HOW TO Change privacy preferences in Safari

1 Access the options

You’ll find Safari’s privacy settings in Safari > Preferences > Privacy. The most important one here is Prevent Cross–Site Tracking, which is the feature that blocks trackers that try to follow you around online.

2 Check your cookies

Blocking all cookies is the nuclear option because many online shops and services use them to recognize you. But, if you select Manage Website Data, you can see and get rid of any unwanted cookies living on your Mac.

3 Control specific sites

The next tab to look at is Websites. If you’ve installed a content blocker extension (see page 73), you can enable and disable it for specific websites here.

4 Get camera shy

Safari also remembers which websites asked for permission to use your camera. You can choose Ask, Deny, or Allow for specific sites and set one of the three options as the default permission for all new sites.

5 Mic drop

You can do the same thing with your Mac’s microphone. So, if you don’t want any sites to access your Mac’s mic then set the When Visiting Other Websites drop–down to Deny. You can revoke permission any time.

6 Hide yourself

Location awareness can be useful sometimes, for example if you’re using a store finder on a retailer’s website. But it can also be used to share information about you — you can control that on a per–site basis here.

7 Stop Notifications

That little blue checkbox at the bottom is one of our favorite boxes ever: it stops websites from asking if they can send you notifications, saving you a lot of time you’d otherwise spend clicking “No Thanks” buttons.

8 Prevent pop-ups

Some pop–up windows are necessary. If you set the default here to Block and Notify, you’ll see a little icon in the Address Bar whenever a pop–up is blocked. Clicking it will allow the window or tab to open.

9 The Develop menu

Some sites do weird things in Safari, often resulting in the page refusing to load. Enabling the Develop menu (in Preferences > Advanced) can fix that: we often disable JavaScript to get a smoother online experience.