Safari’s getting a feature I can’t wait for Samsung Internet to have

Gosh these pesky GDPR cookie popups are so annoying. We have them on our website also, it's a necessity otherwise we'll fall foul of EU regulations, which isn't going to be a pleasant experience, to say the least.

These popups are among the many elements that we come across while browsing the web these days, and they can be incredibly distracting, as they take up valuable screen real estate that blocks the content we actually want to see. If only there was a way to prevent them from being such a chore to work through, and it appears that Apple has adapted one that it's going to introduce for Safari with its next major update.

Apple's released a new iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia beta which introduces even more functionality that the company is now testing before releasing it to the public with the final versions of these releases later this year. Safari in particular has received a new feature called Distraction Control.

This isn't meant to be an ad blocker. Distraction Control will simply hide parts of a page like overlays that ask for newsletter signups or cookie permissions. Users have to select which part of the page they want to hide on future visits, and Safari will then continue to hide them thereafter. Safari won't hide anything on its own, the user has to manually select what to hide.

Now this feature doesn't block parts of the page or content that gets updated, so this takes ads out of the equation, as they typically refresh on every visit. If blocking GDPR cookie permission popups, the website will be told that you've closed the request without providing an answer, which is usually taken as the grant of acceptance for standard cookies.

The feature sounds wonderful, in theory, as it should help make it a bit less distracting to read content online. It's worth waiting to see what the final implementation looks like to truly understand whether it's going to make a meaningful change in helping users surf the web more comfortably. It's pertinent to note here that this isn't entirely a new concept that Apple has created. A similar feature has been available on the third-party Arc Browser for some time now, Apple's merely adapted it for its operating systems.

There's no reason why Samsung shouldn't, either. The Samsung Internet browser is pretty good on its own, and the company does a great job of bringing features that other browsers don't have. It has thrived in an environment where every Galaxy device comes with a competing Chrome browser pre-installed, and yet Samsung Internet has offered users with enough unique features that a significant number of Galaxy owners have opted to use it instead of Google Chrome.

A feature like this on Samsung Internet would make perfect sense, particularly since it has ad-blocking functionality built-in as well. It would go a long way in reducing distractions while surfing the web, and also make the entire experience feel much faster. The Samsung Internet team is usually quite good at coming up with new features in beta. They've also recently made the browser available for desktop devices, despite there being consistent demand for the iteration for years.

Since the browser has been decoupled from the One UI skin and it independently receives major updates, there's no limitation for needing to wait until the next major One UI release to bring a feature. If the team creates it, they can easily ship it out via an app update for Samsung Internet. Whether or not they will do that in the near future, though, is a bit up in the air right now.