed things back up. If you're sick of screenshots sitting on your desktop and spoiling your clean background, discover how to change the screenshot save location on Mac. Messy desktop? Learn how to use desktop stacks on Mac.

You should learn how to use the iOS Safari Reader if, like the rest of the entire population of Earth, you don't like ads and other distractions getting in the way of your online browsing experience. 

See, while ads are necessary to the functioning of many websites, including Tom's Guide, we know they can be annoying sometimes. It's also not uncommon to stumble across a page that is totally dominated by ads, which can hamper your ability to read through the text on a page.

Thankfully, as you'd expect from one of the best phones out there, the iPhone has a built-in way to clear the clutter and let you see webpages more clearly. It's called Reader, and it's built into iOS Safari.

Want to learn how to use the iOS Safari Reader? Of course you do, so read on!

How to use the iOS Safari Reader

Note: not every website or webpage support Reader, but many do. We'll show you how to identify this and how to enable Reader to turn on automatically whenever possible.

This process is the same on iOS and iPadOS.

You'll now have a page in Reader format, with no distractions and just the text and images displayed.

To exit the Reader, simply tap the AA icon again and select Hide Reader.

How to use iOS Safari Reader automatically

Alternatively, if you'd like to set the Reader to come on whenever it can, you can follow these steps. This might not result in the best experience on certain websites, though.

If you enjoyed this tutorial, we have many more iPhone-themed guides to help you better use your tech, including how to clear RAM on iPhone, how to delete multiple contacts on iPhone and how to transfer data from iPhone to iPhone. And if you're finding iOS 16's wallpapers system confusing, don't worry: we can show you how to delete wallpapers on iPhone. Want to learn a couple of neat iPhone camera hacks? We can show you how to enable lens correction on iPhone, for more-natural-looking images and how to enable View Outside the Frame on iPhone, to mimic a DSLR's optical viewfinder. If you're a gamer, learn how to connect classic-style controllers to your iPhone.

Next: learn how to play games in iOS Messages.

Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox could soon break free of the restrictions put upon them by Apple's App Store, which forces the browsers to use the Safari WebKit rendering engine instead of those found in their other versions. 

According to The Register Mozilla and Google are both preparing apps for future iOS devices that use the Blink and Gecko engines found in their standard browsers instead of WebKit. This means that instead of essentially acting as a re-skinned version of Safari, more native versions of Firefox and Chrome could be coming to iOS. 

Moving away from WebKit: Why now? 

If there were ever a time for Google and Mozilla to push the limits of Apple’s resolve, now would be a good one. After regulatory pressure for Apple to allow other app stores on iOS, and steps to allow third-party payments on its devices, there is a perceived loosening of restrictions at Cupertino. 

MacOS already supports fully-featured third-party browsers but If Apple were to allow these browsers onto iOS, they would likely need to respond with a re-vamped Safari or else lose users. This competition and an end to the "walled garden" would almost certainly be good for users, but this is not a new struggle. Ted Mielczarek, a former engineer at Mozilla claimed via Twitter that he worked on getting the Gecko engine version of Firefox onto iOS as early as 2010 and again in 2015. 

In a statement to The Register, Mozilla explained its reasoning for working on the project: "We abide by Apple's iOS app store policies, and are simply doing some exploratory work to understand the technical challenges for Gecko-based browsers on iOS if those policies were to change. We hope the day will come when people can freely decide to use the browser of their choice, including the opportunity to select the engine that underpins it."

The likes of Google and Mozilla are also facing pressure to improve. The potential implications of AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, and the integration of AI into Bing and Edge could change search engines forever. Google is also working on its own Bard AI which could make its way to its Blink-powered browser. 

iOS 16.2 rolled out this week, and it seems it came just in time.

According to Bleeping Computer, this week’s iOS 16.2 update fixes a zero-day hack used to attack iPhones. In fact, this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild to attack iPhone users, so make sure you update to iOS 16.2 now. If you’re not sure how to update, check out our guide on how to update to iOS 16.2. 

The bug in question is a type confusion issue in Apple’s Webkit browsing engine that is used in Safari, among other Apple apps. Type confusion issues occur when a piece of code doesn’t verify the type of an object that is passed to it and uses the object blindly, according to the Microsoft Defender Security Research Team. 

In this type of confusion exploit, maliciously crafted web content is used to perform arbitrary code execution, caused by a software error in Apple’s Webkit to execute commands in the operating system, deploy additional malware or spyware or execute other potentially malicious actions. It was discovered by Clément Lecigne of Google's Threat Analysis Group in iOS 16.1.2 according to Apple, who only disclosed it this week.  

While Apple hasn't disclosed how attacks exploiting this vulnerability work due to security reasons we do know that it’s not just iPhones like the iPhone 14 that are affected. Any device not running iOS 16.2 or iPadOS 16.2 could be vulnerable, though Apple did release iOS 15.7.2 as a security-only update for some older devices and perhaps now we know why. 

It’s also not just iPhones and iPads that are vulnerable. As many of Apple's products use WebKit, this exploit could impact a wide array of devices. While Apple claims that only versions of iOS prior to iOS 15.1 may have been exploited by malicious actors, we found evidence of a patch for this exploit in the security notes for Safari 16.2, tvOS 16.2 and macOS Ventura 13.1. So make sure you update all of your Apple devices right now just to be safe.  

Learning how to install Safari extensions on iPhone can massively enhance the default browser's capabilities.

Given it comes built in, most iOS users will use Safari to browse the web. But what many people don't know is that, like Google Chrome on desktop, the iPhone's Safari browser can have extensions added to it. 

As their name suggests, extensions give you additional features such as the ability to block adverts or make price comparisons. They work in the same way as those on a computer so you may want to discover how to install Safari extensions on Mac as well.

