Starting with iOS and iPadOS 14.5, Apple will proxy Google’s “Safe Browsing” service, used in Safari, through its own servers, instead of relying on Google as a way to limit the personal data that Google sees about users.
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Safari on iOS and iPadOS includes an integrated feature called “Fraudulent Website Warning”. As Apple describes it, having the feature enabled will prompt Safari to warn users if they are visiting a suspected phishing website, or in other words, a website that tries to steal their data, such as their username, passwords and other information.
To provide this feature, Apple relies on Google’s “Safe Browsing”, a database / block list of sites Google has crawled from sites considered to be suspected of phishing or fraud. In practice, Google sends Safari a hashed list of prefixes with URLs that it determines to be malicious / phishing. Safari then checks the website you are trying to visit with the Google list. Any match in the hashed prefix will cause Safari to request the full URL link from Google, and using the hashed prefix, Google never sees the URL of the website you are trying to access.
Although Google does not know which specific URL you are trying to visit, it can collect your IP address during your interaction with Safari. Now, on iOS / iPadOS 14.5, this is no longer the case. Like confirmed by WebKit’s chief engineering officer, Apple will now proxy Google’s Safe Browsing feature through its own servers, instead of Google as a way to “limit the risk of information leakage”.
Screenshots posted on Reddit of incoming / outgoing connections on a device running the latest iOS 14.5 beta show a new URL “proxy.safebrowsing.apple” and test by MacRumors shows the same URL next to “safebrowsing.g.applimg.com” and “token.safebrowsing.apple” being used as a “Safe Browsing” proxy.
The new change in iOS and iPadOS is part of a comprehensive set of privacy-focused features for the iPhone and iPad and Apple’s recent vigorous push toward more stringent privacy features / rules. In addition to the “Safe Browsing” change, iOS 14.5 will also require apps to ask the user for permission before crawling them on other apps and websites.
The new requirement called “ATT” or App Tracking Transparency has caused companies like Facebook and Twitter to express concerns about how the new feature will affect their financial results, specifically when it comes to personalized advertising.
Another noteworthy feature in the next update is the crowdsource report for accidents, mobile radars and hazards within Apple Maps. Apple launched the first beta for developers and public beta testers last week and says that iOS and iPadOS 14.5 will be released to the public in “early spring”.