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Latest iOS 18.4 Beta Lets You Turn Off Privacy-Compromising Search Feature

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iOS 18.4 includes a new Safari feature that puts your searches front and center, showing your recent search history whenever you open up a new Safari tab and tap into the search field.

ios-18-4-safari-search.jpg

When the feature first came out in the iOS 18.4 beta, there was no option to disable it, but Apple rectified that with the fourth beta update. In the Safari section of the Settings app, there is now a "Show Recent Searches" option that can be toggled off.

Disabling Show Recent Searches returns the Safari search interface to its iOS 18.3.2 behavior, where recent searches are not shown when tapping into the search window of a new tab.

Apple appears to have added the option to toggle off the search feature after receiving feedback during the iOS 18.4 beta testing period.

While some users may like the option to have recent searches readily available when opening up a new Safari tab, having searches so visible may not be desirable for those who sometimes need to hand over their iPhones and iPads to someone else.

iOS 18.4 is still being beta tested, with Apple aiming for an early April launch date. The update also includes new emoji characters, Apple Intelligence Priority Notifications, Visual Intelligence for the iPhone 15 Pro, a Vision Pro app, and more. All of the features in the update are listed in our iOS 18.4 beta guide.

Article Link: Latest iOS 18.4 Beta Lets You Turn Off Privacy-Compromising Search Feature
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/03/19/ios-18-4-safari-search-feature-update/
How about fixing the Safari on the ipad where you no longer have access to your Favorites when you click on the search bar. Works completely different then the iphone Safari.
 
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Reactions: dominiongamma
I'm glad they're releasing a new version that can do this, but there's honestly no good reason why the option to turn it off shouldn't have been there from the beginning. Better late than never, but this reflects a growing trend of bizarre design/feature decisions at Apple lately.
 
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Reactions: Tim Apple’s Glasses
Are you searching for furry content? Who cares?

And if you're handing your phone to a stranger or someone else, forget it. You've given them the unlocked keys to the kingdom already.
 
John_Blackthorne said:
Are you searching for furry content? Who cares?

And if you're handing your phone to a stranger or someone else, forget it. You've given them the unlocked keys to the kingdom already.
Click to expand...
There are plenty of innocent reasons you might not want a search history to pop up. Searching for gift/surprise ideas for family members is the one that comes most readily and obviously to mind (family members also likely being the ones to whom you’d hand your phone). Or something about a topic you don’t want to pop up for minor children—and no I don’t mean adult content but maybe just something innocuous that’s not for all ages (current world events or politics, for example, are not things I need popping up for my kid, who can read but not understand such headlines).

In any case… even if it were just to protect searchers of furry content, why NOT have the option? Aren’t options good?
 
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Reactions: Tim Apple’s Glasses, Beepster, Godspeed8230 and 3 others
Run Safari in privacy mode 24/7. Every time you open it you have to log in or search again. :rolleyes:
 
It doesn’t do this on my iPads running latest iPadOS.

But I have turned off “everything”, Siri, backgroup app refresh etc. I flush my caches multiple times a day.

You don’t need that stuff and the battery lasts longer.
 
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Reactions: rustygh
"having searches so visible may not be desirable for those who sometimes need to hand over their iPhones and iPads to someone else."

I would say having *anything* even just browsable or searchable would not be desirable to potentially make available to anyone else, even for those who don't usually need to handover a device - but in the off chance it happens, multiple users would fix the issue.

Could we get multiple users to fix this issue? Thank you
 
Good to see that Apple has given an option to turn it off. Glad that users are in control. Will definitely turn this off once I update my devices.
 
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Reactions: mganu
Devnul0 said:
Even better … how about leaving what I had on the screen, on the screen so I can refer to it as I'm typing my search query? I can't do that today because it brings up the start page when I start typing.
Click to expand...
It's the designers, they have to be old, and don't even use the things they are designing for. Time to purge all those clowns and get some younger actual users to design.
 
There should be a single setting in iphones, ipad, and especially macs to turn of all of these recent files, recentlmopend, etc features. Privacy aside, it's also a security risk.
 
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