Apple’s upcoming iOS 14.5 release will come with a feature that reroutes all Safari Safe Browsing traffic through Apple-controlled proxy servers as a workaround to preserve users’ privacy and prevent Google’s IP addresses. iOS users will learn.
The new feature, spotted by a Reddit user earlier this week and covered in an 8-bit report, is formally confirmed by Maciej Stachowiak, Head of Webkit Engineering at Apple.
The new feature only works when users activate the “Fraudulent website warning” option in the iOS Safari app settings.
This enables support for Google’s Safe Browsing technology in Safari. The Safe Browsing technology works by taking a URL that the user is trying to access and sending the URL in an anonymized state to Google’s Safe Browsing servers, where Google opens the site and scans for threats.
If malware, phishing forms or other threats are found on the site, Google will direct the user’s Safari browser to block access to the site and display a red full-screen warning.
Years ago when Google launched the Safe Browsing API, the company knew which sites a user could access; In recent years, Google has taken several steps to anonymize data sent from users’ devices through the Safe Browsing feature.
But even though Google has anonymized URL strings, sending the link in a cropped and hashed state, Google still sees the IP address from which a Safe Browsing check is performed.
In fact, Apple’s new feature takes all of these Safe Browsing checks and passes them through an Apple proxy server, making it appear that all requests are coming from the same IP address.
Many would call the move useless, as Google still wouldn’t be able to see which URL the user was checking, but the feature is consistent with other measures Apple has taken lately aimed at improving the privacy of its users .
Many of these features have often compromised and disrupted Google’s massive presence in user analytics and tracking.
This includes groundbreaking broad anti-tracking features in Safari and forcing app makers to add “privacy labels” to their App Store listings, a requirement that Google has mysteriously avoided by simply not updating any of its apps since last. year.
iOS 14.5 is currently in beta and is expected to be released in the coming months.