One thing's for sure, introduced in iOS 15, extensions are easy to install and there are lots of them. The method below describes how you can to find them within the App Store in just a few taps. 

You are also able to manage the extensions after you've installed them, switching them off and on at will. Some require permissions and we show you how to manage those as well. 

So let's get on and discover how you can install Safari extensions on iPhone.

How to find and install Safari Extensions on iPhone

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone and tap Safari from the list of options.

2. Now scroll down and tap Extensions.

3. You may already have some extensions installed in which case this is a good chance to view them and turn them on and off. Otherwise, tap More Extensions to find and add more.

4. You will be taken straight to the App Store, which will land on the Safari Extensions page. Browse the extensions and tap Get next to the ones you like. 

5. When prompted, tap Install and enter your Apple ID password if asked.

6. The extension will now appear in the list of Allow These Extensions. However, you may find that new extensions are turned off. If so, simply tap the extension you want to turn on.

7. You can now tap the switch next to the extension to turn it on. You can also go through any list of permissions and decide what data the extension can access.

8. Extensions can also be managed in Safari itself. Simply tap the AA icon in the search bar and select Manage Extensions.

And there you have it: you now know how to install Safari extensions on iPhone. It's certainly worth taking the time to explore the Safari extensions to see if there is something which suits your needs. If you'd like to learn more about your iPhone, we have a range of iOS-themed guides. Need to share files quickly? Check out how to use AirDrop on iPhone and iPad. Time to update iOS? Read how to update an iPhone. Getting a new iPhone? You'll need to learn how to transfer data from iPhone to iPhone.

You'll want to know how to install Safari extensions on Mac if, like many users, you use the computer's built-in browser. By making use of plug-ins, you can add a variety of features to help you get more out of the app. Perhaps you want a tool that checks your grammar, blocks adverts, allows you to save articles or launch apps. These and more are available.

They are also easy to install. Apple made it easier to find extensions for Safari with the introduction of macOS Big Sur and the number of them is rising. So it isn't just Chrome users who get to play around with extensions. And while you may consider using a rival browser — Google Chrome now outperforms Safari on M1 Macs after all — if you decide Safari has everything you need, you don't need to miss out.

Here is how to find and install Safari Extensions on Mac.

How to find and install Safari Extensions on Mac

1. Launch the Safari browser and click Safari from the top toolbar menu. Now select Safari Extensions.

2. The Mac App Store will open on the Safari Extensions page. Browse the extensions — note that some are free, some are paid-for and some have in-app purchases.

3. Click Get when you see an extension you would like to use.

4. Now click Install and sign in with your Apple ID and password when prompted. 

5. The extension will be installed. Click Open to launch and you may see some on-screen instructions.

6. You also need to ensure the extension is turned on. Open Safari again and click Safari in the menu. Then, select Preferences.

7. Click the Extensions tab at the top of the window and look down the left side of the screen for a list of available extensions.

8. Tick an extension you want to use and click Turn On. 

9. You will also see information relating to it, including the permissions it requires and an option to uninstall.

And there you go. You can now start adding and using Safari extensions. Extensions exist for different browsers too. Take a look at the best Chrome Extensions but be careful because millions are under threat from malicious browser extensions. You can also install Safari extensions on iOS devices. Find out how by reading how to install Safari extensions on iPhone. You may also want to check out the best ad blockers too. 

The ability to share Tab Groups in iOS 16 builds upon last year's iOS update, which added a Tab Groups feature to the mobile Safari app. The iOS 16 update now takes the feature to the next level, meaning you can not only group together tabs on a related topic, but share those groups with other people too.

This isn't just an iPhone feature. Shared Tab Groups work across Apple's different devices, with the feature also coming to iPadOS 16 and macOS Ventura. All three of those software updates ship in the fall, but you can experience the changes first-hand when you download the iOS 16 public beta onto your iPhone.

Shared Tab Groups has the potential to be a vital tool for group research projects, study groups and families looking to share information. Apple intends for you to use the Shared Tab Groups feature to collaborate with other people, and Tab Groups are fairly easy to manage — once you know how to share a Tab Group, that is. Here, we'll show you the ropes, using the Safari app on iOS 16.

How to share Tab Groups in iOS 16 Safari: create a Tab Group

Before you can share any Tab Groups you've assembled, you need to know how to create them in the first place. We've got an extensive guide on how to use tab groups in iOS 15, and the process for creating one hasn't changed in the iOS 16 beta. 

Here's a quick reminder on how to create a Tab Group.

1. In Safari, tap the tab button in the right corner of the location bar. 

2. Tap the middle of the bar, where it lists the number of open tabs. You can also tap and hold on the number of open tabs and create your Tab Group from the pop-menu that appears. 

3. Tap New Empty Tab Group to create a new blank tab group or, if you want to group all the tabs you currently have open, tap New Tab Group from X Tabs (where X is the number of tabs you currently have open). Since all the tabs I have open are related to researching a Berlin trip, and that's what I want my Tab Group to be about, I'm going to pick New Tab Group from X Tabs.

4. Enter the name you'd like to use for the Tab Group and tap Save.

You're now the proud owner of a Tab Group. You can add additional tabs to your group, switch to other Tab Groups or, as of iOS 16, share this Tab Group with someone else. Let's learn how to do the latter.

How to share a Tab Group in iOS 16 Safari

Let's start from an entirely different web page.

1. Tap the tab button in right corner of the location bar in Safari. 

2. Tap and hold on the center of the location bar, where you see "Start Page" or the number of open tabs. On the ensuing pop-up menu, select the Tab Group you want to share. (If you're already in the Tab Group you want to share, just skip to Step 3 below.)

