Apple claims Safari protects your privacy. We’ve verified those claims.

 

In ads aired during the Olympics and appearing online,  Apple claims its  Safari is “a truly private browser.”

This is largely true, with some reservations.

Apple deserves credit for making many privacy protections automatic with Safari, which you probably use to browse the web if you own an iPhone, Mac computer, or iPad.

But Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, said Safari is no better than the fourth-best web browser for your privacy.

“If browser privacy were a sport in the Olympics, Apple wouldn’t be on the medal stand,” Cahn said. (Apple has not commented on the matter.)

Bottom line, if you’re using Safari: You should be pretty happy with the privacy (and security) protections, but you can probably do better, either by tweaking your Apple settings or by using an even more private web browser than Safari. I’ll dig into the details.

🟢 Safari automatically stops tracking “cookies”.

These tiny software files are used by many websites and are standard for the most popular web browser, Google’s Chrome, to keep tabs on where you browse online.

Web tracking cookies are probably the reason you see shoe ads online after searching for running shoes once.

Cookies can be useful or harmless individually. In bulk, however, they help companies build digital dossiers on your income, location, interest in mental health issues, love of horror movies, and other things you might not want insurance companies or supermarkets digging up.

Safari blocks third-party cookies everywhere you go on the web. The same goes for Mozilla’s Firefox and the Brave browser. You can use either browser on a Windows PC, Mac, iPhone, or Android device. Safari is only available for Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

Chrome allows third-party cookies in most cases unless you disable them. Learn how to do this for Chrome and the Microsoft Edge browser. (You may not be able to do this if you use a Google or Microsoft account managed by your employer.)

🟡 Safari allows other types of tracking.

Even without cookies, a website can extract information such as your computer screen resolution, the fonts you have installed, the add-on software you use, and other technical details that, taken together, can help identify your device and what you are doing on it.

These measures, commonly called “fingerprinting,” are a form of privacy-invasive tracking by another name. Nick Doty of the Center for Democracy & Technology explains that there’s generally not much you can do about fingerprinting. You usually don’t know you’re being tracked this way.

Apple claims to defend against common fingerprinting techniques, but Cahn said Firefox, Brave, and the Tor browser are all better at protecting you from digital surveillance. That’s why he said Safari is no better than the fourth-best browser for privacy.

It’s fantastic that big companies like Apple and Meta and smaller organizations are competing to woo you with privacy features.

Adding privacy protections also involves tradeoffs, including disabling parts of websites that you need. Smaller browsers could have the freedom to be more aggressive about privacy than Apple, which could irk website owners, advertisers, regulators, and some users as it strengthens privacy protections.

Using the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation’s hands-on “Cover Your Tracks” privacy test, my iPhone running the  Safari  browser showed that I had partial protection against common types of data tracking.

I got a similar result using the Firefox browser on an Android phone. A PC using the Chrome browser failed the EFF Tracking Protection test.

🟡 Safari’s “private” mode is not private from everyone.

This is an opportunity to remind you of the limitations of the “private” or “incognito” modes of web browsers.

When you use this mode in Safari, your device’s web browser doesn’t save the websites you’ve visited or the web searches you’ve performed.

This might be useful if you’re using a shared computer at a public library or if you’re using your home computer to buy a surprise gift or use adult sites.

But as with most other browsers, the websites you use and your internet service provider or workplace can still track which sites you’ve visited. If you use a virtual private network (software that protects your location), the VPN owner has likely recorded where you go, even in private mode.

Mozilla has a helpful document to debunk myths about Firefox’s private browsing mode, which may apply to other browsers as well.

🟢 Safari’s “private” mode offers additional privacy protections.

Apple says this option helps further block the use of “advanced” fingerprinting techniques. It also strengthens defenses against tracking that adds identifying information to web links you click. Everything you do on the web is locked down so no one but you can see it.

You can turn on private mode for everything you do in Safari, but it can have drawbacks. Apple says that if you use private browsing all the time, some parts of websites may not work properly.

If you choose this option: On an iPhone, go to the Settings app → Safari → Advanced → Advanced Tracking & Fingerprinting Protection → select “All Browsing.”