Privacy Badger should support Safari

[cypherpunk]

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Moderator edit: This issue is about releasing Privacy Badger for Safari.

If your question is not related to Safari support, please start a new issue or discussion instead of commenting here.

[ghostwords]

It doesn't seem like Safari provides a way to intercept and potentially modify headers, something that is covered by chrome.webRequest in Chrome (and now Firefox via WebExtensions). The problem is that canLoad offers only a subset of chrome.webRequest functionality.

So it appears that Safari is missing some functionality required by Privacy Badger to function, but this needs more investigation. Does the newer declarative content Blocking API help?

[jessesquires]

@ghostwords Is this the only blocker for Safari support, or are there others?

[ghostwords]

There are these technical issues (but they need further investigation to see whether they really are blockers or not), but then there are also legal issues with things Apple asks you to agree to if you want to publish (?) a Safari extension. The legal issues might be the real blockers. I need to investigate what those are and whether we could do anything about them.

[jessesquires]

A new notes/resources on content blocking in Safari:

• https://webkit.org/blog/3476/content-blockers-first-look/
• https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2015/511/
• https://github.com/Erulezz/Ultimate-AdBlock

Regarding "publishing" -- the only thing here is if you want your extension listed in Apple's "extension gallery", then Apple has to approve it. I'm not sure this is absolutely necessary. EFF could just link to the GitHub latest release.

[MmmmJoel]

@jessesquires is correct. You do not need to agree to Apple's terms and pay $100 to release a Safari extension. It is only required if you want to be listed in the extension gallery.

[svandragt]

https://stackoverflow.com/a/28808411 should help with the porting effort

[JamesMcMahon]

This may no longer be needed with High Sierra's tracking blocking in Safari. I hope the EFF does a review of the functionality when it's released to make sure it adequate for privacy minded users.

[JamesMcMahon]

They read my mind, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/apple-does-right-users-wrong-advertisers.

I take this as an endorsement of Apple’s implementation.

[chris1000]

I just wanted to see if this is still active and if there is anything I can do to help with the project

[ghostwords]

The main problem with offering a version of Privacy Badger for Safari is that, after legal review, EFF found Apple's developer agreement unacceptable for some of the reasons stated in this EFF blog post (the post talks about iOS, but the problem also applies to Safari/macOS). I believe this problem goes beyond being listed in the extensions gallery.

Furthermore, Safari seems to lack certain extension capabilities required by Privacy Badger to function properly. Privacy Badger is not an ad blocker; Privacy Badger is different from most other privacy tools as it does not come with a list of domains to block. Instead, Privacy Badger watches and learns which third-party domains appear to track you as you browse the Web, something that doesn't seem fully supported by Safari.

I personally recommend installing uBlock Origin, an excellent privacy tool.

[fuzzy76]

Can we get a new look on this, since Safari in the new macOS will support webextensions?

[ghostwords]

The biggest obstacle to supporting Safari at this point is that as per Apple documentation, the webRequest extension API does not support blocking or modifying requests/responses. As AdGuard write on their blog, Safari's version of the webRequest API is "useless for ad blocker developers". (Privacy Badger is not an ad blocker but has similar API requirements.)

This doesn't mean we won't have Privacy Badger for Safari in the future. For example, we could build a version of Privacy Badger as a Safari content blocker app. However, as this will take significant effort to build and maintain, it competes for attention with similar but more urgent efforts like a Manifest V3 version of Privacy Badger for Chrome (#2273).

[webjive]

Now that Apple has announced that they want to help unify extensions across browsers, maybe they'll get with the program. Not being able to easily port extensions between browsers is what's holding Safari back, to this day. https://github.com/w3c/webextensions/blob/main/charter.md
https://www.thurrott.com/cloud/web-browsers/250919/apple-google-microsoft-and-mozilla-partner-on-browser-extensions

[ghostwords]

I think macOS Safari and iOS Safari use the same base extensions system, with iOS having some additional restrictions/considerations. For example, macOS Safari extensions lack webRequest's blocking capabilities, while iOS Safari lacks webRequest entirely. (My previous comment applies to all Safari extensions.)

