Safari’s latest update now blocks all third-party cookies by default

Apple has long championed the security of its ecosystem, and now it’s a bit more secure as Safari now blocks all third-party cookies. All of them. That change means an end to advertisers or websites being able to track you across the internet using tracking cookies, by default.

Phew, you can just hear the throngs of privacy advocates letting out a collective sigh of relief. Apple’s push to fully block third-party, cross-site tracking is the only responsible way to handle things without exceptions, loopholes, or “oh just a little bit is okay” factoring into decisions.

Apple engineer John Wilander, who worked on the feature, says that this update to Safari Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) might not even be noticed by most users, as the feature has been doing most of this already over the last few years since ITP was added to the WebKit core that powers Safari.

This update takes several important steps to fight cross-site tracking and make it more safe to browse the web. First of all, it paves the way. We will report on our experiences of full third-party cookie blocking to the privacy groups in W3C to help other browsers take the leap.

— John Wilander 🇺🇦 (@johnwilander) March 24, 2020

READ MORE: Safari is now used by over a billion people

Google has also committed to nuking third-party tracking cookies but its timeline is a slow phase-out with full blocking in 2022. Apple, please make a desktop version of Safari for Windows again? Please? Then I can go back to using one browser on all my devices, without needing multiple browser extensions to disable third-party cookies.

What do you think? Glad to see Apple taking these steps with Safari? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Due to coronavirus, Apple Card holders can skip their March payment without penalty
• Apple is reportedly working on an iPhone that features a “world facing” 3D camera
• Coming soon to an iPhone near you: ads in your push notifications
• Google wants you to know Apple’s Safari web browser isn’t as private as they say it is