3. I've picked my Berlin Research Tab Group. Just to the right of the name at the top of the screen, there's a Share Sheet Icon. Tap it.

4. On the following menu, pick the people or app you want to share the Tab Group with. In this case, I've picked my wife, and I'm sending her the link through Messages.

5. The icons of anyone you're sharing a Tab Group with will appear at the top of the page. Tap their picture and then Manage Shared Tap Group to add or delete people.

The best part of Shared Tab Groups is the interactive nature of the feature. You can see which tab someone's looking at — their icon appears on the tab. And changes and updates to the Tab Group are visible to everyone. 

You can also text, call or FaceTime with members of the Shared Tab Group by tapping their picture and using the Message, Audio or Video icons to initiate the conversation of your choice. It's all about making Safari a more collaborative tool.

Shared Tab Groups is just one of the big changes that's available in iOS 16. We can also show you how to edit text messages or even unsend texts in the Messages app. If you want the latest sports scores and news for your favorite teams, follow our tips on how to set up My Sports on the iOS 16 News app while our guide to setting up an iCloud Shared Photo Library can help you share important photos with family members. For more general iPhone tips, why not start by checking out how to turn off Shake to Undo on iPhone.

iOS 16 Safari isn't quite the radical reboot of the mobile web browser that iOS 15 introduced. For starters, the tab bar is staying in the same place, at the bottom of the screen by default. (This assumes that you didn't move the tab bar back to the top of the screen the minute you upgraded to iOS 15.) But there are still some changes in Apple's updated iPhone software — one that will be apparent right away and another that will take time to develop.

The change you can use the moment you install iOS 16 — whether you download the developer beta, plan to wait for the iOS 16 public beta's arrival in July or won't check out iOS 16 until the full version arrives in the fall — is Shared Tab Groups. This feature builds on a less controversial addition from iOS 15 Safari, by letting you take all those web pages you've grouped together and share them with other people.

In addition, Apple is also using iOS 16 to introduce us to passkeys, its attempt to usher in a password-free future for web browsing. Instead of having to remember and enter in a password for each online site, the updated version of Safari issues you a digital key tied to your your user account and verified with biometric information like Face ID on your iPhone. The change isn't going to happen overnight, but Apple is betting that it leads to more secure browsing that what we experience now.

These changes to iOS 16's version of Safari aren't taking place in a vacuum. They're being implemented alongside similar updates from macOS Ventura and iPadOS 16, both of which figure to arrive alongside the finished version of Apple's iPhone software this fall. Here's what we know about the iPhone implementation of these updates based on Apple's iOS 16 preview and what people who've used the developer beta have been saying about Safari.

iOS 16 Safari: Shared Tab Groups

As we mentioned, Tab Groups came to Safari with last year's iOS 15 update, and while I felt the feature was better suited for the Mac, it was still helpful for research projects to keep related web pages grouped together. At the very least, Safari Tab Groups brought some measure of organization to the iPhone's default web browser.

With iOS 16, Tab Groups are picking up collaboration features, too. Shared Tab Groups is the big addition to Safari that does exactly what its name implies — you can take those Tab Groups you've assembled and share them with other people. They can add browser tabs of their own, contributing to your research project.

The benefits of Shared Tab Groups should be apparent. If you're planning a vacation, you and your partner can exchange tabs featuring possible lodgings, to-dos and travel info. You can share research with fellow students on a school project or relevant web pages for a work project you're collaborating on with colleagues. As with Tab Groups, the shared version syncs across the different Apple devices you own (assuming they're all running the latest software updates that Apple's releasing this year).

Sharing Tab Groups is as easy a tapping the share button next to the name of the Tab Group and selecting who you want to share with. The feature promises real-time collaboration — you'll see the icons of the people in your share group on the tabs they're looking at, and you'll be able to see any changes made as they happen. You can share Tab Groups through Messenger, as part of the chat app's newfound collaboration capabilities in iOS 16.

Other Tab Groups improvements in iOS 16 Safari

Shared Tab Groups grabs the headlines, but it's not the only enhancement Apple is introducing to this particular feature. You can now distinguish your different Tab Groups with their own customized start page. That includes a different background image for each group as well as group-specific favorites. In addition, iOS 16 Safari supports pinned tabs for your different Tab Groups.

iOS 16 Safari passkeys

Back in May, Apple joined Google and Microsoft to announce expanded support for the FIDO passwordless sign-in standard. iOS 16 Safari yields the first fruits of that stepped-up support in the form of passkeys, which are meant to do away with passwords when you sign into websites and apps.

The problem with passwords — besides the fact that not everyone uses the best password practices — is that they can be obtained via phishing and other social engineering attacks if you're not vigilant. And even if you are and use one of the best password managers, someone could still hack into the website of a database or company and steal your login credentials that way. Passkeys answer that threat by tying a digital key to your user account and then having you confirm that you're the one signing in either through a fingerprint or face scan. (That's Touch ID or Face ID, if you're using Apple's hardware.)

It's unclear how prominent passkeys will be when iOS 16 launches — you'd imagine Apple will implement them with its own websites and services first — but Apple promises that you will be able to sync them across all the Apple devices you own through your iCloud keychain. Additionally, Apple's involvement with FIDO means that you'll be able to sign into non-Apple devices by scanning a QR code with your phone and confirming your identity with Touch ID or Face ID.

In its passkeys preview at WWDC in June, Apple described the move to the new login standard as a journey, meaning passwords will remain with us for a little while longer. To that end, iOS 16 promises some additional password improvements such as enhancements to strong passwords generated in Safari. The Wi-Fi section of the Settings also is also getting a new edit button that lets you review Wi-Fi passwords stored on your phone so that you either share them with others or delete them if you no longer need them.

