I don’t know what things are like on iPadOS, but I suspect it’s probably the same as iOS. Is it possible for the Brave to keep tabs open in private browsing? I notice that after closing the browser, all tabs are closed. Safari iOS doesn’t do this and I much prefer private browsing permanently, but with the tabs opened until I manually close them. Even better if an option is made available for the user to decide whether they want the tabs to remain open or not.
@iluvsq If you go to Settings → Private Tabs you’ll see a toggle for Keep Private Tabs. Enabling this will do as you want.
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Hello and yes, you’re right, but the problem is that when I close and reopen Brave, it doesn’t go back to the private browsing tabs. It goes to the normal browsing tabs. What I really want Brave to do is to mimic Safari on iOS. If I am using private browsing, Safari will remember and default to that even after restarting my phone. I think Brave should do this on both Android and iOS. The user should be able to decide whether Brave should default to private or normal browsing.
@iluvsq I really would like to suggest you take some time to go through all your settings to see the types of things you can do. I believe the answer would be right there for you. Also may find a lot of other things you can do that you weren’t aware.
Settings → Shields & Privacy. Then scroll down and you have Private Browsing Only
When enabling this it gives a warning it will close all open tabs and you’ll be signed out of any sites. Once done though, along with your other setting, it should be exactly what you want.
That said, I didn’t want to fully enable to test because I didn’t want to lose my info. And even if I did, I’d most likely not try to do this perpetual private window like you’re mentioning but would use things like the Shred feature that Brave offers. This is because there are websites I don’t want to always be signed out of when I visit. I’d much rather it retain my logins for convenience.
I already spent the time looking into the matter and these were my findings. I have already done what you had suggested and the results were described in the previous post.
I went to test it myself, and unfortunately, that wasn’t quite accurate. The actual behavior is that if you enable Private Browsing Only, the option for Keep Private Tabs disappears. That key detail was missing from your replies and would have been helpful.
I didn’t realize that combination isn’t possible, which is why I had asked you to test it. I assumed it should work if both options could be enabled together.
It looks like you have to make a choice:
- If you want to keep private tabs after closing the browser, you need to avoid using Private Browsing Only. The browser will reopen on the regular dashboard, and you’ll need to manually enable Private to restore your private session.
- If you choose Private Browsing Only, the browser will always open in private mode, but it will purge everything when you exit.
I really wish this had been communicated more clearly from the start. I ended up losing all my logins and cookies just to test this myself.
@Mattches, can you confirm whether this is the intended behavior? And is there any plan to support having both options enabled at the same time, as the OP requested?
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Yes I believe this is the intended behavior and is implemented this way for additional privacy/security. Will ask iOS team to confirm.
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I think it should be optional. Apple clearly thinks otherwise. I think Brave can please everybody by giving power users the ability to choose. If security is paramount, then go with the default behaviour. If convenience, then go with Apple’s implementation.
Did you hear back from the iOS team?
Yeah so it looks like there was some extra work that needed to be implemented for this functionality that may have been the reasont he behavior you’re looking for isn’t available in Brave.
I’ve gone ahead and opened a Github issue for this so that the iOS team can consider implementing this functionality similar to the way Safari does:
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Thanks Matt!
I find it strange that Apple thinks that approach is good while Brave sees it differently. Just give people the choice. Even if it’s a privacy and security concern, most people will know what to do to mitigate it.