If you’re among the billions of people using Chrome, then Google has just given you a seriously good reason to quit. The exposure of stark data harvesting and the quiet introduction of “creepy” new tracking is the best reason in years to switch browsers. Now, for Apple users, there are even more reasons you should make a change.
With Chrome, as with Photos, Gmail and Maps, you need to remember that Google is in the ad business, not the app business. Its entire business model is designed to generate revenue from you and your data. And now security researchers have released a simple demonstration—shown here first—as to why iPhone, iPad and Mac users should never use Chrome instead of Safari.
Google enables “Incognito” browsing in Chrome, telling users “if you don’t want Google to remember your activity, you can browse the web privately.” Even this hasn't escaped controversy, with claims that data has still been harvested, but Google’s new FLoC tracking will likely see many more users flick the incognito switch.
In Incognito mode, your browsing history and anything you enter into websites is forgotten when the browsing session ends. There are still cookies in the background, but these are also deleted at the end of the session. And dreaded third-party cookies are disabled by default. All this is good. But there’s is a nasty little catch.
There are two givens when we browse the web these days. First, we all tend to use LOTS of tabs, often keeping dozens of websites open as we search or work or research. And second, maybe because we have such an array of websites on the go, and because our devices are always-on, we rarely exit all these tabs and close our browsers.
Safari also offers private browsing. Just as with Chrome, “details of your browsing aren’t saved, and the websites you visit aren’t shared with your other devices.” With Safari, “browsing initiated in one tab is isolated from browsing initiated in another tab, so websites can’t track your browsing across multiple sessions.”
But Chrome doesn’t work like this. With Incognito mode running, every tab you open joins the same, single session. As Google explains, there is no separation between tabs, “if you have an Incognito tab open and you open another one, your private browsing session will continue in the new tab.” To end the session and delete your information, you must close ALL Incognito tabs. Because we run lots of tabs and keep our browsers open for long periods of time, this is a hidden privacy risk.
Security researchers Tommy Mysk and Talal Haj Bakry (@mysk_co), the duo that exposed Apple’s clipboard issue, have pulled together a video showing how these private session leaks create privacy breaches. “While third-party cookies are blocked by default in Incognito mode,” they warn, “third-party iframes such as Twitter and Facebook embeds, can under certain conditions still track users.”
This isn’t as bad as direct tracking in normal browsing, “but if the user has logged in, a service can associate reference information in the link with their account. Chrome is not alone. Other browsers operate the same way, but “this won't happen in Safari, as it provides a separate session for each private window and tab.”
Safari’s private browsing is genuinely private. But any such browsing has drawbacks and can be painful—not being remembered as you revisit sites, logging in each time. And so, for most of us, constant private browsing is too much like hard work.
And this gives you even more reason to ditch Chrome for Safari. Mysk and Haj Bakry have provided a second video showing how Chrome and Safari handle third-party tracking cookies out of the box in their normal browsing modes. Watching this video, you can see exactly where the different philosophies come into play. Privacy isn’t a marketing concept—it’s a philosophy that underpins the way technology is designed.
“In early 2020,” Mysk and Haj Bakry explain, “Google announced a plan to gradually block third-party cookies in Chrome within two years. A year later, we checked if Google had made any changes in Chrome’s third-party cookie policy. It turns out they haven’t—advertisers can still freely track users across websites in Chrome by default.”
If you use Safari, you can browse in normal mode, being remembered as you return to sites, logging in automatically as you do. But there’s a difference between these friendly “remember me” cookies and the dreaded third-party cookies that track you from website to website, reporting on your behaviors to ad agencies and data giants.
Safari blocks these third-party cookies by default in its normal mode. Given Google’s business model, it’s not really a surprise that Chrome does not do the same. “Not only does Safari block third-party cookies by default,” Mysk and Haj Bakry explain, “it also deletes first-party cookies for web sites that haven't been visited within seven days... Safari treats cookies more carefully than Chrome.”
So, whether normal browsing or private browsing, Safari has clear benefits over Chrome. And you can see the difference in the data harvested by each by comparing their privacy labels. Given Safari is the stock browser on every Apple device, there really is no excuse to use Chrome.
This battle of the browsers is about to heat up significantly as Chrome progresses its FLoC trail and then moves to a full deployment. This will set it even further apart from Apple, as the nuances of algorithmically categorized users being identified by common browsing links become apparent. The privacy lobby is aghast at this concept. There are way too many potential issues as FLoC combines with others tracking and finger-printing techniques to be comfortable with this any time soon.
There are also some deep-seated potential issues with the one-party nature of FLoC, being managed by Google and deployed on its dominance browser. And so, even if the nuances of private browsing sessions are not a concern, FLoC certainly should be.
In this pivot year for privacy, it is incumbent on all of us to reward those apps—like Safari, in this instance—that compromise on the extent of their own aspirations to preserve our privacy. If we continue to use products and services that have sprawling privacy labels, that don’t default to private options, that aggressively monetize our data, then we send a message that we’re just fine with that.
Please, let’s not do that.
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May 22, 2021 at 10:50PM
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Why You Should Never Use Google Chrome On Your iPhone, iPad Or Mac - Forbes
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