If you're wondering how to block websites on iPhone and iPad then there's a strong chance you've come across a site that you'd rather not view again. Either that or you have children who you would like to keep safe online. After all, there's a lot of great content out there, but a helluva lot of bad stuff, too!

Stick with Safari as your browser of choice, however, and you can easily filter out unwanted websites. As well as blocking adult content, you can ensure specific sites cannot be accessed. You can also go the other way by making sure there's a blanket ban on all but a handful of websites. These are based on a list which you can tailor to suit your circumstances.

How to block websites on iPhone: Access the web content settings

In all cases, the website-blocking features are situated within Screen Time so, to make use of any one of the three functions explained below, you will need to follow these four steps first.

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad and tap Screen Time.

2. Select Turn On Screen Time if it's not already on and follow the on-screen instructions to get set up. Otherwise, tap Content & Privacy Restrictions.

3. Toggle the Content & Privacy Restrictions button into the “on” (green) position.

4. Tap Web Content.

How to block websites on iPhone: Limit adult websites in Safari

Now that you know how to get into the web content settings, you can start to block websites.

The simplest option is to make use of Apple's own list of adult websites. This will prevent you (or anyone else) from using Safari on an iPhone or iPad to view material aimed at adults.

1. Follow the steps above (concerning web content settings) and tap Limit Adult Websites.

2. If you find this limits some websites that you would like to remain viewable, tap Add Website under Always Allow.

3. You can then type the URL of the site you want to see. Tap Done and tap Web Content to go back to the previous screen.

How to block specific websites on iPhone and iPad

You can also go further and select specific websites that you want to block. These will be in addition to the list of adult websites gathered by Apple.

1. Follow the steps above (concerning web content settings) then tap Limit Adult Websites.

2. Now tap Add Website under Never Allow.

3. Type the URL of the site you do not want to view and tap Done. You can then tap Web Content to go back to the previous screen.

How to only allow specific websites to be viewed on iPhone and iPad

The third way of restricting access to online content is to block almost every website, before then allowing certain ones to be viewable.

1. Follow the steps above (concerning web content settings) and tap Allowed Websites Only.

2. Now, underneath the list of websites which Apple will automatically allow, tap Add Website.

3. Enter the title of the website you want to allow and enter the website's URL. Tap Done and tap Web Content to go back to the previous screen.

And that's it. You should now be able to work out which approach works best for you. If you want to use a different browser, check out how to block a website in Chrome. If you're worried about theft try how to disable control center on a locked iPhone. You can also say goodbye to irritating ads thanks to the best ad blockers, learn how to disable the pop-up blocker in your browser, and, for good measure, figure out how to block spam calls on iPhone. If you're thinking about upgrading your Apple tablet, make sure you read our guide on how to transfer data from iPad to iPad. And if you're like to learn more about using your smartphone's apps, start with how to change your Instagram username.

It looks like the next iOS 15 update could come with a big upgrade to Safari. This enhancement will be specifically focused on the web browser’s Dark mode, and will allow users to set a display preference for individual websites.

Currently Dark mode can only be switched fully on or completely off, there’s no way to switch back and forth without venturing into the menus. A forthcoming update will reportedly change that and offer the ability to enable Dark mode for individual websites. 

This will allow iOS users to account for websites that may not display properly in either Light or Dark mode and temporarily switch between the two display modes on per website basis. 

This potential new feature was found in Webkit, which is the engine that powers Apple’s Safari browser. Webkit is an open-source project hosted on Github, and 9to5Mac spotted a new addition to the code which allows for “overriding the system color-scheme with a per-website preference."

Dark mode was first introduced in iOS 13, and since then has become the default setting for many users. It’s so popular that several of the biggest websites on the net have updated their own interface to be compatible with Dark mode. However, some websites don’t display correctly in the dimmed display mode, but this upgrade should go some way to addressing that particular problem. 

This Dark mode upgrade isn’t the only new feature unearthed in the Webkit engine. It also looks like Apple is developing tools to allow users to block pops that are craftly designed to look like system alerts. Apple also appears to be working on a new API that could help manage the “Cookie Consent” agreements that many websites ask visitors to confirm before browsing. 

There’s no exact timeframe on when these features are expected to rollout. They are listed as “TBA” (to be announced) in the Webkit engine. Apple may opt to include them in its next iOS 15 update, which could be detailed at the upcoming Apple Peek Performance event on March 8, or they may be held until later in the year when iOS 16 is expected to debut.  

Update: Apple has released an update for iOS 15 to plug the security hole Safari. 

A bug in Apple's Safari browser could reveal your recent web history and potentially your identity to any website you’re using. And while Mac users can simply switch to another browser, iPad and iPhone users are out of luck, because every alternative browser is also impacted.

In a blog post published on Friday, browser fingerprinting service FingerprintJS explained the root of the problem, which affects Safari 15 for Mac and all versions on iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. 

It's all related to the way WebKit implements a JavaScript API called IndexedDB. The bug, which was reported to WebKit on November 28, means that while a website should only be able to see IndexedDB databases it has created, it can actually see those generated by any websites during the user’s browser session. 

As these entries are often unique to each website, that means that a site could figure out what other pages you’re visiting in different tabs or windows. "A tab or window that runs in the background and continually queries the IndexedDB API for available databases can learn what other websites a user visits in real-time," the post explains. "Alternatively, websites can open any website in an iframe or popup window in order to trigger an IndexedDB-based leak for that specific site."

As some websites also create user-specific identifiers in the IndexedDB database names, that also means that bad actors could use the exploit to figure out a seemingly anonymous browser’s identity. 

