Private Browsing and More Pages

At the July meeting, held on the 14th, DaveK showed us some more new features recently added to Pages and Robert talked about private browsing and how it can be more useful than just shielding your browsing history.

Pages

DavidK demonstrated three handy features recently added to Pages, Apple’s wordprocessor.

  • Bookmarks to allow linking to another part of the same document and easier navigation within the document while editing.
  • There are now over 500 professionally drawn shapes available in the Shapes Library. Shapes can the styled and edited and it’s also possible to draw your own.
  • Text boxes can now be linked into threads with multiple independent threads on a page (or across pages).

Apple has articles detailing what’s new in Pages for Mac and Pages for iOS.

Pages (along with the other iWork applications) is now available as a free download for users with the current iOS and macOS.

Private Browsing

Robert talked about the private browsing feature available in most web browsers on both macOS and iOS. Private browsing stops the browser saving history and cache, and clears session information such as cookies when you close the window. He pointed out that private browsing can be useful in a number of situations including using social media sites (so they can’t track your other browsing) and when browsing on a friend’s computer (so as not to clutter their history or leave accounts logged in by mistake).

Private browsing also has a number of limitations, for example Robert explained how it won’t stop your Internet Provider or work tracking your browsing and doesn’t keep you safe when browsing on a computer you don’t trust.

Apple has more information on private browsing in Safari on macOS and iOS.

On iOS, Robert suggested two dedicated private browsing apps if you want something separate from Safari:
Firefox Focus
InBrowser

This article at The Simple Dollar provides a good overview of the benefits and limitations of private browsing.

News

In our news discussion we talked about: