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Tag: Reddit

  • Samsung Called Out for Using AI to Enhance Photos

    Samsung Called Out for Using AI to Enhance Photos

    Samsung is once again in the spotlight over the authenticity of photos taken with its smartphone cameras.

    Samsung’s flagship phones include a feature called “Space Zoom,” designed for taking pictures of the moon. According to a user on Reddit, the feature appears to be using AI to artificially alter and enhance photos. In the post, ibreakphotos took photos of the moon and compared that with what Samsung displayed. The results were surprising.

    Interestingly, Samsung does admit to using AI to enhance photos. On the company’s CamCyclopedia site, a moderator explained the process:

    The moon recognition engine was created by learning various moon shapes from full moon to crescent moon based on images that people actually see with their eyes on Earth.

    It uses an AI deep learning model to show the presence and absence of the moon in the image and the area (square box) as a result. AI models that have been trained can detect lunar areas even if other lunar images that have not been used for training are inserted.

    The end result is a more complete picture of the moon:

    To overcome this, the Galaxy Camera applies a deep learning-based AI detail enhancement engine (Detail Enhancement technology) at the final stage to effectively remove noise and maximize the details of the moon to complete a bright and clear picture of the moon.

    While it’s nice to see a Samsung rep clearly explain what is going on, it still raises questions about the authenticity of photography using a Samsung phone. It’s also disappointing that this revelation is on the company’s community site rather than more openly revealed in the company’s marketing.

  • Reddit Is Killing Off Reddit Talk

    Reddit Is Killing Off Reddit Talk

    Reddit has announced it is killing off Reddit Talk, its Clubhouse clone unveiled in April 2021.

    Clubhouse was all the rage in the midst of the pandemic, spurring other social media platforms to copy its features. Reddit was one of those that jumped on the bandwagon, rolling out Reddit Talk.

    In a company announcement, Reddit has revealed it is sunsetting Reddit Talk. The company says the third-party audio vendor it relied on has shut down, making it too costly to keep the feature going.

    Our original plan was to maintain Talk while we worked on this. Unfortunately, the 3rd party audio vendor we use for Talk is shutting down its service. In other words, the resources required to keep Talk live during this transition increased substantially.

    We don’t have a timeline to bring Talk or an audio product back in the future, however we will share any updates when we have them.

  • Reddit’s IPO May Be on Track for the Second Half of 2023

    Reddit’s IPO May Be on Track for the Second Half of 2023

    Reddit may finally be moving forward with its IPO after laying the groundwork for nearly two years.

    Reddit hired its first CFO in early 2021 in what many saw as one of the first major steps toward an IPO. At the end of 2021, the company filed paperwork with the SEC to go public, but little forward movement has happened since then, thanks to the economic downturn and other factors.

    According to The Information, however, it appears the social media company is once again moving forward. The outlet’s sources say the company plans to move forward later this year, likely in the second half.

    Interestingly, unlike other tech firms — ServiceTitan, StockX, and Cohesity — that have allowed their IPO paperwork to lapse, thereby taking the option off the table in the short term, Reddit has been maintaining its filing with the SEC. This would support The Information’s sources, essentially keeping Reddit in a ‘holding pattern’ until the market improves.

  • Reddit Was Hacked, but Says User Data Is Safe

    Reddit Was Hacked, but Says User Data Is Safe

    Reddit has informed users that it was hacked Sunday night, but says user accounts and passwords appear to be safe.

    According to the social media company, its employees were targeted by a “sophisticated phishing campaign” that pointed employees to a website that attempted to steal their credentials.

    After successfully obtaining a single employee’s credentials, the attacker gained access to some internal docs, code, as well as some internal dashboards and business systems. We show no indications of breach of our primary production systems (the parts of our stack that run Reddit and store the majority of our data).

    Exposure included limited contact information for (currently hundreds of) company contacts and employees (current and former), as well as limited advertiser information. Based on several days of initial investigation by security, engineering, and data science (and friends!), we have no evidence to suggest that any of your non-public data has been accessed, or that Reddit’s information has been published or distributed online.

    Hopefully the scope of the breach remains limited to Reddit’s initial findings.

  • Latest Pixel Buds A-Series Firmware Kills Multi-Device Pairing

    Latest Pixel Buds A-Series Firmware Kills Multi-Device Pairing

    The latest Pixel Buds A-Series firmware has an unexpected side effect, killing multi-device pairing.

