Safari limits tracking by default, but private browsing still has limitations.
In 2019, Apple published a white paper covering the full range of Safari's privacy capabilities if you're interested in the details.
Safari's defaults mean the average iPhone user is unknowingly handing over less data, but the browser is far from an impenetrable shield.
Apple needs third-party browsers on iOS devices to use Safari's WebKit rendering engine, so Chrome, Firefox and Brave can't use the same browser engines on iPhone as they do on desktop.
4 sentences from our version of the report,
chosen to cover it. Nothing here is written; every line is in the article below.
How
Summarized version
All these features are important because advertising and data-broker networks are itching to gobble up your private data. Privacy focuses on how your personal info is collected and used.
Headline check
Headline as published: Does your iPhone's Safari browser privacy features actually make you safer?
The one thing this headline claims is in the report.
Figures, names and quoted words in the headline, looked for in the report itself — not in the summary above. One claim in this headline could be checked, so this is a narrow pass and not a thorough one. How this is checked
The article, shortened and in plain language
Safari limits tracking by default, but private browsing still has limitations.
The iPhone's default Safari browser has gained a reputation for being private, especially as an alternative to Chrome for those who don't want to turn over their entire life history to Google. According to the Safari info page, the browser blocks third-party cookies by default, uses machine learning to limit cross-site tracking, hides your IP address from known trackers and removes identifying info from certain URLs. In 2019, Apple published a white paper covering the full range of Safari's privacy capabilities if you're interested in the details.
All these features are important because advertising and data-broker networks are itching to gobble up your private data. Safari helps by cutting most of these data leeches off at the knees, limiting the data shared with those networks and making it more difficult for advertisers to build an infrastructure based on your behavior.
Safari's defaults mean the average iPhone user is unknowingly handing over less data, but the browser is far from an impenetrable shield.
Safari's strongest privacy tools tackle address tracking as well as account security and unsafe website behavior.
Apple Pay is also integrated into Safari, so you can avoid entering your card numbers and authenticate with Face ID to use your saved cards stored privately in Apple Wallet.
Apple needs third-party browsers on iOS devices to use Safari's WebKit rendering engine, so Chrome, Firefox and Brave can't use the same browser engines on iPhone as they do on desktop.
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