In the video below, FingerprintJS uses YouTube as an example. Once logged in, the ID is changed to include a string that, with a little legwork, can be linked to a specific person:

IndexedDB databases can be accessed without any user input, the post adds, and enabling Private Browsing mode won’t close the loophole either. 

An analysis of Alexa’s top 1,000 most visited pages found that over 30 “interact with indexed databases directly on their homepage, without any additional user interaction or the need to authenticate.” 

That doesn’t sound too bad, but FingerprintJS believes that it’s worse than it sounds. “We suspect this number to be significantly higher in real-world scenarios as websites can interact with databases on subpages, after specific user actions, or on authenticated parts of the page,” the post continues.

Until a fix is issued, Mac users can simply switch to another browser, but a similar solution isn’t available for worried iPhone and iPad owners because Apple requires all browsers to use WebKit on its mobile platforms, meaning Chrome and Firefox are also affected. 

“One option may be to block all JavaScript by default and only allow it on sites that are trusted,” the blog post explains, but it adds that this makes web browsing “inconvenient.”

“The only real protection is to update your browser or OS once the issue is resolved by Apple,” the post concludes. “In the meantime, we hope this article will raise awareness of this issue.”

Learning how to save a web page as a PDF is extremely worthwhile. Maybe you’re downloading information for when you’re out and about without a reliable internet connection or perhaps you want to download a research paper so you can mark it up. 

Whatever the reason, being able to view a web page offline as PDF can be very convenient. Sure, you could just bookmark a web page or copy and paste the link, but that would require you to have a constant internet connection and that’s not always a guarantee. If you know you’re going to need access to a web page in the future, it’s best to have it saved as a PDF. 

• How to save a Word document as a PDF
• Best PDF editors in 2021
• How to combine PDF files

Logically you might assume that the “Save page as” function found in most browsers is the best way to go about saving a web page as a PDF. However, that option will actually save a page in HTML format. This isn't ideal for offline viewing, so it's better to save as a PDF instead. 

Don’t worry if you’re unsure how to save a web page as a PDF, as you’ve come to the right place. Below you’ll find easy-to-follow instructions for how to save a web page as a PDF in every major browser on desktop and mobile. 

How to save a web page as a PDF in Chrome 

1. Click the three-dot button in the top-right corner of the Chrome browser and select the Print option in the menu. Alternatively, press Ctrl+P to skip this step.
2. In the Print window, click the down arrow to the right of the Destination heading to bring up a drop-down menu. From this submenu, select "Save as PDF."
3. You can click "More settings" if you want to set additional requirements like page size and scaling. Once you’re happy with your PDF, click Save at the bottom of the window.
4. You’ll now be asked to select where on your PC you want the PDF saved. Select a location, and then click Save.  

How to save a web page as a PDF in Microsoft Edge 

1. Click the three-dot button in the top right corner of the Microsoft Edge browser and select the Print option. You can also press Ctrl+P to skip straight to step 2.
2. In the Print pop-up window click the down arrow underneath Printer and select "Save as PDF."
3. You can use the Layout and Pages options located in the Print pop-up window to make formatting changes, as well as clicking "More settings" for options such as the number of pages and scaling.
4. Click the Save button and you’ll be asked to choose where on your PC the PDF will be saved. Select a location and click Save again to complete the process.  

How to save a web page as a PDF in Firefox 

1. Click the three line button located in the top-right corner of the Firefox browser, and select the "Print…" option.
2. In the resulting window click Print in the top-left corner.
3. When the next window opens, select "Microsoft Print to PDF" from the printer options and then click the Print button.
4. You’ll be asked to pick a file name and save location. After doing, this click Save.  

How to save a web page as a PDF in Safari 

1. Click File in the menu bar at the top of your screen. Choose "Export as PDF…" from the menu.
2. A new window will open. From here, you can enter a file name and select a save location.
3. Once you’ve done that, click the Save button. Safari really does make it easy.  

How to save a web page as a PDF on iOS  

1. Open the web page you want to save as a PDF in the Safari app for iOS and press the Share button. It's the one with an arrow pointing up from a square box.
2. Press the Options button that will appear under the web page title.
3. Select PDF from the list of options, then press Done.
4. Next, press "Save to Files."
5. You’ll be asked to select a destination on your device where the PDF will be saved. Press Save to finish.  

How to save a web page as a PDF on Android 

1. Open the web page you want to save as a PDF in the Chrome app for Android. Tap the three-dot button located in the top-right corner and select Share.
2. A pop-up menu will appear on your screen, from here press Print.
3. Tap the down arrow on the top-right corner of your screen and choose "Save as PDF" from the options menu.
4. You can use the down arrow under Paper Size to choose several options such as the number of pages and scaling if required.
5. Once you’re ready to save your PDF, press the blue PDF button, which should be on the right of your screen.   

For more file format guides, make sure you check out how to convert JPG to PDF on Windows PC and Mac, how to convert HEIC to JPG on Windows and how to change HEIC to JPG on iPhone, how to open HEIC files on Windows.

Safari in Apple iOS 15, iPadOS 15 and macOS 12 feels like a whole new browser in a lot of ways. And while I like Tab Groups, there's one feature that I immediately didn't really enjoy and wanted to disable. And fortunately, that's very easy to do.

This new feature changes the color of the interface around the tabs, bookmark and navigation button areas in Safari, to match the color of the website you're using. Sometimes this change doesn't bother me, such as when Safari goes black while I'm reading a CNN article, but when it takes on a color like blue (seen above for CNBC, or on TweetDeck), it's a bit jarring to my eye. 