    The Pixel Buds A-Series can be paired with multiple devices, even if they cannot simultaneously connect to multiple devices. Even so, it’s relatively easy to switch to another paired device and takes much less time than going through the pairing process all over again.

    Unfortunately, according to a Reddit thread, it appears the latest firmware update breaks that multi-device pairing, leaving the earbuds able to connect only to the last device. For example, when a user goes to connect to a second, previously paired device, the earbuds will no longer connect. Instead, the user has to re-pair the earbuds with the second device, and then go through the process all over again when trying to connect to the first paired device.

    User TenderFlipper was the first to describe the issue:

    This update seems to have broken the ability to pair with multiple devices. I realize that the A series can only connect with one device at a time, but in the past it’s been perfectly happy being paired with both my phone and notebook.

    After the update, it’s only able to be used by the last device which was paired. In other words, if I pair my notebook then my phone loses the ability to connect. If I then follow up by re-pairing my phone, then the notebook can no longer. Repeat ad nauseam (I’ve tried quite a few times at this point).

    So far there has been no acknowledgement of the issue from Google, so one can only hope it’s a bug that will be addressed soon. Given that the Pro version of the earbuds has the ability to connect to multiple devices simultaneously, hopefully the latest firmware’s behavior is not an intentional attempt to further differentiate the two models.

  • Some YouTube Users Seeing 10 Ads Before a Video

    Some YouTube Users Seeing 10 Ads Before a Video

    YouTube is stretching the limits of its users’ patience, testing up to 10 ads before a video.

    A Reddit post popped up earlier this week, with users discussing the fact that YouTube is routinely displaying five or six ads at a time before a video plays. To make matters worse, the ads are unskippable, and the videos still have longer, albeit skippable, ads midway through.

    According to TechViral, some users see as many as 10 ads before the start of a video.

    According to a tweet by TeamYouTube, the company is experimenting with more ads but said each ad is no longer than six seconds.

  • The Latest iPad Air May Have Serious Build Quality Issues

    The Latest iPad Air May Have Serious Build Quality Issues

    Apple thrilled iPad users with the release of the latest iPad Air 5, but not everyone is happy with its build quality.

    Apple unveiled the iPad Air 5, complete with 5G and more powerful M1 chip, as part of its Peak Performance event in early March. The release was widely praised, with the new model being powerful enough to make people wonder if the iPad Pro is obsolete.

    Despite the initial enthusiasm, not everyone is happy with the Air. First noticed by iMore, users are complaining on Reddit about the device’s build quality, specifically the aluminum back panel. The aluminum seems to be thinner than on previous models, causing it to creak under even the slightest pressure.

    I ordered and received two blue iPad Air 2022 today and I’m a bit shocked. The aluminium backplate is a lot thinner than on the iPad 4 which I also have. You can almost feel the battery through the plate when you hold the device. Both iPads have the same feeling and are making creaking noises when you hold them. This did not happen on the iPad Air 4. Both are going back but is it just me? I also asked a second person and she felt it too.

    It remains to be seen if the issue is restricted to a small subset of the new model, or if it’s a systemic flaw.

  • Reddit Is Going Public

    Reddit Is Going Public

    After months of speculation and preparation, Reddit has filed to go public.

    Reddit has been in the news quite a bit over the last year, establishing itself as the dark horse among social media platforms. While Twitter, Facebook, and Snap have published their growth rates and user numbers for some time, Reddit just started doing so in late 2020. When it did, the company surprised the industry with a growth ratethat put its competitors to shame.

    Reddit has since been preparing to go public, hiring its first CFO and completing another round of funding that brought its valuation to $10 billion.

    The company has now revealed that it has filed paperwork with the SEC to go public.

    Reddit, Inc. today announced that it has confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the ”SEC”) relating to the proposed initial public offering of its common stock. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined. The initial public offering is expected to occur after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions.

    We are in a quiet period, and for regulatory reasons, we cannot say anything further.

  • Linux Users Make Better Software Testers

    Linux Users Make Better Software Testers

    An indie developer is reporting that his Linux users generate a disproportionate number of bug reports, and the reports are higher quality.

    User-submitted bug reports are one of the main ways many developers — especially smaller ones — identify bugs and improve their apps. Despite Linux having a much smaller desktop market share than either Windows or macOS, at least one developer is crediting Linux users with being far more productive as bug reporters.

