How To Use Private Browsing On A Mac

When browsing the web, the browser you are using will collect different information. Many websites leave cookies, small text files the browser creates when the site loads. Also, your browser will keep the history of all the websites you’ve visited. You don’t want anyone to hack into any of your online accounts, or access the information such as your browsing history. In case you share your Mac with other family members or your roommate, you may want to keep your browsing history private and using private browsing mode is a way to go.

See also: How To Uninstall Apps On Mac OS X

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What is private browsing?

When browsing the internet using the private browsing mode, your browser won’t save the information about the websites you visited, cookies and temp files. Also, any new passwords you enter when using this mode won’t be saved. However, your Internet service provider can still track all the websites you’ve visited. Anyway, if you want to hide your browsing history from those who have the access to your computer, the only thing you should do is to enable private browsing.

How to enable private browsing mode on a Mac

Safari browser is one of the built-in apps on your Mac. Perhaps you are not using Safari. One of our previous articles is about the best browsers for Mac, where we talked about other great options, such as Mozilla, Opera, and Chrome. Every browser comes with the private browsing mode, and enabling it is really simple.

The easiest way to start incognito browsing is by using the keyboard shortcut:

• For Safari, Mozilla and Opera hit CTRL + OPTION + P
• For Chrome: hit OPTION + SHIFT + N.

Once you enable private browsing, a new window with a special icon will open.

The other way to start incognito browsing is from the main menu of your browser:

• Safari – File > New Private Window
• Mozilla – Click the menu button (three horizontal lines in the top-right corner), and click New Private Window.
• Chrome – Click the menu button (three horizontal lines in the top-right corner), and select New Incognito Window.
• Opera – Click the menu button (in the top left corner), and select New Private Window in the drop-down menu.

How to turn off private browsing?

When you want to stop using the private browsing mode on your Mac, all you need to do is to close the private window, or several windows, by clicking on the X and switch to a normal window.

When you are not using Mozilla, Chrome, Opera or Safari private browsing, you can use CCleaner. This simple and easy to use program will wipe all the browser cache, temp files, codes and images from the sites you’ve visited and it will remove all the junk files and the clutter from your Mac.

You may also read: How To Set Up Your Mac For Gaming