Apparently Apple will proxy Safe Browsing Requests to Google to reduce Google’s visibility into iOS users activity. The article doesn’t mention what Apple itself does with the information if users should have a proxy in front of apple too …
But while Google has anonymized URL strings, by sending the link in a cropped and hashed state, Google still sees the IP address from where a Safe Browsing check comes through.
Apple’s new feature basically takes all these Safe Browsing checks and passes them through an Apple-owned proxy server, making all requests appear as coming from the same IP address.
More information here as well:
https://the8-bit.com/apple-proxies-google-safe-browsing-privacy/
VPNs and proxies are based on trust, otherwise they’re anywhere from just as bad as no protection to even worse. Apple certainly doesn’t have my trust.