Facebook can monitor your data in-app so they don’t need to report to external trackers.
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App Privacy Report: The Bad Apps
- Thread starter TheColtr
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Facebook can monitor your data in-app so they don’t need to report to external trackers.
For your home wifi I can not recommend setting up a Pi-Hole enough! Browsing is worlds better. The moment I access sites on the go and I see all the ads, I ask myself how any of the siteowners can really find this to be an ok user experience.
I’m not sure I understand Safari’s tracker blocking.
MacRumors is the biggest offender, so I will use it as an example.
Safari says it is blocking 55 trackers from this site, but the privacy report shows far more than that. Additionally, the trackers Safari is blocking are not on the list of trackers on the privacy report.
Is Safari only blocking a fraction of the trackers?
Edit: looking again, Safari says it blocked adnxs.com but the privacy report shows that MacRumors contacted that domain while I was typing the above comment.
MacRumors is the biggest offender, so I will use it as an example.
Safari says it is blocking 55 trackers from this site, but the privacy report shows far more than that. Additionally, the trackers Safari is blocking are not on the list of trackers on the privacy report.
Is Safari only blocking a fraction of the trackers?
Edit: looking again, Safari says it blocked adnxs.com but the privacy report shows that MacRumors contacted that domain while I was typing the above comment.
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It's why I don't use apps for this sort of thing.
It's the reason they push you to taking the app in the first place: they have way more control.
There's no advantage to you in using an app. It's just as easy to use the browser and with an ad blocker you don't have to put up with their ads.
Please elaborate what exactly you mean by that, would love to hear your insights. Much appreciated.
I believe what he was stating is that it would be nice for Apple to block the trackers, rather than just reporting a detected. Redirecting those tracking requests to the localhost(127.0.0.1) essentially kills them as they don't actually make contact with a server on the internet. This is how some adblockers work already.
Thank you for your reply and insights. Imho Apple could but would not block trackers, because of their commercial value to app-developers. Detection is a more gentle and Marketing ($) friendly way to alert Apple customers / app users what's happening 'under the hood'. Using ad blockers is and should always remain at your own risk, in case of losing connections to vital IP-addresses / DNS servers. Just my 2cts...
Cheers
As a network engineer I find the sorting of the domains odd, the sorting alphabetically is just plain wrong.
Apple have the sorting from left to right, domains are read from right to left.
Currently if the sorting is alphabetically you'd see the following;-
A - Z ->
a.google.com
b.apple.com
z.google.com
Rather than:-
A - Z <-
b.apple.com
a.google.com
z.google.com
Apple have the sorting from left to right, domains are read from right to left.
Currently if the sorting is alphabetically you'd see the following;-
A - Z ->
a.google.com
b.apple.com
z.google.com
Rather than:-
A - Z <-
b.apple.com
a.google.com
z.google.com
Agreed, although this is Apple we're talking about ... 'domains' is more a Microsoft thing - with their infrastructure (servers, AD, etc). That's probably why Apple did it this way, but not certain.
I am now a bit skeptic to Privacy Report.
after the iOS 15.2 just launched, I check the web domain section in the Privacy report, an domain named like mask.iCloud.com got most nos of hits. It made sense because I enabled iCloud relay which is good.
Just now, I checked again the most contacted domain in the Privacy Report, I found mask.icloud.com had been gone. It might be Apple does not want to mislead us, but on the other hand it reveals:
The rules of the report are dynamic. It seems not following any filtering rules runs on device but kind of server based that could be changed dynamically.
Apple has tried to hidden something.
Has anyone been able to get additional info on Safari accessing contacts? I tried setting auto fill to off and it still seems to access contacts. I agree with the creepy assessment
Regarding Safari accessing contacts...
I have noticed that Safari will access contacts when browsing DuckDuck Go and no DDG cookie is set....
If I delete the DuckDuck Go cookie in settings, then access DDG , Safari will access contacts again.
It seems the access is linked to specific sites / browsing activity. I was hoping it was related to the share sheet (I disabled the suggested contacts in Siri settings) or something else OS related vs site related- and certainly would be aghast if Safari was leaking contact info.
Would really appreciate any other observations / insights-
I have noticed that Safari will access contacts when browsing DuckDuck Go and no DDG cookie is set....
If I delete the DuckDuck Go cookie in settings, then access DDG , Safari will access contacts again.
It seems the access is linked to specific sites / browsing activity. I was hoping it was related to the share sheet (I disabled the suggested contacts in Siri settings) or something else OS related vs site related- and certainly would be aghast if Safari was leaking contact info.
Would really appreciate any other observations / insights-
Every web page has those share to (social media) and a lot of sites "offer" to use your Google, Apple, or Facebook account to login and create a profile.
Take a look at AdGuard Pro Logs (Activity) - make sure you filter Social Widgets along with others. Yes, they are lists, upgraded often. iOS just isn't as robust when you want to edit what's in logs.
Me too.
Most of the app should have web interface.
When using safari to browse the web, it blocks ads, trackers and mask your Ip if you are iCloud users. It is a lot better than using App.
Are you talking about the privacy report accessed via Aa menu or that under privacy setting?
A lot more contacted domains were highlighted in the App Privacy report (that under privacy setting), but only those domain accessed by multiple web sites are suspected of cross web trackers.
Hello, I use AdGuard (free) too. Do you know how AdGuard works for blocking Ads and trackers?
I am wondering how AdGuard blocking tracker is different from safari intelligent tracker blocking?
And, as i am using iCloud+ which should mask my ip with a random Ip from all websites I visit , hence should I turn AdGuard tracker blocking off for better web browsing compatibility ?
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I cannot highlight this enough. It would be nice if our favourite site host/team could shed light on this say within an article and how this part of the internet along with Apple's safari works. Would be for a great read.
Adguard works by allowing the user to "Subscribe" to various filtering lists. Some lists are ran by adguard, some are third party(EasyList for example). It will then block anything that is on the list the user subscribes to. Safari does an Okay job but a lot of trackers still get through. I would say it is best to use the safari tracking protection along with adguard(or other comparable app). Icloud+ will mask your IP but that service won't block any trackers and fingerprints.
Tks for your reply.
Except for fingerprint, could trackers still track me given my Ip was masked with a random one?
That depends on how Apple masks the IP. I know in normal scenarios, WebRTC can leak your real IP address, even when using a VPN. As far as mobile goes, I am not sure. I try to block WebRTC on all devices but I don't think you can block it on iphone, or it just doesn't exist. Beyond that though, sites like Google and Facebook and others can still "build a profile" of a user based on tracker data, they don't need your IP address to do this.