The internet isn’t as wild as it once was, but at the same time, the threats have become more focused and more dangerous. This one-year subscription to Norton 360 and LifeLock protects your privacy on two devices.
Apple warned all App Store developers that it’s starting a crackdown on using device fingerprinting for user tracking.
As a means of preventing this invasive tracking, Apple will soon require devs to justify the inclusion of all APIs in software submitted to the App Store.
Private Browsing mode in Apple Safari will soon get even more secure. It’ll be locked against someone else accessing it, and incorporate new tools to prevent websites from tracking users.
The additional privacy features are coming in iOS 17, macOS Sonoma and iPadOS 17, all of which were unveiled at WWDC23 this week.
Along with macOS Sonoma and its new features will come Safari 17, the new iteration of Apple’s web browser. It brings an enhanced browsing experience with an even greater emphasis than before on privacy, and most changes will probably apply to iOS and iPadOS, as well.
The changes aren’t terribly glamorous, but beefed-up Private Browsing protects against prying eyes online and off, in addition to some other security enhancements.
And in terms of organization, the new Profiles feature helps you keep separate parts of your life separate and website apps keep your favorite sites at your fingertips.
If you lived in the United States in the last 15 years and you used Facebook, you can fill out a brief form and claim your part of a $725 million privacy settlement. This marks the end of a class-action lawsuit wherein the company admitted that U.K. data mining company Cambridge Analytica accessed Facebook users’ data without their consent.
You have until Friday, August 25, to file a claim. It only takes a few minutes. How much you get depends on how many people take the payment — it could be as low as $1.50 if every person in the United States fills it out.
Making a claim also stops you from pursuing a separate claim against Meta, Facebook’s parent company. However, if you take no action, you won’t get anything as a result of the Facebook data scandal.
February 7 is Safer Internet Day, and parents can take part by signing up for Apple’s “Your Kids and Their Devices” class. It shows parents how to maintain the online privacy of children who use iPhone or iPad. For those looking for more tools for kids to stay safe online, Apple offers various built-in features and educational resources.
The class is free and available online or in person around the world.
Claims that Apple is phoning home to analyze every image on your Mac have been proven false. Jeffrey Paul, security researcher and consultant, claimed early last week that his Mac was sending small bits of data to Apple every time he clicked on an image on his computer.
After Paul’s claims caused a bit of a stir, researchers got to the bottom of what was actually happening. Not only did they conclude the network activity was innocent — it was caused by a bug that’s already been patched in the latest macOS update.
Marking Data Privacy Day on Tuesday, Apple introduced new educational resources meant to help users take better control of their data, including a whimsical short film starring one of Ted Lasso‘s popular cast members.
The video, a new Today at Apple Session and Cupertino’s added statements on its ongoing security efforts come amid ever-rising cyberattacks and about a month after the company released Advanced Data Protection.
An encrypted virtual private network is one of the best ways to keep your online activities completely private. Plus, a VPN also can open up access to restricted content all over the world.
A class-action lawsuit filed in California alleges that, “Apple’s assurances and promises regarding privacy are utterly false.”
The lawsuit is based on the work of a security researcher who claims that many of Apple’s own applications send detailed analytics information to the developer even after users ask them to stop.
Apple’s Automatic Verification system for websites is getting a big boost from Cloudflare. The web security company just unveiled Turnstile, a free alternative to those irritating CAPTCHA image tests. This has Apple’s system built in.
Turnstile, now in open beta testing, is available to anyone, not just Cloudflare customers.
The web browser that Meta built into the iPhone Facebook and Instagram applications can collect far more information about users than they probably realize. It can “track every single interaction with external websites,” according to a developer.
But users don’t have to stay in this sketchy browser. Leaving it is easy – here’s how.
The new SpyBuster iOS app scans your iPhone for other apps that may be surreptitiously sending your data to Russia or Belarus.
The privacy-oriented app comes from Ukraine-based developer MacPaw, which released a version of SpyBuster for macOS in the spring of 2021, not long after Russia invaded Ukraine.
