iOS 26 is not anticipated to roll out for one more couple of months, however builders and early adopters can already entry upcoming options and expertise the brand new Liquid Glass interface by way of beta releases. When Apple rolls out iOS 26 later this yr, it’s going to allow Superior Fingerprinting Safety, a privacy-focused function on Safari that protects customers from being tracked as they browse the net, even once they aren’t utilizing a non-public looking tab. Mozilla’s open supply Firefox browser additionally provides safety in opposition to fingerprinting.
iOS 26 Public Beta Requires Superior Fingerprinting Safety to Be Enabled
When Apple unveiled iOS 26 at WWDC 2025, the corporate introduced that it will enhance person privateness by increasing the Superior Fingerprinting Safety function “to all browsing by default”. The function was beforehand enabled for Non-public Searching tabs in September 2023 as a part of iOS 17. It is going to be obtainable for all Safari tabs in September, when iOS 26 rolls out to all customers.
Superior Fingerprinting Safety on iOS 26 (Faucet to broaden)
Fingerprinting is a nefarious type of monitoring utilized by firms to watch a person’s exercise throughout the web. Consider it as a digital fingerprint that’s generated primarily based in your system’s {hardware}, your third-party browser extensions, customized fonts, and particular settings.
This type of monitoring is designed to persist even after the browser’s historical past, storage, and cache are cleared. With a purpose to shield customers, Apple offers random info and modifications the main points about {hardware} and software program shared with trackers. This makes it troublesome for information brokers and firms to create a fingerprint for a browser and observe customers.
Safari’s rival Firefox has additionally supplied protection against fingerprinting since 2020. Nevertheless, the open supply browser blocks third-party requests to firms that fingerprint customers on-line, which is a extra aggressive method in comparison with Superior Fingerprinting Safety on Safari.
It is price noting that Superior Fingerprinting Safety is not enabled for all tabs on Safari, with the first iOS 26 public beta that rolled out to eligible smartphones final week. A Devices 360 employees member confirmed that the function was working for Non-public Searching tabs, however it needed to be manually enabled by way of the Settings app.
Customers who need to activate Superior Fingerprinting Safety can navigate to the Settings app and faucet on Apps > Safari > Superior > Superior Monitoring and Fingerprinting > All Searching. This may allow the function on Safari earlier than the secure model of iOS 26 rolls out in September.