iOS 14.5 Beta Sees Apple Proxy Google’s Safe Browsing To Safeguard Your IP Address

Whenever we use Google’s services, some kind of data is transmitted to the company. Typically, this kind of data is used by Google not necessarily for malicious purposes, but to gather information so that they can better serve up ads that they think is relevant to you. Some find it a bit invasive, but that’s the “price” we pay for using Google’s services.

However, it seems that with iOS 14.5, Apple could be implementing some privacy safeguards by using Safari to proxy Google’s Safe Browsing feature. For those unfamiliar, Safe Browsing is a feature of Google’s that checks a website to see if it might be malicious and will warn users if it is.

By proxying the feature, what Apple is essentially doing is getting that list of known malicious websites and checking it themselves with Safari, meaning that your IP address and other information won’t be passed along to Google. That doesn’t mean that Google won’t know what you’re up to since Safe Browsing is merely one feature of Google and the company still has other means of checking your internet activity.

However, for some, it might be better than nothing. Of course, what Apple plans to do with your data is a different story. The company has stated in the past that they won’t sell your data, so we guess we’ll have to take their word for it.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Cellphones
Tags: Google, iOS, ios 14, Privacy, safari