Apple: "We're not forcing, we're just explaining that Chrome is evil."
Safari declared the only reliable option for privacy.
Safari declared the only reliable option for privacy.
Apple issued a stark warning: stop using Google Chrome. The world's most popular browser confidently maintains its position on both computers and smartphones, gradually taking market share from Apple. But the company has decided not to back down and is responding with a direct attack.
"Switch to a browser that truly protects your privacy," Apple's message states. According to the company, Safari is equipped with modern protections against cross-site tracking, hides your IP address from known trackers, and does much more. Unlike Chrome, Safari, as Apple emphasizes, genuinely helps maintain your confidentiality.
Microsoft employs a similar tactic, warning Windows users about the dangers of Chrome while pushing its own Edge. But if Edge has failed to break into the lead, Safari is the default browser on the iPhone, and its position is entirely different. Apple even published a comparison table of features: tracker blocking, protection against malicious extensions, IP hiding. In every row, checkmarks appear only next to Safari, whereas Chrome, according to Apple, fails every task.
Furthermore, the list does not mention device fingerprinting—a covert tracking technology that Google has returned to this year, despite a previous ban. Disabling such tracking is impossible: it collects numerous technical characteristics to form a unique user profile.
However, Apple claims to have found a way to partially neutralize this method as well. The new Advanced Tracking and Fingerprinting Protection mode, previously only active in private browsing, is now enabled by default for all users in iOS 26. It "clutters" the recognition system with extraneous data, making it extremely difficult for the browser to identify the device's real parameters.
In other words, Safari has built-in protection even against digital fingerprints, while on the iPhone, a Chrome user is left without such safeguards. Apple makes it clear: your choice of browser directly determines your level of online security.
