Your Web browsing these days is subject to more tracking and profiling than ever. Though most browsers offer a privacy mode that erases any cookies or browsing history after you're done with your session, they don't hide your browsing from third-party sites like advertisers that track your activities on the Web. Enter Focus, a new browser for iOS from the Mozilla Foundation that does just that. Focus is a useful iPhone app for those concerned about their iPhone browsing being tracked, but that means that it's short on the kinds of features we've come to expect from browsers, like bookmarks autofilled passwords.
Setting Up Focus
To get the most from Focus, you use it as a replacement browser. You can still benefit from the content-blocking capability of the app if you continue to use Safari as your browser, however. You don't really need to do anything special to set up Focus unless you plan to use it with Safari. Just download the 11MB app from the App Store. It's compatible with iOS 9.0 and later, and works on the iPhone 5s and all newer models. I installed Focus on my iPhone 6s (599.99 with code VZWDEAL at Verizon) to test it for this review.
If you do want to use Focus as a Safari content blocker, you have to go into the iPhone's Settings app, choose Safari, navigate to Content Blockers, and slide the Firefox Focus switch to enable it. Keep in mind that this doesn't turn Safari into a completely private browser like Focus itself—which is actually good in a few ways. It just means that ads with tracking code won't appear, but your bookmarks, history, and so on remain intact.
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Note that in one respect, Focus doesn't provide as much protection as a VPN: It doesn't hide your IP address the way VPNs or Tor do. Nor does it shield you from traffic sniffers on a local Wi-Fi network the way those do. On the flipside, those anonymizers generally don't block third-party website trackers from seeing your cookies. If you're super into privacy and not being tracked, a good idea is to use Focus while you're hooked into a VPN, that way, your IP address remains private while Focus hides your cookies and other browsing data from the trackers.
Interface
Focus, focused as it is on the single goal of private browsing, is as bare bones as it gets. Every time you start the app, it looks exactly the same: a search-or-address box on a purple field. That's because whenever you close the app, all your browsing tracks are removed. Forget about bookmarks, history, password saving, or even tabs.
You'll experience the mobile Web in a newly simplified way: Most ads, including all those with tracking code, are removed. Of course, sites have tricky ways of displaying advertising to make it appear as regular site content, so don't expect a completely commerce-free Web. The app also doesn't offer an option to forget the browsing session when you switch away from it. You either have to tap the Erase button (which is easy enough), or swipe up on it in the iPhone double-tap task switcher, thereby actually shutting down the app. This required extra step may sound like a flaw to some, but most will prefer it to losing their sessions every time they jump momentarily to another app.
The only navigation buttons are the back and forward buttons and a globe icon that takes you to the full Firefox for iOS ($0.00 at Apple.com) . Other simplifications may cause you more grief than joy: Tabs are a no-show, so this browser is only for one site at a time. And not saving any personal data means that any sights that require an account sign-in will require you to reenter your credentials every time you got back to it in the browser. Another protection that takes away some convenience is that Focus doesn't allow the use of add-in keyboards, such as the excellent Word Flow, which I use whenever possible.
As Tor and VPN users can attest, privacy often comes at the expense of some speed, in addition to the kinds of feature gaps mentioned above. In the case of Focus, Mozilla reasonably claims that the app should speed up browsing, because it spares you from downloading ad images, but my testing didn't bear that out. The JetStream browser benchmark, which runs a battery of over a dozen speed tests three times, wasn't able to complete one of its tests, which isn't too surprising, since sometimes such test operations can be interpreted as security violations. And on the the SunSpider 1.02 benchmark, Focus's 932ms time was about a quarter the speed on the same test as Safari. On the Speedof.me internet speed test, it came in at 26Mbps compared with 34Mpbs for Safari. Focus did get the exact same score on the HTML5Test.com test, however, meaning its standard support should be identical to Safari's. With those caveats, Web content, including video, displayed correctly during my testing.
Privacy, Not Features
If there are sites you visit for which you absolutely don't want your Web activity to be tracked, Firefox Focus is a good arrow to have in your privacy quiver. But go in knowing that it's severely limited in terms of the browser features to which we've all become accustomed. There are no bookmarks, history, password saving, or even tabs for multiple-site browsing. I'd have preferred Mozilla to simply add Focus's privacy features as options to the organization's slick, full-featured iOS Web browser, Firefox, which is PCMag's iPhone browser Editors' Choice. If you want to stick with iOS's default Safari browser, Focus works well as an ad blocker, while leaving the stock browser's conveniences in place.
Firefox Focus is an iOS Web browser that can protect you from snoops with access to your phone and Web trackers, too. But that protection comes at the cost of features and speed.
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