    Koderski, at Kodera Software, posted his findings in a thread on Reddit.

    “As of today, I sold a little over 12,000 units of ΔV in total,” writes Koderski. “700 of these units were bought by Linux players. That’s 5.8%. I got 1040 bug reports in total, out of which roughly 400 are made by Linux players. That’s one report per 11.5 users on average, and one report per 1.75 Linux players. That’s right, an average Linux player will get you 650% more bug reports.”

    Koderski also addresses the misconception that making his game available for Linux led to a large number of additional bugs, making the case that a Linux version didn’t create any more work — only better reporting.

    “Do you know how many of these 400 bug reports were actually platform-specific? 3. Literally only 3 things were problems that came out just on Linux. The rest of them were affecting everyone – the thing is, the Linux community is exceptionally well trained in reporting bugs. That is just the open-source way. This 5.8% of players found 38% of all the bugs that affected everyone. Just like having your own 700-person strong QA team. That was not 38% extra work for me, that was just free QA!”

    Koderski’s findings should be of interest to any company that develops software, and shows that developing for Linux carries benefits beyond just an immediate financial reward.

  • Reddit 1-800 Flowers Ad Goes Viral

    Reddit 1-800 Flowers Ad Goes Viral

    “Our ads on Reddit have gotten a lot of traction and puts a big smile on people’s faces,” says 1-800 Flowers CEO Chris McCann. “That’s what we’re trying to do is just make sure we’re relevant and create that cognitive speed bump when people think about our company. They see something different and I’m thrilled with the creative team for coming up with something like that.”

    Reddit Ad That Went Viral for 1-800-Flowers.com

    As usual, some opinionated Redditers expressed their thoughts on the ads:

    1-800 Flowers CEO discusses the company’s growth that was accelerated by the pandemic:

    Ecommerce Growth Accelerated During Pandemic

    What we’ve seen is an acceleration of growth in our company that began back in 2018 and really then accelerated even further in 2020 with the pandemic. It’s driven by the need for us as people to connect and express ourselves. As a company whose vision is to inspire more human expression, connection, and celebration, and as an ecommerce leader, we’re well-positioned in the trends that we see coming out of this pandemic. We think these trends are sustainable going forward.

    We started out as one flower shop many years ago. What we’ve done is created this e-commerce platform for growth, a platform for expression, connection, and celebration. It starts with this all-star family of brands that we have led by Harry & David, 1-800-Flowers, Cheryl’s Cookies, Shari’s Berries, and our recent acquisition just this past August of Personalization Mall. You see us now as a company in the expression and connection business with a leadership position in floral, a leadership position in gourmet food gifting, and certainly now leadership and position in expressions and personalized items which is a fast-growing market.

    You’ll continue to continue to see us grow by organic product development of products that help customers express and connect. And as we’ve done through acquisition, adding to that platform and leveraging that platform that we’ve built.

    Need To Express and Connect Is a Lasting Trend

    Hopefully, the vaccines accelerate and we turn to some sense of normalcy sooner rather than later. As we look at our business, the momentum we saw began in 2018 and 2019 and then accelerated with the pandemic. We’ve been on a good momentum growth even before the pandemic and we really see ourselves now as a bigger stronger company than we were prior to it. We’ve acquired Personalization Mall just this past August and by putting it on our platform and leveraging our digital marketing expertise we accelerated the growth of that company. It grew by 50 percent this last quarter.

    A year ago August we acquired Shari’s Berries and took a business that was stagnant and losing money to now one that’s got a nice growth rate and is generating a nice contribution margin as well. If we just keep our focus on what the consumer is looking for to help express and connect then we’ll be continuing to see double-digit growth for some time to come. That trend that we’ve all learned from being isolated, our need to express and connect is a lasting trend coming out of this pandemic along with the shift from offline to online.

    1-800 Flowers Ecommerce Growth Accelerated During Pandemic

  • Reddit’s WallStreetBets Schools Wall Street

    Reddit’s WallStreetBets Schools Wall Street

    Wall Street may be the “experts” in the stock market, but analysts are increasingly looking to Reddit’s WallStreetBets for info.

    Reddit’s WallStreetBets upended the stock market when individual traders rallied around stocks that mainstream Wall Street institutions were shorting. GameStop, Blackberry, AMC and Bed and Bath and Beyond saw massive gains after they were shorted, ultimately costingWall Street tens of billions.

