How to Always Open Private Browsing by Default on Android and iPhone

Tired of having to manually switch to an incognito tab every time you want to surf the web privately? There are easier ways to go about this on your phone. We'll teach you how to open your browser in private mode on Android and iPhone.

How to Launch Your iPhone Browser in Private Browsing Mode

If you use Safari as the default browser on your iPhone, you're probably familiar with the steps to open a Private Browsing tab—tap the Tabs icon, swipe right on the tab bar, and then tap the screen. This is far from convenient if you regularly use Safari's Private Browsing feature.

So, the next time you want to browse privately, long-press the Safari app icon and select New Private Tab from the context menu. Note that you may not see this if you haven't opened a private tab in Safari before.

If you use other popular browsers like Chrome, Firefox, or Edge, you can long-press the respective app's icon to see similar options like Incognito Search or New InPrivate Tab.

How to Launch Your Android Browser in Incognito Mode

You can open a web browser in private mode on Android by following the same steps. Just long-press the app icon and choose the New Private Tab or New Incognito Tab option from the context menu.

Additionally, Android lets you create a Home screen shortcut for this context menu item. You can use it to launch a private browsing tab on Android with a single tap.

Long-press your browser's app icon on your Home screen, then long-press the New Private Tab or New Incognito Tab option, depending on your browser. Doing so will create an app icon you can drag and drop anywhere on the Home screen.

The next time you want to open a private tab, you simply need to tap this app shortcut. From my testing, I found that Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Opera have these context menu options.

If you use Chrome, you can use its Home screen widget to quickly open an Incognito tab. To add this widget, long-press on any empty area on your Android phone and select Widgets. Type "Chrome" in the search field and expand the dropdown to see all available widgets. Scroll down, select the Chrome Shortcuts widget, and tap Add.

When you want to use it, simply tap the Incognito icon in the widget to launch Chrome in private mode. And while you're at it, you can follow our tips to enhance Chrome's Incognito mode on Android.

With these simple workarounds, you can always launch your browser in private mode. However, you should know that browsing incognito isn't fully private, and you can still be tracked. Fear not, though; there are several other ways to browse the web anonymously.

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