INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Keepsafe, the company behind the private photo app of the same name, is expanding its product lineup today with the release of a mobile web
browser.Co-founder and CEO Zouhair Belkoura argued that all of Keepsafe’s products (which also include a VPN app and a private phone
number generator) are united not just by a focus on privacy, but by a determination to make those features simple and easy-to-understand —
in contrast to what Belkoura described as “how security is designed in techland,” with lots of jargon and complicated settings.Plus,
when it comes to your online activity, Belkoura said there are different levels of privacy
There’s the question of the government and large tech companies accessing our personal data, which he argued people care about
intellectually, but “they don’t really care about it emotionally.”Then there’s “the nosy neighbor problem,” which Belkoura
suggested is something people feel more strongly about: “A billion people are using Gmail and it’s scanning all their email [for
advertising], but if I were to walk up to you and say, ‘Hey, can I read your email’ you’d be like, ‘No, that’s kind of weird, go
away.’ ”It looks like Keepsafe is trying to tackle both kinds of privacy with its browser
For one thing, you can lock the browser with a PIN (it also supports Touch ID, Face ID and Android Fingerprint).Then once you’re actually
browsing, you can either do it in normal tabs, where social, advertising and analytics trackers are blocked (you can toggle which kinds of
trackers are affected), but cookies and caching are still allowed — so you stay logged in to websites, and other session data is retained
But if you want an additional layer of privacy, you can open a private tab, where everything gets forgotten as soon as you close it.While
you can get some of these protections just by turning on private/incognito mode in a regular browser, Belkoura said there’s a clarity for
consumers when an app is designed specifically for privacy, and the app is part of a broader suite of privacy-focused products
In addition, he said he’s hoping to build meaningful integrations between the different Keepsafe products.Keepsafe Browser is available
for free on iOS and Android.When asked about monetization, Belkoura said, “I don’t think that the private browser per se is a good place
to directly monetize … I’m more interested in saying this is part of the Keepsafe suite and there are other parts of the Keepsafe Suite
that we’ll charge you money for.”