    It appears Wall Street has taken notice, and is now looking to WallStreetBets, and other social media platforms, for tips and info, according to The Wall Street Journal. Firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have employees on Reddit, Discord and Twitter, looking for the next big trading phenomenon.

    “It’s more art than science because it’s uncharted territory,” Simeon Siegel, a BMO Capital Markets analyst, told WSJ.

    It’s an amazing turn of events and proves just how much platforms like Robinhood, along with social media, have democratized investing.

  • Reddit Hits $10 Billion Valuation

    Reddit Hits $10 Billion Valuation

    Reddit has secured another round of funding, bringing the social media company’s valuation to $10 billion.

    Reddit has been the darling of the social media industry, posting impressive growth, especially compared to its larger rivals. The company has been moving toward an IPO, hiring Drew Vollero as its first CFO in an effort reach that goal.

    The company has now revealed its latest round of funding, placing the company’s valuation at $10 billion.

    We are optimistic and encouraged that not only are we resourced and capitalized to continue on our growth path, but also that our investors support our vision and want to deepen their stakes in our future. We will raise up to $700 million in Series F funding, led by Fidelity Management and Research Company LLC. and including other existing investors, at a post-money valuation of over $10 billion.

    Reddit reiterated its solid growth, noting its first $100 million advertising revenue quarter, a 192% increase from the previous year.

  • Senior Google Exec’s Remote Plans Anger Employees

    Senior Google Exec’s Remote Plans Anger Employees

    Google senior executive Urs Hölzle has angered employees with his remote work plans, prompting calls of hypocrisy on the part of the company.

    Google CEO Sundar Pichai outlined the company’s remote work strategy in May. Employees will be required to spend three days in the office, with two allocated to remote work. Employees also have the option of changing the office they work out of, as well as applying for permanent remote work.

    Urs Hölzle angered employees when he sent an email to employees announcing he would be working remotely from New Zealand, according to CNET. Employees believe Hölzle is receiving preferential treatment, while the average employee has to wade through a frustrating application process to be granted permanent remote work status.

    The controversy surrounding Hölzle is just the latest HR difficulty Google is facing. The company has been accused of marginalizingwomen and minorities, has disenfranchised researchers over academic integrity and engaging in gender bias when it comes to employee compensation.

    According to CNET, Google’s payment policy has further exacerbated the issue. While some companies, such as Reddit, have unified company pay — regardless of where an employee lives — Google has chosen to adjust pay according to the cost of living in various locations. This has led some employees to wonder to wonder if Hölzle is subject to the same rules, or if his pay will remain the same as if he were living in the US.

    Some employees have already quit over the controversy, and there will likely be many more in the weeks to come.

  • A Single Customer Was Responsible for Fastly’s Outage

    A Single Customer Was Responsible for Fastly’s Outage

    Fastly has said a single customer caused yesterday’s outage, an outage that had widespread repercussions.

    Fastly made headlines yesterday when an issue with the company’s network led to a major outage. As a content delivery network, some of the biggest companies in the world rely on Fastly, including Amazon, the BBC, CNN, Financial Times, The New York Times, Reddit, Spotify, GitHub, Twitch, Stack Overflow, Hulu, HBO Max, Quora, PayPal, Shopify, Stripe and Vimeo.

    According to TheStreet, the company rolled out a software update in May that introduced a bug that could be triggered under very specific circumstances. The bug only needed a single customer to have a very specific configuration for the bug to active, which ultimately happened.

    “Even though there were specific conditions that triggered this outage, we should have anticipated it,” the company said. “We apologize to our customers and those who rely on them for the outage and sincerely thank the community for its support.”

  • CDN Glitch Leads to Massive Internet Outages

    CDN Glitch Leads to Massive Internet Outages

    A glitch at Fastly, a popular CDN, led to outages for some of the internet’s biggest sites Tuesday morning.

    CDNs, or content delivery networks, are distributed networks of servers designed to help websites and web apps manage their user load and remain responsive. Fastly is a popular CDN option that helps power some of the biggest websites on the net.

    Early Tuesday, a glitch at Fastly led to outages at the BBC, CNN, Financial Times, The New York Times, Reddit, Spotify, GitHub, Twitch, Stack Overflow, Hulu, HBO Max, Quora, PayPal, Shopify, Stripe and Vimeo.

