I just discovered Apple’s Private Relay for Safari, something that essentially makes my browsing activity anonymous to all parties except moi. I just have a couple questions that I can’t seem to get answers to when searching around.
It’s essentially a VPN sans a lot of basic features, no? That honestly doesn’t bother me, and I like Safari, but is there anything I’m missing about this feature? I like the idea of VPNs and browsing anonymously (who doesn’t), but am I better off looking at other options? I like the simplicity, and the fact it’s Apple’s first-party “VPN”.
Also, it seems I can’t use ad-blockers while Private Relay is on. Is it possible to do that with VPNs?
I haven’t seen any in-depth discussion about Private Relay, and was hoping to get some opinions on it.
What kind of features are you looking for? This is a VPN in the purest sense of it, it routes your traffic through someone else’s network. You didn’t really specify what your needs are
I use Firefox Focus for adblocking and it works fine
You can definitely use ad blockers with VPNs and Private Relay, since they usually work by blocking content after it’s reached your device, or at least that’s how the browser versions work.
It’s not a VPN because it’s not encrypted. It’s just anonymized. Apple servers are the first part of your web request. They know who you are, but can’t see what you have requested. They flip the request to a third party partner. They get to see what you want, but not who you are.
Both “who” and “what” are encrypted independently, so only one party can decrypt them. So yes, entire request is encrypted, but not as a whole. In addition it goes through https, which is encrypted by definition.