( Chrome is about to gain some ad-blocking tricks of its own.) And there’s always the chance that advertisers and publishers will find a way around some of its new capabilities. Safari's not the first web browser to include features like those above, either. What's more, you can't even use Safari unless you've got a Mac, iPhone, or iPad. And Safari still just looks kind of bland. It's also still a bit harder to get around in Safari than in Chrome when you have tons of tabs open. Safari's still not as robust as Chrome or as accommodating to power users when it comes to support for extensions and add-ons. How Apple advertises Safari on its website. And it's still a step forward for privacy-conscious consumers. But it should mean you'll see fewer creepy ads. If you install a tool like Ghostery, you’ll still see dozens of trackers on most pages you visit. It won't coerce people into giving up ad-blockers.

The new feature in Safari won't mean a wholesale end to things following you around the web.

Apple says it will purge unused cookies for good after 30 days. You probably don’t have a reason to use an ad site like Criteo regularly, which would allow it to continuously track your activity. The targeted-ad systems that aren’t tied to popular services will be the most affected by this feature. If you use some sort of Google or Facebook service every day, you will effectively refresh their advertising arms' ability to track you across various websites. This allows you to stay logged into the sites you regularly use, but basically lets off the hook the two most dominant players in online advertising - Google and Facebook. Here’s the key wrinkle: If an ad-tracking cookie is tied to a website you’ve visited in the past 24 hours, Safari generally will leave it alone. Using the Ghostery extension, you can see that Safari's new update isn't designed to stop tracking technologies completely. If you get creeped out by the internet’s incessant need to sell you stuff, you'll appreciate having a web browser that takes these kind of steps. There were numerous times where I would see ads in Chrome that were clearly influenced by my browsing history, while ads I saw in the same places in Safari appeared to be displayed randomly. I used Chrome and Safari in tandem for a few days. Safari's tracking prevention is fairly effective. You can read Apple’s blog for more details about the feature. (You can block all cookies if you'd like, however.) It's designed to do so without blocking all cookies, which would force you to reenter your login information on various sites each time you visit them. The feature uses machine learning to reduce the number of cookies your browser installs, focusing on those used to target you for advertising purposes. Note the 'Prevent cross-site tracking' option.Īpple calls the new feature “Intelligent Tracking Prevention” and it targets cookies, those small pieces of code that websites deploy to follow your activities online.

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