Hide & Seek: Better privacy for your web searches 1.1

Hide & Seek offers a unique solution for users seeking to maintain their privacy while utilizing search engines such as Google and Bing. It allows users to search anonymously, while still remaining logged into services like Gmail and Outlook. This is accomplished by employing a Safari content blocker extension to prevent cookie tracking.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball highlights that, “Hide & Seek has nothing to do with ‘blocking ads’. It is simply about maintaining your privacy and anonymity while using Google and Bing for web search. In my testing, it works like a charm.”

It is important to note that when using Google or Microsoft services, logging into one typically means you are logged into all associated services. For instance, accessing Gmail via your browser triggers automatic login to Google Search, allowing the company to link your search queries to your Google account. Hide & Seek effectively mitigates this issue, enabling users to search on Google while keeping their identity concealed, all without logging out of Gmail.

Hide & Seek facilitates anonymous searching across various platforms including:

• Google Web Search
• Google Images Search
• Google Videos Search
• Bing Web Search
• Bing Images Search
• Bing Videos Search
• Bing News

Before utilizing Hide & Seek, users should determine which Google and Bing services they prefer to use in an anonymous state. Once configured, users can seamlessly search the web as an unlogged individual while continuing to access other services in separate tabs.

There are some considerations to keep in mind:

• On an iPad, to reach the original website of an image found through Google Images with Hide & Seek active, users may need to select the ‘Open in New Tab’ option instead of tapping directly on the result.
• Similarly, on an iPhone, when attempting to follow a Bing search result with Hide & Seek active, selecting ‘Open in New Tab’ may be necessary rather than directly tapping on the link.