Credit: Jason Cross/IDG
On iPhone, most users just browse the web with Safari. It's the default, it's fast, secure, and power-efficient, and Apple goes out of its way to advance privacy-protecting features. But iOS does support third party browsers (even if they have to use Apple's WebKit page rendering engine), and some people prefer Chrome. There are millions of iPhone and iPad users who prefer to use Chrome, whether it's because of Google's integration with its other services or to more easily synchronize with Chrome for the desktop.
While using Chrome on iPhone or iPad is easy enough, there used to be no way to make it the default browser. If you ever tapped a web link in another app like Mail or Messages, it would open in Safari. With iOS 14, Apple is finally adding the ability for email app and web browsers to set themselves as the default, and Chrome is one of the first to offer the option.
At the time of this writing, iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 have not yet been released, but are in public beta. If you've got the beta (or you're reading this after the official iOS 14 release), here's what you need to do to make Chrome your default browser.
Setting Chrome as your default web browser
First, make sure you're running iOS 14 (the beta or final release) and have updated Google Chrome. Then follow these steps:
-
Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
-
Scroll down and tap on Chrome.
-
Tap Default Browser App.
-
Select Chrome.
IDGTo go back to using Safari as your default browser, either uninstall Chrome or return to this settings menu and select Safari.
