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Change Browser settings

Browser settings let you customize the way you browse the web, including several that help you control your privacy.

General

  • Set homepage. Lets you set the webpage that opens when you create a new Browser tab, after you restart your tablet, or after not using Browser for a while. If you prefer to open new Browser tabs more quickly, choose Blank page.
  • Form auto-fill. Check to enter information in web forms by touching empty fields, using the data saved with the Auto-fill text settings.
  • Auto-fill text. Touch to open a screen of typical web form fields, where you can enter and save the data you’d like to enter in corresponding fields simply by touching them (if Form auto-fill is checked).

Privacy & security

  • Clear cache. Browser stores the text and images of the webpages you visit so that they open more quickly when you revisit them. Touch Clear cache to delete these temporary files.
  • Clear history. Browser keeps track of the webpages you visit, so you can quickly find them and open them again later. Touch Clear history to delete this record.
  • Show security warnings. Uncheck to prevent Browser from warning you about websites with common security problems, such as outdated or invalid certificates.

COOKIES

  • Accept cookies. Many webpages store, read, and update files called cookies on your tablet, for your convenience. For example, some password-protected sites use cookies so you don’t have to sign in each time you visit. Other sites use cookies to remember your preferences. Uncheck to prevent webpages from storing cookies on your tablet.
  • Clear all cookie data. Touch to delete all Browser cookies from your tablet.

FORM DATA

  • Remember form data. Browser remembers what you enter in some form fields on a site and helps you reenter that text the next time you use that form. Uncheck to turn this feature off.
  • Clear form data. Touch to delete all the information the Browser remembers about what you’ve entered in forms.

LOCATION

  • Enable location. Check to permit websites with location-specific content to ask whether you want to share your location, using your tablet's location information. To provide a website with your location, you must also have location sharing enabled in the Settings app. To check those settings, start from a Home or All Apps screen, and go to Settings > Personal > Location services.
  • Clear location access. Opens a dialog where you can clear the permissions you’ve granted to websites in the past, to access your location. If those websites want permission to access your location again, you must grant it again.

PASSWORDS

  • Remember passwords. Browser can remember your passwords for some webpages that require you to sign in, to make it quicker to sign into those pages on repeat visits. Uncheck to prevent Browser from storing passwords.
  • Clear passwords. Touch to delete any passwords that Browser has stored.

Accessibility

  • Force enable zoom. Websites that are optimized for mobile devices typically open to a size appropriate for the device, and may not permit zooming. Check this option to permit zooming on all webpages.

TEXT SIZE

  • Text scaling. Drag the slider to adjust the relative size of the text display, as shown in the Preview. This setting overrides the standard text sizes available from the Settings app: Settings > Display > Font size.
  • Zoom on double-tap. Drag the slider to adjust the zoom percentage. If you leave this at 100%, zoom behavior is unchanged. If you set it to less or more than 100%, the maximum zoom produced by double-tapping decreases or increases proportionately.
  • Minimum font size. Drag the slider to adjust the minimum font size. As reflected in the Preview above, increasing the minimum font size causes even tiny fonts on web pages to be displayed at least as large as the size you set here. Note that setting a large minimum size here may distort the layout of some webpages.

INVERTED SCREEN RENDERING

  • Inverted rendering. Check to make black white and white black, changing all colors to shades of gray, with lighter colors dark and darker colors light, as shown in the Preview.
  • Contrast. When Inverted rendering is checked, so that webpages are displayed in shades of gray, you can use this slider to adjust contrast.

Advanced

  • Set search engine. Opens a dialog where you can select the web search engine you want to use when you enter web addresses (URLs) or search terms in the omnibox. The search engines available depend on your location. The Microphone icon, for voice search, is available in omnibox only when you are using the Google search engine.
  • Open in background. Check to open new tabs in the background. This is useful when you are working with webpages that take a long time to download and display.
  • Enable JavaScript. Uncheck to prevent JavaScript from running on webpages. Many webpages function correctly only if they can run JavaScript on your tablet.
  • Enable plug-ins. Touch to adjust when plug-ins can function: Always, only when needed, or never.
  • Website settings. Opens a screen where you can view advanced settings for particular websites.

PAGE CONTENT

  • Default zoom. Opens a dialog where you can increase or decrease the magnification level that Browser uses when first opening a webpage.
  • Open pages in overview. Uncheck to open webpages displaying their top-left corners at 100% size. Check to open webpages zoomed out, in an overview.
  • Auto-fit pages. Check to have Browser optimize the presentation of text and other elements of webpages to fit your tablet's screen. Checking this option also causes the browser to reflow a column of text to fit the screen when you double-tap the column. Uncheck to view pages as designed for a computer screen, and to cause double-tapping to simply switch between zoomed-in and default view.
  • Block pop-ups. Check to prevent websites from opening tabs unless you request it.
  • Text encoding. Opens a dialog where you can change the character-encoding standard that Browser uses when displaying text on a webpage.

RESET DEFAULTS

  • Reset to default. Touch to delete all Browser data, including your browsing history, cookies, passwords, and bookmarks, and to restore all the Browser settings to their original values.

Bandwidth management

  • Search result preloading. Touch to control how Browser loads websites linked from the current page into memory. By predicting where you're likely to go next, Browser can download page data in the background and open those pages immediately if you do choose to view them.
  • Load images. Uncheck to omit images when Browser displays a webpage. This speeds webpage display, which can be useful if you have a slow connection; but many websites make little sense with text alone.

Labs

  • Quick controls. Check to hide the omnibox, tab button, and Menu button, and access equivalent controls by swiping your thumb into the screen from the left or right edge.

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