18.0 Beta: Enhanced Privacy, Enhanced UI
Daniel Appelquist
Head of Developer Advocacy, Samsung Internet
With 18.0, we’re building on the release of 17.0 which brought a consolidation and enhancement of privacy features as well as support for web authentication. We’ve also added a few new features and UI tweaks. Let’s have a look!
Our new “text capture” feature available from the context menu allows you to select and copy text from images on websites. This feature requires the latest OneUI (4.1.1) so is available on newer Samsung devices.
Screen shots demonstrating the “text capture” feature — pressing the image brings up a contextual menu which includes the option to “extract text” which can then be selected.
Long-pressing an image brings up the contextual menu with the new “Extract text” function. Selecting this allows you to select text from the image, then copy, share, or perform other actions.
We’ve tweaked the way our URL bar and tool bar can appear to make them more convenient for foldable devices. And we’ve also enhanced the tab user experience by adding a “close tab” button.
Smart Anti-Tracking now also protects against trackers that use CNAME cloaking—a relatively new way that third-party tracking networks are trying to skirt tracking protection technologies by posing as the first party. We’ve also improved the way that Smart Anti-Tracking deals with bounce tracking and window.name tracking—making your browsing more secure and private.
With 18.0 we also are rewriting http links to https by default—making your browsing more secure and private. This feature has also moved from our Labs to the Privacy Dashboard menu.
We’ve added a new option to be enable apps to allow links to be opened directly in Samsung Internet secret (private browsing) mode. This option is enabled by default, but you can turn it off from Settings > Personal browsing data > Secret mode settings > Open links from other apps in Secret mode.
If you’re using Samsung Internet in Samsung’s secure environment (“Secure Folder”) on your phone, you can now also use extensions in that environment.
18.0 also updates the underlying Chromium engine to version 99. You can download 18.0 Beta (to any Android device) via Galaxy Store or Play Store: https://galaxy.store/internetbeta.
