Apple’s fraudulent website alert feature has long relied on Google’s Safe Browsing database to protect Safari users from scams, but from iOS 14.5 Apple will provide the service via its own servers to track the amount of information Google can get from you. restrict. As MacRumors explained, the database provides a list of suspected phishing and malware sites to Safari. Every time you visit a webpage, Safari looks up the URL in Google’s list. If it detects a match, it warns you that you’re about to risk your computer.
Like Chrome and Firefox, Safari uses the API for Google Safe Browsing Update, which encrypts the full URL using a 32-bit hash prefix. This way, Google never knows the exact site you tried to visit. However, it can still collect information, such as your IP address. By following the service through its servers, Apple ‘limit the risk of information leaks. ”
The change is just one of a handful of privacy-oriented updates coming to iOS 14.5. The other important one is Apple’s app tracking transparency feature, which requires apps to ask your permission before they can find you on other apps and websites. Companies like Facebook came up against the change and went so far as to prepare their own notifications before the update was widely available.