• iOS 15 hidden features and how they make your iPhone better
• macOS 12 Monterey compatibility: See if your Mac can run it
• Plus: Check out our hands-on macOS 12 Monterey review

The intent is clearly to immerse the reader in the site's aesthetic, but I'd rather that site pop off the neutral shade like it did in past versions. That might sound awesome to you. But if it doesn't, read on. And don't be ashamed. It's normal to not like change. I just wish some other Safari changes were equally configurable, as it doesn't make sense that the Reload button is now hidden in iPadOS.

And so I figured out how to change this setting in all three of the operating systems. Fortunately, it's the exact same in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, and macOS 15 is only slightly different. 

How to stop Safari from changing colors in macOS 12

1. Click Safari in the Menu bar. Of course, you'll need to have Safari open for this.

2. Click Preferences.

3. Click Advanced.

4. Uncheck "Show color in tab bar."

How to stop Safari from changing colors in iOS 15

According to my colleague Philip Michaels, who wrote our hands-on iOS 15 beta review, Safari's color-changing nature isn't a big a deal on the iPhone. Specifically, he told me "to be very honest, I do not notice it at all," as he's too busy being confused by the Safari iOS tab bar moving to the bottom of the screen.

That might be because iOS gives the tab bar much less space than macOS and iPadOS do. That said, here's how to disable it outright.

1. Open Settings and tap Safari.

2. Turn "Show Color in Tab Bar" off.

How to stop Safari from changing colors in iPadOS 15

Here, the difference is a little more pronounced, as you'll notice in the above TweetDeck screenshot. That big blue section is what temporarily appears when you pull a web page down to reload it. 

1. Open Settings.

2. Tap Safari.

3. Turn "Show Color in Tab Bar" off.

There, now you know how to stop Safari for changing its color to match websites, on every new Apple OS.

• Read next: Check out our hands-on iOS 15 beta review
• How to use Live Text in iOS 15

Web browsers may not be the competitive battlefield they were back in the 1990s, but that doesn't mean Apple's sitting back when it comes to Safari. The upcoming macOS Monterey Safari update includes a brand new eye-catching — and controversial — design, along with features that aim to make users' browsing experience easier, safer, and more powerful. 

macOS Monterey Safari doesn't arrive until the fall with the full macOS Monterey release, though we will get a chance to use the software as a public beta in July. Here's what to expect from the new version of Safari once you upgrade to Apple's latest software for the Mac.

• 5 new macOS Monterey features that will make your life easier
• macOS Monterey and iOS 15: Apple's walled garden just got even higher

macOS Monterey Safari: Edge-to-edge design

What's likely to garner the most attention when you launch the new version of Safari is the redesigned tab bar. Gone is the familiar toolbar and location field above a list of tabs; instead, you'll see a more streamlined design that integrates the location bar into the active tab's title bar — if you can even call them "tabs" any more. Open sites are now represented by small rectangles displaying the name and favicon of the site and, in some cases, the icon alone. 

That design is bound to raise some eyebrows for a few reasons. For one, it seems to reduce the number of overall tabs that can be easily glimpsed before they are shrunk down to icons alone; for another, the amount of space for text in those tabs is more limited than ever — and, even more disorienting, 

The new look hides many of the browser's former toolbar controls, including the Translate, Reader, and even Reload beneath a three-dotted "More" button in the location bar. (Though it does appear that there may be workarounds to return those controls. After all, what we've seen thus far comes from pre-release software that might change markedly before macOS Monterey arrives in the fall.) 

From an aesthetic point of view, the design of macOS Monterey's Safari is intended to blend seamlessly in with the page you are navigating, with the entire window taking on that tint. While Safari will, by default, choose a color to blend in with the toolbar, there's also a new meta HTML tag that lets web designers specify a color to use, which can even vary depending on whether the user is in light mode or dark mode. The result is a striking design that emphasizes the site you're browsing, though it remains to be seen if this is a case of favoring form over function

macOS Monterey Safari: Keeping tabs on browsing

We've all known someone who keeps a million different tabs open at all times — perhaps, much as we hate to admit it, we are that person. macOS Monterey's Safari attempts to give those people a new recourse with the addition of Tab Groups. (This feature may also in part be a response to that new Safari design, due to its reduction in real estate for endless tabs.)

Tab groups, as the name suggests, allows you to save and organize your websites into groups that can be accessed later. For example, if you're researching a particular purchase, like a new TV, you may have scores of tabs with reviews, product pages, round-ups, and so on. Rather than cluttering up your browser by leaving all of those open while you do the rest of your surfing, you can save them into a single tab group that then appears in Safari's sidebar; you can even name it "TV research" so you remember what the group is for. 

You can then re-open your grouped tabs at any time, even easily switching between different tab groups as necessary without losing your currently open sites. 

Moreover, tab groups sync between all your Apple devices, so if you suddenly need to view those tabs you opened on your Mac while you're out and about, you can pull them up on your iPad, iPhone, or MacBook. Of course, you'll have to upgrade your tablet and phone to iPadOS 15 and iOS 15, respectively, to take advantage of cross-device support. Those updates arrive in the fall, too.

macOS Monterey Safari: Sharing is caring

In addition to storing your tab groups, bookmarks, and Reading List, macOS Monterey Safari's sidebar features a new heading: Shared with You. Collected beneath are links that your contacts have sent you via Messages. 

So when your friend asks you if you read that long, hilarious thread they sent you last week, there's no need to break into a cold sweat and start scrolling back through your conversation to find it. Just open the sidebar in Safari and pluck it right out of the Shared with You section.

macOS Monterey Safari: Share and SharePlay alike

As long as you're sharing things, why not go beyond just links? In macOS Monterey, Safari offers support for the new SharePlay API, which lets developers build experiences that users can share with others while on a FaceTime call.

