There has always been this long-standing debate about whether one should share their location with third-party apps.
On the one hand, there is the ever-growing privacy concern that these services might track us and keep a tab on our activities. But on the flip side, sharing the geo-locations has its perks as well.
Among them, the most beneficial is that you would be getting curated content that suits your needs. Along the same lines, the search results will be tailor-made and in line with the requirements.
For example, if you input a query like ‘best cafes nearby,’ the search engine giants could send you the nearby places only if it has your accurate location. They may also use your IP Address instead of the GPS, but the results will only correspond to your city at the absolute closest, which wouldn’t benefit the end user.
All in all, in most cases, the perks associated with sharing your actual location might outweigh the risks involved, granted you share it with the right apps.
So keeping all these points in mind, this guide will show you the steps to enable or disable geolocation access to sites on the Safari browser on Mac and iOS devices. Without further ado, let’s get started.
Location Services in Safari Mac
The Mac OS is a privacy-focused operating system. Hence, any changes to the app have to be made at the root level. We can enable or disable the Location services under the Security and Privacy preferences of Mac.
Here are the steps to manage the location services preference:
- Click on the Apple
menu list. - Select System Preferences/Settings from the menu.
It will open the System Preferences window. - Click to open the Security & Privacy preferences.
- Switch to the Privacy tab, and click on the Padlock
at the bottom.
It will request to enter the User account credential to make changes. - Confirm the password and hit .
- Select Location Services from the left menu pane.
- Enable the checkbox for the Enable Location Service option.
- Scroll to the Safari app under the Location Service box, and Enable/Disable checkbox per need.
- Click on the Padlock to prevent further changes.
That’s it. If you keep the checkbox enabled for the Safari app, the browser will use the location services; otherwise, it will be blocked for all the sites.
Location Access in Safari iOS/iPadOS
Like Safari on Computer, Safari on a hand-held device can enable or disable the location service at the Phone Settings level.
Here are the steps to manage the location services:
- Launch the Phone Settings app on your device.
- Open the Privacy menu and choose the Location Services sub-menu.
- Enable the Location Services toggle.
- Scroll down on the Location Services page, and select the Safari app from the list.
- Choose the appropriate desired option from – Never, Ask Next Time, or While Using the App.
The While Using the App option will notify you every time an app is actively using your location. As a result, you will always be able to keep a tab on the apps tracking you down, and you can then decide on the next course of action accordingly.
On the other hand, the Ask Next Time option would always bring a pop-up requesting the location.
If you wish to stop the location access to Safari completely, you can choose the Never option from the Allow Location Access section in iPhone or iPad location services.
Bottom Line
On that note, we round off the guide on how you could enable or disable location service access in Safari across both macOS and iOS.
No doubt, sharing your location involves an element of risk. Therefore it is always recommended to grant this permission only to the apps that come from trusted developers.
In this regard, Safari does indeed manage to checkmark this requirement. But you should double-check the site’s access via the browser. Only give location access to trustworthy sites and follow the necessary security protocols such as HTTPS and SSL certificates.
With that said, we conclude this tutorial on how to enable or block the location request in the Safari browser. If you have any queries, do let us know.
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