12 awesome Samsung Internet tips and tricks

Most default OEM (original equipment manufacturer) browsers are average at best. However, Samsung has put more effort into making Samsung Internet stand out against Chrome and the many other third-party web browsers in the Play Store. Plus, Samsung Internet isn’t limited to the company’s devices. Anyone can go ahead and download it from the Google Play Store. If you plan to do so, read along to learn about the best Samsung Internet tips to up your web-browsing experience.

1. Customize open tabs style

Samsung Internet doesn’t limit you in using the default tab switcher style. The company offers three options to view your open tabs – List, Stack, and Grid.

1. Open Samsung Internet on your phone.
2. Tap on the Tabs menu at the bottom.
3. Select the three-dot menu at the top and tap on View as.
4. Check tabs preview and select a radio button below List, Stack, or Grid.

2. Use group tabs

This is similar to a feature from Safari on iPhone. When you are dealing with dozens of tabs on your phone, no amount of style tweaks will save you from continuous scrolling in the tab switcher menu. Instead, you can create tab groups and neatly organize web pages.

1. Launch Samsung Internet and open the Tabs menu.
2. Tap on the three-dot menu at the top and select Group tabs.
3. Select the radio button beside the tabs you want to add to a group.
4. Tap on the Group icon and add a relevant name.
5. Hit the Create button, and Samsung Internet will create a new group with selected web pages.

3. Check the privacy dashboard

Samsung Internet’s privacy dashboard will surprise you with details like how many trackers follow you to collect your browsing history to offer targeted advertising. While browser cookies are used to remember your interactions with a website, they are often used to track you. There is a reason why your Amazon wishlist follows you everywhere on the web.

1. Open Samsung Internet and select more menu (that looks like a hamburger menu) at the bottom.
2. Select Privacy.
3. Make sure Smart anti-tracking is enabled, and check other privacy add-ons designed to protect you from interruptions.

4. Change the address bar position

This is yet another function Samsung borrowed from Apple. Like Safari, you can customize the address bar position on Samsung Internet. By default, the address bar is set at the top, which can be hard to reach for some. You can move the address bar position to the bottom for better accessibility.

1. Tap on the more menu in Samsung Internet and open Settings.
2. Select Layout and menu.
3. Tap on the radio button below Bottom and move the address bar position.

5. Enable dark mode

If you habitually browse the web at night, Samsung Internet’s dark mode can come in handy. When you enable dark mode, Samsung Internet will darken most elements on your screen. The practice improves your reading experience and battery life on phones with AMOLED displays.

1. Open Samsung Internet settings (refer to the steps above).
2. Select Webpage view and scrolling.
3. Open Dark mode menu.
4. Select Use Dark mode and set it to be always enabled or match your phone’s default theme.

You can customize webpage brightness in dark mode as well. Samsung’s implementation is more aggressive than other browsers, and it might sometimes leave you with hard-to-read broken web pages.

6. Disable news feed

Samsung Internet’s quick access menu comes with a rather useless news feed. You can easily disable it if you no longer want to see it.

1. Open Samsung Internet and tap on the edit button beside the Quick access menu.
2. Select the radio button beside None, and you are good to go without any news articles on the homepage.

7. Enable Secret mode

Secret mode is Samsung’s take on private or incognito mode offered in other browsers. Secret mode offers extra privacy protection by erasing cookies and browsing history for any websites you visit. You can lock the Secret mode with a password or biometrics as well.

1. Go to the Tabs menu on Samsung Internet (refer to the first trick).
2. Tap on Turn on Secret mode and hit the Start button from the following menu.

When you save pages and bookmarks in Secret mode, the data will only be visible in Secret mode.

8. Change search engine

Samsung Internet uses Google as its default search engine. You can change it to Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo.

1. Open Samsung Internet settings (check the steps above).
2. Select Address bar search.
3. Tap on your preferred search engine to browse the web.

You can select Add search engine and check other options like Yandex, Seznam, Qwant, and others. If you only want to browse a specific query in another search engine, you can easily do so from the search bar.

Tap on the search bar and select the default search engine icon. Select another search engine, and start typing your queries.

9. Use Video assistant

If you plan to watch videos on Samsung Internet, you can’t go wrong with this one. The built-in video assistant offers extra controls such as view full screen, view on TV, open pop-up player, and rotate screen in supported videos.

1. Open Settings in Samsung Internet (check the steps in the third trick).
2. Scroll to Useful features.
3. Enable the Video assistant toggle, and the extra control will start appearing for you.

The Video assistant also comes with intuitive gestures to improve your video experience. For instance, you can swipe up/down on the left side of the screen to change brightness, swipe up/down on the right side to play with media volume, double-tap on the right side to fast-forward video by 10 seconds, and double-tap on the left side to rewind it.

10. Check video history

Thanks to Samsung Internet’s excellent video assistant, you might end up watching hundreds of videos in the browser. You can easily track your watching habits from the video history menu.

1. Tap on the more menu at the bottom and select History.
2. Go to Video history and check all your watched videos in the app.

11. Change text size

The default text size on a website might be too small or big for you. It’s time to change the text size on a webpage.

1. Select the more menu while browsing a webpage on Samsung Internet.
2. Tap on Text size and use the slide to increase or decrease the text size.

12. Install an ad blocker

Some websites might spoil your ideal web-browsing experience with lots of adverts, so Samsung Internet supports several ad blockers.

1. Open more menu in Samsung Internet and select Ad blockers.
2. Tap the download button beside an ad blocker and browse the web without being bombarded by ads.

Use Samsung Internet like a pro

Samsung has nailed the web browsing experience on Android. Before you switch from Google Chrome to Samsung Internet, glance over our Samsung Internet vs. Google Chrome post to learn about the differences between the two.