For most people, their web browser is the main window into the internet. We run complex applications in browsers, many people use web-based email systems like Gmail, and we rely on the internet for everything from recipes to instructions for car repairs. Making Safari secure is one of the top priorities for your Mac, iPhone or iPad.
The good news is that you can secure your web browsing experience significantly without impacting usability.
1 – Sort out your Location services
One of the easiest settings to change is whether you allow a website or app to know your location. Websites can approximate your location using information such as the IP address your internet provider assigns to your network. But you can limit the accuracy of those approximations.
If you go into System Settings on a Mac or the Settings app on an iPhone or iPad, go to Privacy & Security.
Tapping or clicking on Privacy & Security lets you choose whether to disable location services completely or which applications will have access to your location and when.
In iOS and iPadOS, when you tap on Safari Websites in the list of apps you can choose how websites will access your location. You can choose between
- Never
- Ask Next Time or When I Share
- While Using the App
On a Mac, things are handled a little differently. When you open Safari’s settings, tap on the Websites section. On the left side, you can choose what access different websites have to all your system services. Location is listed on the left and you can see a list of websites that have asked for your location.
Each time a website asks for your location, you can choose whether it has to ask each time you visit the site, you can deny it access to your location or you can always allow access.
2 – Private Relay – almost a VPN
If you have a paid iCloud subscription – even the lowest cost tier – you have access to a tool called Private Relay that works on Macs, iPads and iPhones. One iCloud subscription covers all your devices. Private Relay is not a VPN but it does provide some VPN-like services.
Your internet connection, whether that’s through the NBN, a fixed cellular service or a satellite service is assigned an IP address by your provider. That IP address can be used to give someone a very close approximation of your location. Private Relay obfuscates that address by relaying your internet activity through another server with a different IP address.
Private Relay also encrypts any unencrypted internet traffic flowing in and out of your devices. That means anyone snooping who manages to capture data going to or leaving your device will only get a bunch of encrypted gibberish.
If you have an iCloud+ subscription, you can turn Private Relay on tapping or clicking on your iCloud settings at the top of your Settings app, scrolling down to Private Relay and turning it on.
3 – Protection from advertiser tracking
If you’ve ever wondered how what you do on one website influences what you see on another site, it’s because advertisers share information. Apple has, over the years, been making this more difficult though a series of different steps and options.
iOS and iPadOS put the decision about whether you want to advertisers to track you into your hands.
Go to the Privacy & Security settings and tap on Tracking. You can choose whether to allow apps to track your activity. If you allow apps to request tracking access, they still have to ask so you can selectively allow or disallow different apps.
Safari on a Mac has a similar feature. In Safari’s Advanced settings, enabling “Advanced tracking and fingerprinting protection” prevents advertisers from tracking you across different websites. Another relevant setting is “Allow privacy preserving measurement of ad effectiveness”. This settings lets advertisers measure how well ads are working without the ability to track individual users.
If you go to the Privacy section of Safari’s settings on a Mac, you can also prevent cross-site tracking and hide your IP address from Trackers. Both these settings protect you from being followed by advertisers between websites.
4 – Other useful security settings
If you are using a shared Mac and haven’t bothered to create separate user accounts for each person, you might want to keep your browser history private.
In Safari’s settings in the General section, you can choose to have browser history items removed after a day, a week, two weeks, a month or a year. Or you can let your history build up and clear it manually.
Further down the same screen, you should also uncheck the “Open “safe” files are downloading” option. Left on, files you download can automatically launch in your preferred applications. For example, if you download an Excel file, it will automatically open in Excel. Switching this off ensures that a potentially dodgy file doesn’t get the chance to open.
5 – Reconsider your default search engine
Search engines are essential tools. But they can also be amazingly effective data collectors. While Google remains the default search engine on Macs, iPhones and iPads (thanks to a $20B deal between Apple and Google) you can choose a different search engine.
It’s generally accepted that DuckDuckGo is more secure than Google as it doesn’t collect data from users. Other browsers such as Tor Browser, Brave, Epic, Firefox, and Vivaldi also boast about their privacy-protection features. Choosing one of the more privacy-focussed browsers can help improve your online privacy.
However, while Safari does let you change your default search engine you’re limited to one of the five options Apple provides. Of those, DuckDuckGo is considered the best option.
Alternatively, you can set your preferred search engine as your default start page on the General tab.
One more thing…
One of the neat features in Safari is its Privacy Report on your Mac.
With Safari open, go to the Safari menu at the top of your screen and choose Privacy Report from the menu.
The two main tabs show you which sites are trying to track you and what tools they are using. If you look at the image above, you’ll see that more than three-quarters of the sites I visit are trying to track me.
Anthony is the founder of Australian Apple News. He is a long-time Apple user and former editor of Australian Macworld. He has contributed to many technology magazines and newspapers as well as appearing regularly on radio and occasionally on TV.