Private browsing is really useful when you want to visit a website without having the session affected by any existing cookies on your device, such as when you are already signed into an account for particular site. It also has the benefit of not saving your history, which is useful if someone else uses your iPhone and you don’t want them to know what sites you have been visiting.
But if you have recently made some changes to the settings on the device, then you may have noticed that the option to start a private browsing session is no longer available. This happens when you have turned on restrictions on the iPhone, and have elected to block a particular website. This has the unfortunately side effect of also disabling Private Browsing. Our tutorial below will show you how to turn off this restriction on the device so that you can once again use Private Browsing in Safari.
How to Re-Enable Private Browsing on an iPhone 7
The steps in this article were performed on an iPhone 7 Plus in iOS 11.3. This guide assumes that when you open the tabs menu in Safari, you do not currently see a Private option at the bottom-left corner of the screen. This option is removed when Restrictions are enabled on the device, and certain websites are blocked. This guide is going to show you how to allow all websites in Restrictions, which will then re-enable the option to create a Private Browsing tab.
Step 1: Open the Settings menu.
Step 2: Choose the General option.
Step 3: Scroll down and touch the Restrictions button.
Step 4: Enter the Restrictions passcode.
Step 5: Scroll down and tap the Websites button under Allowed Content.
Step 6: Select the Allow All Websites option.
You should now be able to go back to Safari and create a Private Browsing tab in the manner to which you are accustomed.
Do you often find it difficult to tell whether you are using Private Browsing or not? Find out how to tell the difference between private and regular browsing in Safari on your iPhone and eliminate the confusion that can arise when you aren’t sure whether or not your browsing activity will be saved for the current tab.
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