How to Turn Off Aut­ofill in Safari and Pros and Cons of Autofill

Rahul Gupta

Safari is the second most popular browser after Google Chrome. Mac users rely heavily on it due to its deep integration with the Apple ecosystem and its energy-efficient design. However, a vulnerability has recently been detected with the autofill or autocomplete system, which today is a crucial part of any web browser.

Till the time developers are working on finding a fix for this problem, the best solution is to disable this feature on Safari browser. Bu disabling autofill, you can prevent your personal data from being stolen and here is how you can disable or turn off autofill in Safari.


Turn Off Autofill in Safari

Chrome might be the most popular browser, but for Mac OS, nothing beats the good ol' Safari. However, the autofill vulnerability is not just limited to Chrome, Safari is also affected by it. So, to be safe, here is how to disable it.

Step 1: Click the Safari Menu key located in the menu bar on the top-left side of the screen. From the drop-down window, select Preferences to proceed.

Safari 2

Step 2: In the following screen, select Autofill. You should now see a window with a number of options enabled for the autofill feature.


Step 3: Uncheck all the options to completely disable autofill. This will now prevent your browser from adding any data automatically to a website asking for it.

Safari 1

Pros and Cons of Autofill

Modern day browsers are incomplete without autofill. They take care of a lot of information and help us in filling data faster. This is the reason why many third-party developers have created standalone applications also to do this task. While many people debate that autofill is not accurate, it surely has its own pros and cons.

The Pros

1. Faster Data Filling

If the details are saved correctly, any autofill app would take less than one second to fill up that data on a website, which otherwise could take up to several minutes. So, if you are a person who seeks convenience, autofill is definitely a good thing.

Even autofill has improved a lot over time. If you use Google Chrome or any other popular browser, you can save a large number of options for autofill, with each of them getting triggered when needed.

2. Helps With Repetitive Data

Another very important task accomplished by autofill is that it quickly fills up repetitive data. Many times, the shipping and the billing address happen to be the same on the check-out page of a shopping site, but the two different fields need to be filled separately.

In such cases, an autofill app comes in real handy and you can do the task within a second.

3. Storage of Data From Multiple Websites

Not just addresses, autofill also takes care of your passwords and user details for many websites. If you ask me, I personally have details of over 60 different websites saved on my autofill. I do not use all these websites on a daily basis. Hence, I do not feel the need to remember their credentials.

Another option is to use similar credentials but that would not be very safe either.

The Cons

1. Not Secure Enough

Before today, i was under the impression that my browser was really secure and the data that i have saved on it is safe too. But, fact of the matter is that you data is not secure and a simple malicious script can reveal the data to any website, all thanks to autofill. This is its job and autofill will always do it. However, the users need to be more careful.

2. Browsers Often Make Mistakes

Accuracy is another parameter where autofill is nearly useless. And i mean nearly because it does remember login credentials. But when it comes to filling in addresses and other information, especially if you have multiple addresses saved with the autofill, anything rarely works.

Stay Safe

The key to being safe is being aware and, by doing so, you can easily prevent pilferage of your precious data. While companies are working towards coming up with a viable fix for this problem, you can take steps such as the one we have mentioned above to be safe.

Stay Safe

Rest, autofill has never been a problem and I'm sure it would again become an integral part of our digital online lives soon.

Also See
#safari #security

Join the newsletter

Rahul Gupta

Written By

Rahul Gupta
