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by nextstep 1388 days ago
What’s wrong with Safari privacy-wise?
2 comments

Probably nothing; Apple talks a good privacy talk and I always recommend Apple products to my non-nerd friends and family because of it.

HOWEVER, I can't really get past the fact that it's closed source. At the end of the day, that means that Apple can say they do XYZ practice, and it's very likely to be true (some is testable, and imagine the shit-storm if a whistle blower showed that they really do store your keys, etc), but what if it does something else sketchy "instead" of the things they promise they aren't doing?

Pretty much, if I care about privacy, closed source anything never makes it on my list.

> Apple talks a good privacy talk

but they don't walk the talk

Nothing, as far as I can tell. End-to-end encrypted history and tabs, and recent versions with iCloud+ use encrypted DNS and VPN (iCloud private relay) that uses encrypted forwarding so ingress servers can’t tie your requests to a destination.

Outside of using Tor and your own VPN, it looks like Safari w/ iCloud+ protects browsing history from everyone (Apple and ISPs) while delivering a seamless experience.

The "it stores tabs in the cloud" appears to be for syncing between devices. Using private browsing on safari should alleviate those concerns.

https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/browse-privately-ibrw...

> Your open webpages aren’t stored in iCloud, so they aren’t shown when you view all your open tabs from other devices.

> Your recent searches aren’t included in the results list when you use the Smart Search field.