The iPhone Health app’s Cycle Tracking feature provides a simple solution for logging menstrual cycles. If you menstruate, it’s an effective way to monitor your overall health and estimate when you’re most likely to get pregnant.
Given the personal nature of Cycle Tracking data, you need to be sure that it’s stored securely, away from prying eyes. The good news is, Apple’s security for health and fitness data is very robust. There are just a few things you need to know to ensure your data is safe.
Usually, if you want to expand how you use the internet and protect your family online, you need a virtual private network. But those can be complicated to use — and expensive to boot.
Alternatively, Control D packs many of the control and safety features of a VPN into a much simpler solution. For a limited time, you can get a two-year subscription to this unique service for just $30 (regularly $48).
Whether you primarily use the internet for casual browsing or work remotely full-time, you have data that needs protection. Unfortunately, even your simple browsing data is worth something to companies and trackers. And without the proper equipment, there’s not much you can do to protect yourself.
The Deeper Connect Pico can block those nosey third parties from observing and stealing your data. And for a limited time, this hardware VPN is on sale for $248.
Apple’s Safari web browser recently topped 1 billion users, a new study indicates, making it the second browser to do so. Even so, it still lags well behind Google Chrome in popularity.
“1,006,232,879 internet users (19.16% of all internet users) now use the Safari browser, making it the second browser with over a billion users,” the Atlas VPN report said.
Privacy-oriented browser Brave updated its iOS app Wednesday with a new Privacy Hub that summarizes trackers it blocked for a specific website or over a certain period of time, not unlike what Safari’s Privacy Report does.
Whatever you do online, you need a reliable virtual private network to keep your private data secure. Thankfully, you can ensure your privacy forever with a lifetime subscription to FastestVPN for up to 10 devices.
Usually $1,200, it’s discounted to just $24.99. But you can take a further 20% off during Cult of Mac Deals’ VPN Security Sale when you enter the code VPN20 at checkout. That drives the sale price all the way down to $19.99.
However, the extra discount is only available until May 24, 2022. So now’s the time to grab this deal and stay secure for life.
What would you do if you walked into a room to discover a creepy auction of your personal data going on? That’s the premise of a new Apple video.
The goal is to highlight the many privacy tools iPhone offers to prevent online tracking.
Google leads the way among ad tech companies sharing your online behavior and location with advertisers. It happens an average of 747 times a day in the United States and 376 times a day in Europe. That’s according to a new report from a civil liberties group.
Google and others use a process known as real-time bidding to help advertisers target you by behavior and location.
The group behind the report called such sharing “the biggest data breach” in the world.
DuckDuckGo and Brave have started bypassing Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages. Brave says, “AMP harms users’ privacy, security and internet experience.”
The web browsers will ignore these pages, which are surreptitiously hosted by Google, and give users the original publishers’ webpages instead.
A tweak to iOS privacy settings made in 2021 has already cost Facebook $8.1 billion, and the social-networking company’s losses will increase by another $12.8 billion in 2022, according to an industry report.
Forcing applications to ask permission before tracking their users’ online activity hurt other companies, too. But nowhere near as much as Facebook.
Posting your email on your own website shouldn’t lead to an inbox full of spam. Luckily, there’s a middle ground between giving your audience no way to reach you and handing bots and malware everything to use against you.
The Email Protection WordPress Plugin hides your email from web crawlers that log and use your information, but still makes it easy for your readers to contact you. For a limited time, this one-time purchase is on sale for just $9.99 (regularly $37).
Apple CEO Tim Cook called privacy a key battle of our time during a speech Tuesday. He extolled Apple’s commitment to protecting its users’ data and condemned regulations that would force Cupertino to accept app sideloading on iPhones.
“We are deeply concerned about regulations that would undermine privacy and security in service of some other aim,” he said, referring to legislation that would force Apple to allow apps for its devices to bypass the App Store.
Cook made the comments during a wide-ranging keynote address at the International Association of Privacy Professionals Global Privacy Summit in Washington, D.C.
Read more about what he said and watch video of his speech below.