Ascent help

Getting around the browser, and answers to the questions people ask most. Reading comics? See Ascent Reader help.

Getting around

• The address bar sits at the bottom, under the page. Tap it to search or type an address; swipe it left or right to move between tabs, and up to see all of them.
• The bar below it has back, forward, home, bookmarks, new tab, translate, your tabs and the menu.
• The menu opens as a sheet: reload, forward and bookmark along the top, then page tools (Desktop site, Dark pages, Find, Translate, Share, Save offline) and the places you go to - Bookmarks, History, Downloads, Videos and Settings. Tools that do not apply to the page in front are dimmed.

Tabs

• Open the tab switcher with the square showing your tab count. New tab is at the bottom right, and in the menu.
• Swipe a tab sideways to close it; Undo brings it back. Close all is at the bottom left.
• The panes at the top switch between tab groups, your tabs and Incognito tabs. Incognito tabs keep no history, cookies or form data once they are closed.

Incognito tabs

• Open one from the menu, or from the Incognito pane of the tab switcher.
• When you close the last Incognito tab, that session's history, cookies, site data and form entries are deleted. Files you downloaded and bookmarks you made are kept.
• Incognito hides nothing from the sites you visit, your employer or school, or your internet provider.
• No ads are shown in Incognito tabs, and pages translated there are not kept in the translation cache.

Cookies, and sites that do not work

• Ascent blocks third-party cookies - those set by a site other than the one in the address bar - in every tab. Most sites work without them; some sign-in buttons, payment forms and embedded videos do not.
• To let one site use them, tap the icon at the start of the address bar, open its cookies and site data, and allow third-party cookies for that site.
• "Redirected you too many times" usually means that site's cookies are stuck: open the menu, choose Delete browsing data, select cookies and site data, then reload the page.

Warnings about a site's connection

• Connection is secure means the page arrived over HTTPS with a valid certificate, so what you send cannot be read or changed on the way. It does not mean the site itself can be trusted.
• "Your connection is not private" means the certificate could not be checked: it may have expired or belong to another site, or someone on the network may be intercepting the connection. Go back unless you know why it happens; on public Wi-Fi, try again on mobile data.
• "Connection is not secure" appears when a site has no HTTPS version - in Incognito tabs, and in every tab if you turn on Always use secure connections in Settings → Privacy and security. If you continue, the page and anything you type travel unencrypted.
• Ascent does not include Google Safe Browsing, so it does not warn about dangerous sites from Google's lists.

Shields, ads and pop-ups

The shield beside the address shows how many ads and trackers were blocked on the page. Tap it to switch Shields off for a site that does not work, or to choose how hard to block. See how ad blocking works.

• Pop-ups. A link or button you tap opens its new tab as normal. Windows a page opens without a tap, and windows sent to throwaway advertising addresses, are blocked; the browser says so at the top of the page, and Always show allows them for that site.
• Something is still showing. Menu → Block part, then tap it. It stays hidden on that site; Settings → Blocked elements undoes it.

Translating pages and pictures

• Tap the translate button in the bottom bar. Translate from and Translate to choose the languages; leave the first on Detect automatically unless a page is misread.
• Translate text inside images reads the lettering in comics, erases it and draws the translation in its place. The first Chinese, Japanese or Korean page downloads a recogniser from Google Play services, so it can take a minute before those pages translate.
• Tap Show original to put the page back.

Videos and downloads

• When a page plays a video, the full-screen button opens Ascent's player, with speed, captions, a lock and rotation. Its download button saves the video, with captions where the site has them.
• Saved videos are in Menu → Videos and in Downloads. Settings → Downloads chooses the folder.

Passwords

Ascent offers to save a password after you sign in to a site and fills it next time. Passwords are kept only on this phone, encrypted with a key in Android's keystore, and can ask for your fingerprint or screen lock before they are filled. Settings → Passwords lets you add, import or export them.

Privacy and security

• There is no Ascent account, and nothing is synced. Delete browsing data is in the menu.
• Third-party cookies are blocked, and trackers are stopped by Shields.
• Ascent does not include Google Safe Browsing, so it does not warn about dangerous sites from Google's lists. Certificate errors - a site whose identity cannot be checked - are still stopped with a warning.
• What leaves your phone, and when, is set out in the privacy policy.

Making Ascent your default browser

Settings → Default browser opens Android's Default apps screen. Choose Browser app, then Ascent.

Advertising in Ascent

Ascent is free and shows a small number of full-screen ads: at most one when you come back to the app after a while, and one every fifteen minutes or so while you browse, only between pages and never over a page you are reading. They are Ascent's own ads, separate from the ads Shields removes from websites.

Contact

Found a bug, or a site that breaks? Write to support@rltools.app with the address of the page and what happened.