At the most basic level, that means that you can easily share a website with someone while you're talking to them in real time, whether it's picking out menu items for a food order or browsing shopping listings on Amazon. But as developers take advantage of the API, they can build richer group experience that could include everything from playing online games together to sharing video or audio content.

macOS Monterey Safari: Apple Pay

We all pay for plenty of things online these days, and Mac users probably end up using Apple Pay a fair amount. That experience has been improved in macOS Monterey Safari, with a redesigned Apple Pay interface. 

Where supported, you'll be able to create deferred or recurring payments, choose "in store" as a pickup location, see an estimated arrival date, and—best of all—enter coupon codes, all from within the Apple Pay sheet. 

macOS Monterey Safari: Safe and secure

Apple prides itself on privacy and security, and nowhere is that more important than on the web. In macOS Monterey Safari, the company has added a few features that should make the browsing experience not only more secure, but also easier.

One such enhancement is the ability to generate and autofill two-factor verification codes — those numeric codes that provide an extra level of security after you log in with your username and password. While Apple has previously supported the ability to autofill those verification codes when received via SMS, transmitting codes by text message is less safe than those codes provided by an on-device Time-based One-Time Password (TOTP) generator app, such as Google Authenticator or Authy. 

In macOS Monterey, Apple has integrated its own TOTP generator and can create those credentials when you make a new account as well as autofill codes when logging into websites. That means not only are your accounts more secure, but the login process is also more convenient, because you don't have to get a separate device or app to manage them. It's the rare security win-win.

That's not the only improvement to security, though. Apple will now also default all web connections to an encrypted HTTPS connection whenever available (which, these days, is on most sites). That means your browsing just got safer and harder to snoop on.

And for those concerned about advertising tracking, a new feature allows you to hide your IP address from trackers that are known to Safari, making it harder for online sites to build a profile of you from your surfing habits. 

• Amazon Prime Day deals 2021 — dates and what to expect

Apple is planning to reveal changes to four key bits of software at next week's Worldwide Developer Conference, with Safari, Health, Maps and iMessage all set for special treatment. 

That's according to the Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern, who tweeted that the quartet would all be getting "big updates," and that these would be announced at WWDC 2021. Obviously, this is far from an exhaustive list of what to expect when the conference kicks off on Monday (June 7), but given that all four are arguably a little undercooked compared to their main rivals, it certainly makes sense.

• iOS 15 release date, beta and new iPhone features
• What's in the iPhone 13?
• Plus: I'm not canceling Apple TV Plus — here's why

The Health updates will be worth paying special attention to, because they may well give us an indication of what to expect from the upcoming Apple Watch 7. We’ve heard that blood glucose tracking may finally be on the way (though perhaps not this year), and it will be interesting to see if other health metrics are added to the overall package. 

On a more basic level, one rumor suggests that food tracking will be added to the app to make it more of a rival to MyFitnessPal. 

Speaking of rival apps, it would be a good time for Apple to show that iMessage hasn’t been forgotten, as Facebook continues to deal with the fallout of its WhatsApp privacy changes. 

Apple has obviously made a big play on privacy of late, but other quality-of-life improvements such as improved iCloud syncing and a better way of searching old messages would be welcome, and could give users more reason to make Apple’s solution their main way of communicating. Given the WWDC hashflag on Twitter has a little iMessage thumbs up logo, we may see a lot of changes here.

On the subject of privacy, this could be where Apple finds the biggest wins in terms of improvements to Safari. In recent years, the company has implemented a bunch of changes to prevent unnecessary user tracking, such as the Sign in with Apple feature that lets people sign up to websites with disposable addresses. Continuing this approach could put clear water between Safari and Chrome, and encourage non-Mac users to make the switch. 

Finally, there’s Apple Maps, which remains a long way adrift of Google’s offering. Here, it should be less about breaking new ground and more about improving the feature set that’s already present, although once again the company could make a big play on keeping user data private, given the current headlines Google is getting about location sharing on Android.

Stern herself says that there will be “bigger stuff” to come, and notes that these four apps are just the ones that she has confirmed via her sources.

We're certainly expecting a lot more to be revealed in the keynote on Monday and throughout the following days. Among them, we predict plenty of detail about iPadOS 15, including the potential addition of home screen widgets as iPhones received with iOS 14, a first proper look at macOS 12, and info on tvOS 15. New hardware is also a distinct possibility, with a MacBook Pro 2021 in 14- and 16-inch versions tipped for a big reveal next week.

For more on our software and hardware predictions for the upcoming festivities, be sure to read our full WWDC 2021 preview, and if you want to follow it live you can also check out our How to watch WWDC 2021 guide.

• More: The best iPhones right now

An app developer was so tired of dealing with RAM hungry Chrome, that he developed an app for Mac to deal with the problem. Called Flotato, the app takes Chrome tabs and turn it into lightweight app windows.

With Flotato, the sites you're using are transformed into web browsers that serve a single app each. You can open a Flotato window for the web version of Twitter, for instance, and that’s all that app will run. 

• These are the best Chrome apps worth downloading
• Keep your laptop secure with the best Mac antivirus software
• Plus: New ThinkPad X13 packs two big upgrades I wish my MacBook Pro had

Flotato's lead developer Morten Just laid out his use case for the intriguing app in a blog post. He initially noticed something was wrong from the constant loud fan noise from his Mac when browsing Chrome. 

After developing the app, he ended up testing several tabs on sites like Twitter and Gmail to see how Flotato could reduce the average RAM in use with Chrome and Safari. On average, using Twitter in a single tab required a taxing 730 MB of memory, while Safari needed 73 MB. Flotato undercut both with just 63 MB. 

