Why you should use a privacy-focused browser
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Your browser has a huge impact on your privacy. A privacy-focused browser will protect your private information from others.
Click here to see the full blog post
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The privacy browser has built-in privacy
... including native blocking of HTML5 Canvas Fingerprinting. As V still does not include this, i still must use "Canvas Blocker (Fingerprint protect)" extension.
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I believe that one cannot speak only of privacy, in the network privacy and security are synonymous, because by preventing a site from collecting our data, we also avoid the dissemination of this data to third parties, why the site traffics with them. Third parties that we do not know, where we do not know what they do with this data or who have honest purposes.
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This is slightly OT given it is far broader than only browser privacy, but for those interested in a more meta view, this article https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=667622 [then use its button to read the pdf in V] that i found & read yesterday, provides a dry, verbose but IMO fascinating dissertation of privacy in concept, practice & [US] law.
Pls note: you will need much much more than 10' for this.
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@Steffie , anyone who has been given a turn in Browserleaks, understand that web pages can take out everything except the color of your underwear, if not avoided. Since then not only detailed information about the browser, but also on the OS, IP, ISP, Hardware apps.......everything.
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@Catweazle I do use browserleaks frequently, hence for years i've been acutely aware of our vulnerabilities. As for security implications of underwear, to reduce my risk profile i chose to uninstall underwear. Given i use ArchLinux:
sudo pacman -Rns underwear
.One cannot be too careful...
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@Steffie , I use VPN (ProtonVPN free) and CyDec. With this Browserleaks has no chance (wrong or n/a data).
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@Catweazle Sorry but i find that statement very hard to believe, with respect to my specific OP:
native blocking of HTML5 Canvas Fingerprinting
I always use a VPN, but that cannot help afaik with something as pervasive & intrusive as Canvas Fingerprinting.
I've never before heard of CyDec but just now i skimmed over the homepage https://www.cydecplatform.com/ - I did not notice anything standout-obvious mentioning blocking of HTML5 Canvas Fingerprinting -- does it do that?
Summary: Are you really telling me that your https://browserleaks.com/canvas says:
Your Fingerprint
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@Steffie , CyDec randomizes all fingerprints, with the small downloadable plugin including those from the OS. This does require smoothing it on some pages, at least on YouTube you have to disable some filters, because if not, you only see a black screen. The effectiveness CyDec's is brutal.I also use Trace alternatively, also an excellent anti fingerprint, although somewhat less invasive.With CyDec it can happen that you appear posting with an iPhone from Cuba.
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@Catweazle No no no, that's irrelevant to my OP complaint. You have actually proven my point, not contradicted it -- you'd not need CyDec, & i'd not need the extension i specifically named in my OP, if V blocked the canvas fingerprinting natively.
My post was not about HOW we can do it with external workarounds, but WHY can't V do it all by itself.
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@Steffie , true, I wish that Vivaldi does not need extensions of any kind in the future, but at the moment it is not.
In another thread I mentioned that perhaps Trace (OpenSource) can be incorporated, at least part of its functionality. This would already be a breakthrough.
But in the meantime there is no other option but to resort to what can and with what is available.
I also add that a balance must be struck between blocking / spoofing that guarantees privacy and excess that breaks the functionality of many pages. If I use CyDec, with all the filters activated, it is almost impossible to navigate freely, having to reload the pages several times, even the configuration assigned by CyDec adjusts to that tolerated by some pages (as I said before with Cuba and Iphone) .
With Trace this rarely happens because he is not so strict, although enough to keep a good anonymity.
CyDec in the background can be interesting for companies that need maximum security, for example for banking. -
@IAMGEEKY369 , of course, but Vivaldi is currently a small company with 40 employees, of which only a dozen work as developers, to cater to Vivaldi versions for 4 different OS and I don't know how many languages.
Serving dozens of requests and reported bugs from users. A lot of work for few and for this I am grateful and I think that at least they deserve some patience. -
A lot of this doesn't apply to the Android browser. Does Vivaldi use Bromite's and Ungoogled Chromium's patches?
"The privacy browser lets you disable permissions for untrusted websites"
https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/43199/add-the-ability-to-control-javascript-per-siteYou also aren't free from Vivaldi on Android. You cannot import/export your bookmarks and cannot bookmark all of your tabs. https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/42224/switch-to-tab-function
I've noticed that there's no crash reporting in Vivaldi for Android. I've been running into some crashes and want to submit them but I don't know how. chrome://crashes says that it's disabled. There's no option at all.
Oh and the adblocker is kinda weak. I'm also curious about its implementation. Does it use Chromium's subresource filtering? I remember reading about DuckDuckGo or something.
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@iamgeeky369: and vivaldi might be the slowest of the bunch, even on Android.
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I'm starting to use Brave, on my phone so far. But BAT is not the way more so if there is some 3rd-party rewards system in place.
It would be awesome to merge Vivaldi, privacy and these rewards from providing user information to the BTC blockchain as p2p.
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@Gwen-Dragon said in Why you should use a privacy-focused browser:
The second link you posted contains the explanation. But even if this was an intended feature, it would not follow from this that "Brave is not privacy friendly," though perhaps it would demonstrate that they are untrustworthy.
(Note also that Vivaldi uses affiliate links for search engines & bookmarks. Is this problematic also?)
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