With macOS High Sierra, Apple upgraded Safari to give us a better experience. We have intelligent tracking prevention and granular controls for websites. These Safari website controls let us create a unique experience on a per-website basis. Preventing auto-play videos, automatic Reader mode, and Content Blockers are a few of these controls.
Finding Safari Website Controls
- On your Mac, open Safari.
- You can press Command (⌘) + Command (,) on the keyboard, or click Safari > Preferences in the menu bar.
Here you’ll find the new macOS High Sierra controls. The controls are:
- Reader: Lets you automatically use Reader on websites you choose.
- Content Blockers: Keep adblockers enabled for certain websites, and you can choose to turn it off for your favorite websites. Or, keep the blockers on for all websites.
- Auto-Play: Tired of annoying videos that automatically play? Here you can shut them off for good.
- Page Zoom: Control the page zoom level for individual websites.
- Camera/Microphone/Location: Here you can choose to prevent websites from accessing these Mac components. Or, you can make websites ask to use your camera, mic, or location.
- Notifications: Don’t want websites showing notifications in the Notification Center? We already get enough notifications on your iDevices, we don’t need them on the Mac. This section is a bit different. You can check or uncheck a box to let websites ask permission, or not.
Alternatives
You can also access Safari website controls in two other ways:
- Right-click the address bar and choose Settings For This Website.
- Or, go to the menu bar and click Safari > Settings For This Website.
The level of control that Apple provides in Safari makes it more enticing to use over third-party browsers. I’ve always used it as my main browser, but it’s nice to have more control. That’s really what it comes down to: people should be able to control their experience of the web.