Having said that, we do want to bring Privacy Badger to Safari. I don't know when it will happen.

[JW-Moose]

safari already do the job of privacy badger and that is built in

Are you referring to this Safari feature?: Safari Tracking Prevention

yes it basically do what Privacy Badger does

I tend to use multiple tools that provide this functionality, and typically one tool doesn't catch them all. For example, on Firefox, I use DuckDuckGo, Privacy Badger, and Firefox's built-in tracking protection tool, but PB and DDG add-ons regularly block additional things.

Defense in depth applies to privacy too for sure :) I'd love to see Privacy Badger on Safari. That said, I read Ghostwords' comments above and can certainly get behind prioritizing improvements and features that are going to support more users and generally better fit in with the mission, especially since there are other options like DDG, AdGuard, and uBlock Origin.

[ghostwords]

To follow up on #549 (comment), we may be able to offer Privacy Badger for desktop/macOS (not mobile/iOS) Safari in the first half of next year.

[iuliangcata]

Any news on this ? :)

[ghostwords]

Privacy Badger for Safari on macOS should happen sometime soon after the Manifest V3 version of Privacy Badger for Chrome. However, at this point, I don't think we are going to ship a Manifest V3 version in the first half of this year. We are making progress towards MV3 (and consequently Safari), but it's not clear when we will be ready to ship. I know this is disappointing and I am sorry.

[BitBackchat]

MacOS comes with a built in track blocker. How does that & other proprietary tracker blockers compare to Privacy Badger?

[ghostwords]

MacOS comes with a built in track blocker. How does that & other proprietary tracker blockers compare to Privacy Badger?

Safari's built-in Intelligent Tracking Prevention does not actually block trackers from loading. It's better than nothing (Chrome), but worse than having a real tracker blocker.

other proprietary tracker blockers

See https://privacybadger.org/#Is-Privacy-Badger-compatible-with-other-extensions%2c-including-other-adblockers.

[OIRNOIR]

MacOS comes with a built in track blocker. How does that & other proprietary tracker blockers compare to Privacy Badger?

Safari's built-in Intelligent Tracking Prevention does not actually block trackers from loading. It's better than nothing (Chrome), but worse than having a real tracker blocker.

other proprietary tracker blockers

See https://privacybadger.org/#Is-Privacy-Badger-compatible-with-other-extensions%2c-including-other-adblockers.

Is this still true with MacOS 14 (Sonoma)'s new revision of ITP?

[ghostwords]

Safari 17 blocks "known trackers and fingerprinting" in Private Browsing windows.

Why only in Private Browsing? My guess is because full tracker blocking can and will break websites.

If you only browse in Private Browsing windows and if you are happy with how much tracking is blocked and how easy it is to disable blocking selectively when something breaks, then you should be all set.

[OIRNOIR]

Safari 17 blocks "known trackers and fingerprinting" in Private Browsing windows.

Why only in Private Browsing? My guess is because full tracker blocking can and will break websites.

If you only browse in Private Browsing windows and if you are happy with how much tracking is blocked and how easy it is to disable blocking selectively when something breaks, then you should be all set.

Just FYI, you can enable it for all browsing instead of private browsing.

Thanks for the information, though!

[misanthroope]

Privacy Badger should support Safari in 2024

[iretrala]

Looking forward to this. Any idea what quarter it might be released?

[ghostwords]

Looking forward to this. Any idea what quarter it might be released?

Not too long after the Manifest V3 version of Privacy Badger for Chrome, which as of today needs to happen before June of this year.

[misanthroope]

Privacy Badger should support Safari in 2024

You can do it, we're rooting for you!

[KinetekEnergy]

any new updates on this? :D

[ghostwords]

any new updates on this? :D

We recently finished updating Privacy Badger to Manifest V3 in Chrome. We are now beginning to look into Privacy Badger for Safari on macOS, using the Chrome MV3 version as the starting point. I expect we will find new bugs and missing pieces of WebExtensions functionality, which we will report to Apple.

[misanthroope]

Privacy Badger should support Safari in 2024

You can do it, we're rooting for you!

before 2024, good luck!!