Safari

How much Google pays Apple to get its search onto iOS devices

Oliver Haslam ∙ March 10, 2012

While it's true that users can switch between Google, Bing and Yahoo when deciding which search engine to use in Safari on iOS, it's debatable as to whether anyone does actually change it. We're going to put our money on the percentage being on the low side!

That's why being the default search option on iOS is so important. If you're the one chosen out of the box, then the chances are you'll be the one that gets the vast majority of hits from users. Right now, that default choice is Google, and they pay handsomely for the privilege according to Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter.

Just how handsomely, you ask?

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Man sues Google for overriding Safari users’ privacy

Jake Smith ∙ Updated May 16, 2016

People went into quite the stir, after WSJ published an article reporting that Google had been overriding Safari's privacy settings to track user's web browsing habits. Google used many forms of trickery to bypass Apple's security settings, on both the desktop and iOS versions of Safari. Many users are questioning Google's tactics.

The whole ordeal is now entering court, as Business Week reports that an Illinois man is suing Google Inc. in a Delaware court...

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US lawmakers want to look into Google’s iPhone tracking fiasco

Sébastien Page ∙ February 20, 2012

Last week Google was caught overriding Safari users' privacy settings, and now US lawmakers want the Federal Trade Commission to probe the company over it, as reported by Computer World:

Three lawmakers from the U.S. House of Representatives have asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether last week's report of privacy violations of Safari users by Google violated a consent agreement the company had reached with the FTC last year.

Google's alleged circumvention of do-not-track controls on Apple's Safari browser could have a wide sweeping impact because Safari is a major web browser used by millions of Americans, according to a letter to the FTC on Friday from Republican Representatives Cliff Stearns of Florida and Joe Barton of Texas, and Democrat Edward Markey of Massachusetts.

That's definitely something we'll be following.

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Google caught overriding Safari users’ privacy settings

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 18, 2018

User privacy has been a hot button issue over the past few months thanks to high profile scandals like the CarrierIQ fallout, and the more recent Path debacle. And now it looks like we can add Google to the list of violators.

In a recent investigative report, The Wall Street Journal claims that the search giant has been intentionally overriding the privacy settings of both desktop and iOS Safari users to better track their web browsing activity...

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Fight: Chrome for Android vs. Safari for iOS

Jake Smith ∙ February 9, 2012

The iPhone's browser, Safari, is considered to be one of the fastest and most stable mobile browsers out there. But since Google released their new Chrome for Android mobile browser last week (currently in beta), does Safari still defend its title?

The folks over at the popular Android blog, Android Central, took it in their hands to compare the two browsers...

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iEagleEye Adds Extra Image Options to Safari And Mail

Jeff Benjamin ∙ January 12, 2012

The image selection menu in Safari and Mail just got a lot more interesting. iEagleEye is a jailbreak tweak that adds a numerous amount of new options to image selection — options such as Google Images, opening in new tab, copying the image URL, and more.

If you're looking to make your iOS experience more like a desktop experience when it comes to images, then you might want to give iEagleEye a look.

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How to quickly reopen recently closed tabs in Safari on iPhone or iPad

Alex Heath ∙ Updated April 5, 2017

While this tip may seem a little trivial, it will most likely solve an annoyance that many of us have experienced when surfing the web on the iPad or iPhone.

When you're browsing in Safari and you accidentally close a tab, it can be a pain to try and find that URL again in your history or search recommendations. That's why there's a handy little option for opening recently closed tabs on iPhone and iPad.

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iOS Finishes 2011 With 52% Share of Mobile Web Browsing

Oliver Haslam ∙ January 2, 2012

Apple's iOS platform finished 2011 with a strong showing in the mobile web browsing department, with iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches combining to capture 52.1% of mobile devices accessing the web.

Apple was top of the list in 2011 with over half of all devices. Jave ME came second with 21.3% share, while Google's Android took third, coming in with a respectable 16.2% share.

The numbers, courtesy of Net Applications, show iOS actually dropping in share when compared to November (54%) and October (61.5%), although December's result was not Apple's lowest of the year...

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iPhone 4S and Nokia Lumia 800 Browser Performance Benchmarked [Video]

Oliver Haslam ∙ January 2, 2012

Geeks really like benchmarks — they're one of the best ways to compare hardware speeds, and things are no different in the world of smartphones.

With the aim of comparing the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, and Nokia's Windows Phone 7-powered Lumia 800, YouTube user 359gsm set about running a selection of web-based benchmarks to see just which of the three phones is the quickest when it comes to rendering web pages.

The iPhone 4S did particularly well in the tests, with the older iPhone 4 more than holding its own, too...

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6 Great Jailbreak Tweaks for Mobile Safari

Jeff Benjamin ∙ December 20, 2011

If you're looking to supercharge your iPhone's Mobile Safari browser, then look no further than Cydia. There, jailbreakers will find a plethora of tweaks to add certain features to Apple's bare bones web browser.

In fact, there are so many tweaks available on Cydia that it's easy to get lost if you're relatively new to jailbreaking, or even if you've been going at it for a long time.

With that in mind, we've put together a list of six of our favorite jailbreak tweaks to get the most out of Mobile Safari...

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GridTab for Safari Improves the Tab Experience in Mobile Safari

Jeff Benjamin ∙ December 18, 2011

We've covered it in the past, but GridTab for Safari was recently updated with iOS 5 compatibility, so we thought it was a great time to bring you a video walkthrough of this exceptional tweak.

The purpose of GridTab is simple — to improve the tabbed browsing experience in Mobile Safari. Does it achieve its goal in doing so? Check inside for the answer...

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