Disconnect have announced a new privacy application as an exclusive for the Samsung Internet Browser and in their words, allowing “Android users to control their privacy, experience faster page loads and use less bandwidth.” The application is available for download free of charge from the Google Play Store and you can hit up the link below if you want to try the browser and see how well the Disconnect facility works. Once enabled, the Disconnect feature is designed to quickly and easily cleanse all Internet traffic moving via the Samsung Internet Browser by blocking unwanted marketing and similar trackers embedded into websites. Disconnect’s data shows that by blocking this tracker code, this can accelerate page loading times by up to 44% and reduces bandwidth use by up to 39%, subject to the websites visited in the browser. The Disconnect plugin is compatible with the Samsung Internet Browser version 4.0 and later, meaning it will work with the Samsung Internet Browser 5.0, which includes a number of additional privacy benefits such as the Duck Duck Go search engine, which improves Internet search privacy.
It’s very easy to enable the Disconnect feature. First, ensure that you have installed the Disconnect application from the Google Play Store. Next, launch the Samsung Internet Browser and navigate to the More menu, then Settings, Advanced and into Block content. Disconnect also offer the “Disconnect Pro” application, available free of charge for Samsung smartphones via the Galaxy App Store on compatible devices, with improved privacy filtering.
Internet content blockers have been something of a hot potato in the last twelve months. There are a number of services that aim to filter out advertisements, tracking cookies or code so as to streamline the user experience by decluttering the web browser interface. Another benefit of removing some of the tracking clutter in a website is that it is much faster to load and can also result in significantly less bandwidth. However, a disadvantage is that many websites rely on advertisements for funding. Google’s main source of revenue is advertising revenue and it gleans anonymous information from customers via the Google search engine, which is packaged up and sold to advertisers. Google have introduced a number of new technologies to speed up accessing websites, such as AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), a technology that radically improves how quick websites load but which is also compatible with agreed advertising standards. The Samsung Internet Browser, Disconnect tie-in is not the first arrangement of its kind and it almost certainly won’t be the last. It will be interesting to see how the market evolves over the coming months and even years.