Apple Promotes Safari as Best Choice for Privacy

Apple has launched a privacy-focused ad campaign for the iPhone. It's billed as a promotion of its Safari browser but is clearly an attack on Google's Chrome.

The ad is loosely based on The Birds but with the creatures replaced by flying surveillance cameras that follow and attack phone users with an onscreen graphic reading "Your browsing is being watched."

It then ends with users opening the Safari browser, at which point the flying cameras explode, with a new graphic reading "Safari. A browser that's actually private."

Incognito Mode Dubiously Named

Apple has previously highlighted differences between Safari and Chrome when it comes to privacy. One is that Safari blocks cross-site tracking cookies by default. These are cookies that are issued by one site but collect data about a user's visits to other sites, most commonly to allow for targeted advertising based on browsing habits.

The other is Chrome's "Incognito" mode which, perhaps contrary to the name, only prevents online activity being recorded and stored locally in the browser. The user's activity can still be logged by Internet service providers and Google itself.

Apple says Safari's comparable Private Browsing Mode goes further to protect privacy. This includes restricting web extensions, blocking online trackers and removing identifying information added to the end of URLs for tracking. Users who subscribe to iCloud+ get extra anonymization features including having their IP disguised to hide their location without affecting country-based restrictions. (Source: macrumors.com)

Market Share Fears

More cynical analysts have suggested Apple isn't purely motivated by the welfare of its users. It may instead be concerned by the results of making it easier to change the default browser on iPhones. Around 30 percent of users have already switched their default from Safari to Chrome, with Google reportedly targeting the 50 percent mark.

Google responded to questions about the ad by Tom's Guide with a generic statement reading "Chrome is built with the goal of keeping your data safe by default and ensuring users can control when and how their data is used in Chrome to personalize their web browsing experience. We believe users should always be in control, which is why we've built easy to use privacy and security settings directly into Chrome." (Source: tomsguide.com)

What's Your Opinion?

Do you use an iPhone? Have you switched browser? How important are privacy features in your browser choice?