Safari on macOS and iOS has a genuinely distinct privacy feature in the mix that doesn't have a direct equivalent in other major browsers: iCloud Private Relay — worth understanding on its own terms rather than assuming Safari behaves like a Chromium-based browser.
What iCloud Private Relay actually does
For users with an active iCloud+ subscription who've enabled it, Private Relay routes eligible Safari browsing traffic through two separate relays operated by different parties, intended to prevent any single party (including Apple) from seeing both who you are and what you're browsing at once. This is a genuinely different privacy mechanism than a traditional VPN, with its own specific scope and limitations.
Private Relay's actual boundaries
Private Relay is scoped to specific traffic types and doesn't necessarily cover everything a full VPN would — and it's not designed to interoperate seamlessly with a separate third-party VPN running at the same time. If you're using both Private Relay and a traditional VPN together, the interaction between them is worth testing directly rather than assuming.
Testing your actual setup
Rather than relying on general claims about either Private Relay or a specific VPN, run NetRiskScan's WebRTC Leak Test under your actual configuration — with Private Relay, with a VPN, or with both — to see what's genuinely being exposed in your specific setup.
Platform permission model
Both macOS and iOS enforce their own system-level permission prompts for camera/microphone access that WebRTC typically needs, layered on top of Safari's own settings — relevant context, though separate from the address-exposure question a leak test specifically checks.
FAQ
Does Private Relay replace the need for a VPN?
It serves a related but distinct purpose with its own scope and limitations — not a drop-in replacement for every VPN use case, particularly ones requiring a specific exit country or full-device coverage beyond Safari.