    Fastly confirmed the issue, and was able to quickly resolve it, although the outage illustrates the challenges associated with so many websites relying on a single point of potential failure.

    “Today’s outage of major websites once again highlights the importance of access to online news and government services, underlining the importance of the internet for day to day living,” Matthew McDermott, Senior Officer, Access Partnership, a global tech policy consultancy, told WebPronews. “Fastly responded quickly to restored the issue but this serves as a reminder that resilience is an important part of digital infrastructure to modern life. Organisations and government bodies need to look at implementing the steps that look to assess, stabilize, improve and monitor to ensure this issue do not pose further problems in the future. Assessment is needed to determine the server’s bottleneck then stabilizing the issue with implementation of quick fixes will mitigate impact to broader stakeholders and users. After this, stakeholders will need to improve by augmenting and optimize server capabilities to ensure it meets the necessary needs. Lastly, regular monitoring will need to be set up using automated tools to help prevent future issues.”

  • Reddit Launches Public Bug Bounty Program

    Reddit Launches Public Bug Bounty Program

    Reddit has launched a public bug bounty program, an acknowledgment of its increased growth and visibility.

    Bug bounty programs are a popular method of tackling cybersecurity issues. Many of the world’s largest companies rely on the programs to find and address bugs and security vulnerabilities before bad actors can exploit them.

    Reddit has maintained a private program with HackerOne for the last three years, but the company is taking the next step and making it public.

    With our continued growth and visibility, we’re now ready to make the program public and expand the participation to anyone wanting to make a meaningful security impact on Reddit. As we scale the program, our priority will remain focused on protecting the privacy of our user data and identities. We know each security researcher has their own skills and perspective that they bring to the program, and we encourage anyone to submit a report that shows security impact. We’re super excited to hit this milestone and have prepared our team for what’s to come.

    Interested parties can find more information at redditinc.com or HackerOne, and submissions can be sent to [email protected].

  • Reddit Hires Drew Vollero As First CFO On Road To IPO

    Reddit Hires Drew Vollero As First CFO On Road To IPO

    Reddit has hired Andrew (Drew) Vollero as its first CFO as the company prepares to go public.

    Reddit has been steadily working towards an IPO, recently becoming more transparent about its user base. In December, the company reported it had 52 million daily users in October. Previously, the company had only reported its monthly user base.

    The company is now taking the next step, hiring Vollero to help it prepare to go public. Vollero comes from Allied Universal, the largest US security and facility services firm. Prior to his work at Allied Universal, Vollero was Snap’s first CFO during its IPO.

    “Drew is an industry thought leader, who brings a track record of building a global finance organization for high growth companies,” said Steve Huffman, co-founder and CEO of Reddit. “He will be a tremendous addition to our Executive Team, as Reddit continues accelerating our business and user growth.”

    Reddit is much smaller than its social media rivals, but its growth rate far exceeds them. This makes it an attractive option for advertisers, and could set it up for a public offering sooner rather than later.

  • Mozilla Leads the Charge For Net Neutrality’s Reinstatement

    Mozilla Leads the Charge For Net Neutrality’s Reinstatement

    Mozilla, along with a coalition of companies, has sent a letter to the FCC asking for the reinstatement of net neutrality.

    Net neutrality rules were passed during the Obama administration and repealed during the Trump administration. Net neutrality prohibits companies from treating different services or types of internet traffic by different standards, or setting up internet “fast lanes” for companies that pay more.

    For example, AT&T customers were able to watch HBO Max — which AT&T owns — on their mobile devices without the streaming counting against their data plans. In contrast, competing streaming services did count. If this type of practice became widespread, it could cause users to gravitate toward or away from certain services, based solely on the whims of the carriers and internet providers with a financial motivation to push or punish a particular service.

    In the case of AT&T, they announced they are dropping their preferential treatment of HBO Max as a result of California’s net neutrality legislation. While net neutrality was killed on a national level, individual states are free to impose their own rules, setting up a potential legislative quagmire.

    Mozilla, ADT, Dropbox, Eventbrite, Reddit, Vimeo and Wikimedia have now sent a letter to the FCC asking the agency to reinstate federal-level net neutrality.

