However, Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn said: Surveillance Technology Surveillance Projectstates that Safari is only the fourth best web browser in terms of privacy protection.
“If browser privacy was an Olympic sport, Apple wouldn’t win any medals,” Khan said. (Apple declined to comment for this story.)
Bottom line if you use Safari: You can feel reasonably safe in terms of your privacy (and security), but there’s probably a better way. Adjust your Apple settings Or you can use a web browser that offers even more privacy than Safari. We’ll dig into the details.
🟢 Safari will automatically stop tracking “cookies”.
These small software files are used by many websites and have become standard in the most popular web browser, Google Chrome, to monitor users’ online behavior.
The reason you see online shoe ads after searching for running shoes once is likely due to cookie tracking across the web.
Individually, cookies can be useful or even harmless, but large numbers of them can help companies collect digital documents about your income, location, interest in mental illness, love of horror movies, and other information you might not want your insurance company or supermarket to know.
Safari blocks third-party cookies everywhere on the web. Mozilla Firefox And that Brave BrowserBoth are available for PC, Mac, iPhone and Android devices. Safari is only available for Mac, iPhone and iPad.
Chrome will allow third-party cookies in most cases unless you disable them. chromium And Microsoft corner Your browser. (You might not be able to do this if you’re using a Google or Microsoft account managed by your employer.)
🟡 Safari also enables other types of tracking.
Even without cookies, a website can obtain information such as the resolution of your computer screen, the fonts installed, any add-on software you use, and other technical details which, taken together, can help us identify your device and the actions you are taking on it.
Commonly called “fingerprinting,” this tactic is privacy-invasive tracking by another name. Nick Doty Center for Democracy and Technology Generally, there’s not much that can be done about fingerprinting, he said, because people usually don’t realize they’re being tracked in this way.
While Apple says it will protect against common fingerprint technology, Khan said: Firefox, Brave And that Tor Browser All of these are good at protecting users from digital surveillance, which is why Safari is on par with the fourth-best browser in terms of privacy protection, he said.
Big companies like Apple and Meta, as well as smaller organizations They’re competing for users with privacy features.
Adding privacy protections comes with trade-offs, such as disabling some websites you want. Smaller browsers may have more freedom to be more aggressive in protecting privacy than Apple, but adding more privacy protections risks upsetting website owners, advertisers, regulators, and some users.
Convenient “Hide Your Tracks” Privacy Test According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a consumer privacy nonprofit, my iPhone, using the Safari browser, offers partial protection from a common type of data tracking.
Similar results were seen when using the Firefox browser on an Android phone. PCs using the Chrome browser failed the EFF Tracking Protection test.
🟡 Safari’s “Private” mode is not private for all users.
This is “private” or ” “secret” The web browser mode.
When you use this mode in Safari, your device’s web browser doesn’t keep records of the websites you visit or the web searches you perform.
This is useful if you are using a shared computer at a public library, or if you are using your home computer to buy a surprise gift or use an adult site.
But like most other browsers, the website you’re using and your home internet provider or workplace may still know what sites you visit, and if you use a virtual private network (software that protects your location), the VPN owner may be recording where you go, even in private mode.
Helpful for Mozilla Myth busting document about Firefox’s private browsing mode This may apply to other browsers as well.
🟢 Safari’s “In Private” mode provides additional privacy protections.
With this option, Apple says it will further block the use of “advanced” fingerprinting techniques, as well as add defenses against tracking that add tidbits of identifying information to the Web links you click. What you do on the Web will be locked down so no one can see it except you.
While you can turn on Private Mode for everything you do in Safari, there can be drawbacks: According to Apple, some websites may not function properly if you always use Private Browsing.
If you select this option: On your iPhone, go to Settings app → Safari → Advanced → Advanced Tracking and Fingerprint Protection → change it to “All browsing.”
