Apple Mac privacy

DeletedUser459

Hello I am considering switching to Mac laptops because I feel like I can no longer endure Windows. My tolerance is almost at the peak right now. Also I already ditched linux because the whole system once died in a very very very important moment.

So if anyone here uses Mac, what is the privacy experience like? Is it worth changing to Mac when comparing it to GrapheneOS's security and privacy?

cleanbowtie

DeletedUser459 Macs are certainly better for privacy than Windows. In regards to the switch itself, you will never look back. I have tried Linux and Windows recently having been on MacOS for a couple of years and while I am more partial to Linux, MacOS is leaps and bounds ahead of Windows if it fits what you want to do.

palantiratemyson

DeletedUser459 Mac is nothing like GrapheneOS in terms of privacy. As many others will or should point out, Apple is a lot better than other companies with regards to respecting their customers privacy. However, they still if you read the fine print and look through your macOS, cash and logs find that they still analyze everything you do. They may anonymize it before they get it or do much with it or whatever… Allegedly. So, Apple isn't remotely private compared to GrapheneOS, but it is a bit better than say Microsoft.

Also, like others have asked, what's wrong with Linux? Most distros are highly reliable unless its a heavily modded Arch fork, like, I'm curious as to why you would think that about Linux.

(I love Apple's products, I'm just sick of survielance capitalism and "privacy preserving" analytics.)

ottoptj

As far as I understand it, MacOS is more secure and private than Windows, though ultimately a lot of it depends on the user as always.

Security-wise, it has some form of sandboxing and otherwise mostly decent security relate to Windows. One problem with it is that a lot of apps don't use the sandboxing.

Privacy-wise, the consensus seems to be that it is more private than Windows, especially if you turn off whatever telemetry you can, Siri, the Apple Intelligence stuff, etc. It is far from perfect, but from my understanding it's not nearly as bad as Windows, although that depends on which type of a Windows license we compare it to (different Windows editions provide different privacy options and such).

As for comparing to GrapheneOS in terms of security, there isn't a real equivalent. You could get pretty good security by running QubesOS with a ton of different VMs for different apps, but that setup wouldn't be viable for most people due to performance issues and practical inconveniences.

Android and iOS are built with a much more secure design than Windows, MacOS or any typical desktop Linux distro. The closest option would be ChromeOS. ChromeOS is largely similar to Google's Android in how it's designed, but it's still not comparable to Graphene since it lacks the (rather significant) security enhancements that Graphene has.

ChromeOS is also not particularly private with a Google account being required to have a proper user and Chrome being the only native browser (you can run other browsers as Android apps or under the Debian containers, though that consumes additional system resources). In contrast, MacOS can be set up without an iCloud account (although using one has some security benefits due to App Store apps being sandboxed) and you can run whatever browser you want. A lot of other privacy invasive things like Siri can also be turned off easily.

stupidcreature

ottoptj You could get pretty good security by running QubesOS

meanwhile qubesos doesn't even support tmp2 lmao

Psyonico

I'm curious about your Linux experience...

I've not used Secureblue, but my understanding is it is more privacy and security focused than MacOS or Windows. Also, I believe it is immutable, meaning less likely you accidentally break it. And if you do, you can very easily roll back to a stable version.

I personally run Fedora with KDE as my daily driver with a Windows partition that I have mostly debloated via an autounattend install file for the rare instance that I need windows.

ottoptj

Psyonico
My understanding is that SecureBlue does some stuff to improve security in comparison to Silverblue, but it still suffers from the fundamental security issues of desktop Linux. Also, the immutability doesn't really improve security in any way due to how it's implemented. It just helps with keeping the system clean and avoiding breakage.

DeletedUser459

Psyonico I was using Fedora too. I like linux and I like Gnome DE, but I just cannot stay on Linux if the whole system crashes and the laptop powers off randomly. I checked the logs and it seems like it had to do something with temperature, but that was all I can tell. I just cannot use unstable operating systems for my work. Windows is pain, but at least it works... but recently I'm encountering more and more problems.

Usul

Apple is reputed to be more respectful of your private data. However, macOS makes many connections to Apple servers even for services you don't use. For example, I don't use iCloud services but macOS always tries to connect to it.

I use macOS every day on my MacBook Pro with the following configuration:

Little Snitch software, which blocks all unwanted outgoing connections, including Apple connections (about 95% of connections to Apple servers). It works very well like this.
I have disabled a number of options in System Settings.
I don't use any third-party Apple software or services.
Most MacOS App can be downloaded without using the app store. I use "homebrew" tool if i want to install an app.
The rest is just common sense.

Elgoog

DeletedUser459 was using Fedora too. I like linux and I like Gnome DE, but I just cannot stay on Linux if the whole system crashes and the laptop powers off randomly. I checked the logs and it seems like it had to do something with temperature, but that was all I can tell.