In another session, Just opened Twitter and Gmail in Safari, reaching nearly 80 MB of RAM and CPU usage. Flotato was able to reduce that total by about 10MB while running Twitter for mobile. Impressively, in another massive test, Just ran a 54-tab stress test on his Mac. Chrome required 290 MB, while Safari needed 12 MB. These tests tell a story that's all too familiar. 

Using Chrome for a variety of tasks will often result in RAM use skyrocketing. As Just notes in his test, Chrome still works to manage its memory usage to keep performance high. Safari, on the other hand, doesn't consume as much RAM, so the Mac's fans rarely need to spin wildly to keep up. 

Chrome will slow down when inundated with tabs due its high memory usage. With high CPU and RAM usage, your entire computer's performance begins to suffer. And, if you're like Just, you may just be unable to hear your podcast over your fans.

That's where Flotato comes in. If you're routinely using Chrome or another browser that produces the same results, it could save you some time and frustration.

When you decide you want to spawn a new browser with it, Flotato will set an appropriate icon to help keep track. You can even choose a live image of the website if you want to keep an eye on changes. 

Using Mac's WebKit, Flotato then allows you to have all of your "apps" running with significantly less RAM usage. There's no plugins, browser renderer, or other additions on top of Flotato that need memory to run. . 

Flotato is free for use with a few different apps. If you need additional tabs, it costs $14.99 for a pro version with unlimited app support.  

• More: Google Chrome just fixed the worst thing about web browsing — how to get it now 

An unpatched flaw in the Apple Safari browser lets hackers steal your browsing history, bookmarks, downloads or any other file that Safari can access, a Polish security researcher claims. The problem seems to exist on both Macs and iPhones.

Pawel Wylecial, who has a company called REDTEAM PL, wrote in a blog post yesterday (Aug. 24) that a feature called Web Share does a bit of oversharing in Safari. He said he told Apple of the flaw in April of this year, but because the company has decided not to fix the issue until the spring of 2021, Wylecial decided to go public.

• Nasty email hack can steal your personal data 
• Just in: Windows 10 update could kill your SSD — what to do

Wylecial described this flaw as "not very serious," but some good social engineering could easily trick Apple users to give up their personal data by luring them to malicious websites.

How easy? Wylecial created a proof-of-concept demonstration that you can try yourself at https://overflow.pl/webshare/poc2.html. If you click on the button labeled "share it with friends!" under the cute kitten in Safari, you'll be prompted with a list of possible apps for delivery -- Messages, Mail and so on. 

Choose a recipient and send the link, but beware: The recipient will also get your browsing history. We can see how data thieves could trick users into sending links to strangers as well.

What not to do

To avoid falling victim to this sort of thing, don't use Web Share in Safari for the time being. If you want to share a link with friends, fall back on the tried 'n' true method of selecting the link in the browser address bar, copying it, opening up an email or messaging app and pasting it the body of the text.

We tried it ourselves 

We tested Wylecial's proof of concept on Chrome for Android and it didn't work. But we had another person open the link in Safari on her iPhone, click the "Share it with friends!" button and send the link to our Gmail account. We received a SQLite database of her browsing history.

We asked another person to test Wylecial's proof of concept on a Mac. However, the "Share it with friends!" button seemed to only work with Apple applications. As she didn't have Mail set up to handle her email (she uses Gmail and Outlook), we couldn't go any further, but we think we could have if Mail had been set up.

Web oversharing

Web Share lets browser users easily send browser links to friends via email or instant messages, but Wylecial says that Safari's implementation of Web Share doesn't check those links to see if there's anything else added. 

Wylecial discovered that if he appended a local filepath to the URL, the Safari Web Share function would copy the file as well as the URL and send both to the recipient of the Web Share.

Web Share is an open-source feature made available for all browsers, but according to the latest documentation, its only desktop implementation so far is on Safari for Macs. On mobile devices, Web Share is supported on Chrome, Opera and Samsung Internet for Android and on Safari for iOS. 

Tom's Guide has reached out to Apple seeking comment, and we will update this story should we receive a reply.

Things are getting hairy for advertisers and marketers. The latest version of Opera has a dedicated user interface to show you how much you are being tracked.

According to the developers, the new desktop Opera 65 — available for macOS, Windows, and Linux — includes an update to its tracker blocker, which was introduced in the previous version.

Opera tracker blocker speeds up your browsing by crunching all those pesky marketing trackers that bloat web page code, slowing everything down. Opera claims that the speed boost is “roughly 20%”. The company says that the speed gain loading pages could be as much as 76% combined with the browser’s built-in ad blocker — an impressive feat.

The tracking blocker’s ability remains the same in Opera 65 but now, instead of just doing its fine work invisibly in the background, it displays a shield that you can click on to see who wants to track you and how much. It is a feature that you can toggle for individual sites, the company says. 

Fighting Big Brother

Browsers have been pushing for privacy protection for a while now, spearheaded by the little guys like Opera and Firefox but also by Apple’s Safari. The latter now limits fingerprinting and flag tracking cookies, although it doesn’t get as radical as Opera.

Even Google, which depends on advertisements to keep the machine working, had bowed to the cry for privacy by making it harder for marketing companies to track you. It also wants to badge and shame sites for being slow, which happens in part because of heavy tracking. However, the Mountain View company will not apply Chrome’s tracking restrictions to itself.

How to download Opera

With that in mind, it seems like prime time to switch browsers and ditch both Safari and Chrome for Opera, Firefox and even the latest Chromium-based Microsoft Edge, which also offers tracking prevention in its latest builds.

But if you are tired of people sucking up your privacy and you want to relish how much you are thwarting their efforts, you can download the latest version of Opera here. 

Bonus points: it has a new redesigned address bar that dims the current site to add clarity for your search and shows websites titles with their logos first, followed by hyperlinks, history, bookmarks and speed dial elements.