    We are writing to express our support for the reinstatement of net neutrality protections through Federal Communications Commission (FCC) action. As leading internet-based businesses and organizations, we believe that these fundamental safeguards are critical for preserving the internet as a free and open medium that promotes innovation and spurs economic growth. Net neutrality enjoys bipartisan support among the American public, and many may need to rely on protections enforced by the FCC as more offices and classrooms continue to shift to online settings during the pandemic. By using its authority to restore net neutrality at the federal level, the FCC can help protect families and businesses across the country that rely on high-speed broadband access and help spark our recovery.

    Net neutrality simply preserves the environment that has allowed the internet to become an engine for economic growth. The rules serve as protections that users have in their relationship with internet service providers, preventing ISPs from blocking, throttling, or prioritizing traffic for payment. And in an environment where users frequently lack meaningful choices between ISPs, net neutrality can ultimately encourage greater long-term investment across the network stack by promoting broadband buildout, faster service, and new applications.

    While the current administration has not commented on its intentions, some experts believe it is only a matter of time before net neutrality is reinstated. Given the digital transformation underway, such legislation would go a long way toward protecting all users and companies.

  • Voice Activation on Google Wear OS Broken For Months

    Voice Activation on Google Wear OS Broken For Months

    Google Wear OS users have grown increasingly frustrated with Google after months of voice activation not working on their smartwatches.

    Wear OS makes use of Google Assistant, with the ability being one of the main selling points. Reports starting showing up on the Google Issue Tracker back in November, with scores of people complaining of being impacted by the problem.

    The issue spilled out onto Reddit Wednesday, with the thread already amassing hundreds of posts.

    Users are still able to use Google Assistant, but doing so requires using the touchscreen or a long-press on the power button. Needless to say, this makes interaction much more difficult in situations where a person is active and unable to physically interact with their watch.

    After months of ignoring the issue, the uptick in attention has finally gotten Google’s. In a statement to The Verge, the company says it is “aware of the issues some users have been encountering” and will work to “address these and improve the overall experience.”

    Unfortunately, no timeline has been provided.

  • Spotify the Latest Company to Embrace Permanent Remote Work

    Spotify the Latest Company to Embrace Permanent Remote Work

    Spotify has announced it will allow employees to work from home permanently, joining a growing list of companies that have made the switch.

    Dubbed its “Work From Anywhere” program, Spotify is allowing employees to choose how and where they want to work. That includes working full-time at home, the office or a hybrid of the two.

    The company is also becoming more flexible with the geographic location of its employees, allowing them to live and work from the city or country of their choice. There may be some limitations, due to regulatory or timezone challenges, but the company is clearly working to provide as much flexibility as possible. For employees that want some office time, but may not live near a Spotify office, the company will help them with a co-working space membership.

    In the wake of the pandemic, companies are adapting to the changing circumstances by offering employees a greater degree of flexibility. Salesforce, Dropbox, Reddit, Twitter, Microsoft and Google have all committed to varying degrees of permanent remote work or flexible work options.

    Employees, meanwhile, have grown accustomed to remote work, and want it to continue after the pandemic. In fact, half of workers would be willing to give up vacation days in exchange for remote work, while 29% would quit their job before returning to the office.

    It’s a safe bet Spotify won’t be the last company to adopt more flexible work options moving forward.

  • iOS 14.5 Safari Will Mask IP Address From Google

    iOS 14.5 Safari Will Mask IP Address From Google

    Apple is ramping up its efforts to protect user privacy, including a feature in iOS 14.5 that will mask IP addresses in Safari.

    Apple has been making significant changes to iOS and iPadOS, forcing app makers to include privacy labels to disclose what information they track. The company is also preparing to include a feature that will force apps to ask for permission to track users, rather than doing it automatically.

    Now the company is working on its next big privacy upgrade, masking Safari’s IP address. Companies can use a device’s IP address to help build a profile of the individual’s browsing habits. Given that Apple’s default search engine is Google, this is a real concern.

    First noticed by a Reddit user and reported by The 8-Bit, the feature is enabled when Safe Browsing is active. Safe Browsing is activated by turning on the “Fraudulent Website Warning” in Settings > Safari.

    Maciej Stachowiak, Apple’s Head of Webkit Engineering, provided a bit of additional detail about how the feature will work.

    As Stachowiak explains, iOS 14.5 Safari will re-route traffic through an Apple proxy service to hide IP addresses. This should provide a significant level of additional privacy to iOS and iPadOS users.