I had that problem once. All it took was opening up the case and clearing out years' worth of accumulated dust. I doubt it is a Fedora problem

Psyonico

DeletedUser459 I just cannot stay on Linux if the whole system crashes and the laptop powers off randomly. I checked the logs and it seems like it had to do something with temperature, but that was all I can tell. I just cannot use unstable operating systems for my work

Totally understandable, and I personally hate when people try to shove X operating system stating it's the best. I ran with various Linux distros for about 2 and a half years and went back to windows because I was tired of every problem being a minimum of 2 hours to troubleshoot. After about 2 months on windows 11 Pro I switched back to Linux because windows was giving me stability issues (random stutters/freezes on brand new hardware, even after doing a full reinstall)

If you had a temperature issue though, that likely means you're losing performance if Windows is stable. If you're going to keep that computer I'd recommend giving it a good cleaning including doing a new layer of thermal paste on the CPU if you're up to that task. Even if you stick with Windows I'd do this because if you were having thermal issues in Fedora, you'll likely start having them in Windows sooner rather than later.

BeepBeep

Sounds like you have a problem specific to your Linux configuration rather than evidence of Linux being unreliable. You can switch to Mac or figure out how to fix what you have. In response to Microsoft transitioning into a data company, I switched to Linux. I'm glad I did, but there is a learning curve; occasionally frustrating. Operationally, it's largely the same as windows.

N1b

There are good threads about Apple privacy over here and here.

Also I can always recommend videos from THO such as this and this.

You'll have to figure out what's good for your threat model. People here (me included) will likely advice against Apple for privacy reasons, but it might be just right for you. I won't deny that there are many good reasons to use MacOS (such as security, ease of use, convenience, eco system, hardware performance etc.).

My personal opinion:

MacOS is secure, but not private (especially against Apple). I use it for some professional work, but avoid sharing private data with it and also don't use an Apple ID on it (which comes with security disadvantages).
Most Linux distributions are much better for privacy, but lack many security features. I'd recommend you try Linux Mint, preferably on an AMD Laptop (e.g. Framework 13 AMD edition). In my experience it's stable and user friendly. Personally I mostly use Fedora Silverblue for better security but it has many annoyances.
No Desktop system can compete with GOS when it comes to either security or privacy. Fortunately it looks like Desktop mode for Android is coming soon™ and even a Pixel laptop with Android is rumored (maybe confirmed?). So there's hope for a fully fledged GOS experience in the future, and I'd surely be among the first to switch.

ottoptj

stupidcreature

Sure, but running every single application in a separate VM has benefits, although as stated earlier, this would not be viable for the vast majority of people.

user1357

@DeletedUser459 I really like using a Macbook from a privacy perspective. It feels significantly less invasive than Windows, and will only ask for permissions for something once, rather than asking until it annoys you into saying yes. However, there are a couple of privacy things which irk me.

Despite there being a tab in the settings called "Privacy & Security", this does not contain all the privacy settings. It has a lot of them, but not all.

Be sure to go into Settings > "Apple Intelligence & Siri" and turn off "Listen for" "Hey Siri".
Also click "About Siri, Dictation & Privacy..." and look over Siri learning from specific apps. Supposedly learning is done on-device, but its a personal preference whether you want this.
Open Settings > "Spotlight" and turn off "Help Apple Improve Search"
In Settings > "Screen time" > "Communication Safety", turn off "Improve Communication Safety".
- This will only matter if you have "Communication Safety" turned on.
Under Settings > "iCloud", turn on "Advanced Data Protection".
- This end-to-end encrypts most of any icloud data you have—not all though: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651. This is a must. Without ADP, a significant portion of any data you back up to iCloud is encrypted with keys Apple has, including the encryption keys to your E2EE iMessages (if you iCloud backup your iMessages).
- Be sure to save any backup codes or set a friend/family member as a recovery person. If you forget your Apple account password and don't have the recovery code or a designated recovery person, all your data will be lost.
- https://support.apple.com/en-us/108756

The following are specifically for under the "Privacy & Security" section. Take a long look at all the settings here, but I have highlighted a couple of the major ones.

Under "Analytics & Improvements", turn off everything.
Be sure to scroll all the way to the bottom of the "Location Services" menu, click "Details" next to "System Settings" and TURN OFF MAC ANALYTICS. In my opinion, this is Apple's 2nd sleaziest setting, hiding it all the way back here.
Under "Apple Advertising", turn off "Personalized Ads".

Now for Apple's 1st most sleazy privacy setting:

Open up Safari App
In the top left corner of your screen, the taskbar, click "Safari" > "Settings" > "Advanced", and turn off "Allow privacy-preserving measurement of ad effectiveness".

In my opinion, this is by far Apple's sleaziest setting. It is not in the normal settings menu for the rest of the mac, it is in the settings menu specifically for Safari. Then, it is not under the Privacy settings for Safari, it is under the "Advanced" settings. And the cherry on top: they use a multi-variable condition:

A = ad measurement
P = privacy preserving
ON -> A and P
OFF -> not (A and P) -> De Morgan's Law -> (not A) or (not P)

Which begs the question: when the setting is OFF, is it not measuring ad effectiveness at all? Or is it still measuring ad effectiveness, just in a not privacy-preserving way? Here is a Wikipedia explanation of De Morgan's Law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Morgan's_laws
I recall there being a page on Apple's site for developers that does actually explain that turning it off means ads effectiveness is simply not measured, but I am unable to find that page right now. It shouldn't be this hard to find that information, and IMHO, this is Apple's sleaziest setting.

These are the major privacy settings I can think of off the top of my head. I hope I am not missing anything major. And I apologize if injecting my opinions into the message here is off-putting or harms my credibility on the matter, but I have very strong feelings about some of Apple's privacy settings decisions. Good luck with your Apple journey!