Privacy protection features

Semenov-Sherin

I see that Vivaldi Technologies is trying to be focused on privacy, but are you sure that "We do not follow our users" is enough to be "privacy-focused"? I am convinced that privacy should be available by default and I think every browser should add privacy protection tools. Here is what Vivaldi can do to protect our privacy.

There’re many other reasons to block ads:

extra Internet data / traffic
excessive load on PC
vulnerabilities
unscrupulous advertisers who may try to force you to install unnecessary or malicious software
privacy issues

For me, privacy is the main reason to use ad blockers: advertisers changed the rules of this game when they began using targeted advertising. I accepted the new rules, but I don’t want to be followed. And now ad blocking is almost the only way to save my privacy.

I think, Vivaldi users believe that Vivaldi Technologies is one of "privacy-focused companies", but this is not true: the developers just don’t follow their users, nothing more, but this is not enough to became a privacy-focused company. If you want to be "privacy-focused", you can not just say "I will never follow you and I will never collect your data", you need to do something to protect your users privacy. When I developed extensions for Maxthon I never collected my users’ data. Does this mean my extensions were "focused on privacy"? Nope!

Many companies used privacy for promotion and Vivaldi can do the same:

Own ad blocker
Jon Von Tetzchner does not want ads to be blocked by default, but they still can make their own ad blocker: just make EasyPrivacy and other protection list (for example, some lists from FanBoy) available by default and hide other ad blocking lists This will protect your users from surveillance, but keep ads. People who really want to hide online ads will subscribe to regional list.
Third-party ad blocker
Vivaldi can "delegate this functionality to some capable extensions": just add third-party ad blocker and ask the developer to make only EasyPrivacy available by default. I think many enthusiasts and companies would be happy to cooperate with Jon Von Tetzchner and his Vivaldi Technologies. I just remember how many new users installed Maxthon to check the built-in AdBlock Plus.
Third-party privacy protection tool
Many extensions block trackers, but not ads: DuckDuckGo, Privacy Badger, Disconnect, etc. Firefox was the first browser with native Tracking Protection, but Mozilla used third-party Disconnect. Vivaldi can collaborate with Electronic Frontier Foundation and became the first browser with build-in Privacy Badger or use old agreement with DuckDuckGo and add their Privacy Essentials.

We’re all in this together and we should help each other. Many people do not even know that someone is following them and they are not aware that they can just install some protective extension. Privacy should be available by default!

modedit Moved thread

zakius

if it ever lands it has to be complete solution, making it like everyone else (tracking protection in FF, adblocking in many Chromium browsers, where you have no granular control and if anything breaks you have to disable it completely for given website) would force users to disable it and install uBO or uMatrix anyway so it would be just a waste of resources that can be spent on other features

What I'd like to see is uBO, uMatrix, Luminous and WebAPIManager combo functionality wise, that would give us all the control we need to be sure that everything works and nothing that isn't needed isn't executed

Semenov-Sherin

@zakius said in Privacy protection features:

If it ever lands it has to be complete solution (tracking protection in FF, adblocking in many Chromium browsers, where you have no granular control and if anything breaks you have to disable it completely for given website)

This is Ghostery: ad blocking, tracking and fingerprinting protection, HTTPS switcher and AI to block new tracking methods. Cliqz (Firefox-based browser) use the same solution from the box and it works.

Own ad blocker is too hard, third-party solution is much more simpler. And I feel that Vivaldi team just does not want to see build-in ad blocker in the browser. So Privacy Badger (or DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials with HTTPS switcher) might be the best solution. No settings, it just works (and if we talk about Privacy Badger you can unblock the tracker if this is necessary).

Semenov-Sherin

This is one feature – privacy protection, but the team can choose several solutions.

pafflick

@Semenov-Sherin "Privacy protection" is a very broad subject, that's why it's hard to count this as a "feature" per se. Such a topic is important for sure, but for feature requests, you need to be more specific and more concise as well. It will also be easier for other users to understand what specific feature is being requested in each thread, and they will be more eager to vote for it.

Catweazle

At the outset, absolute privacy does not exist on the network, nor using TOR.
I think that each user has a different concept of privacy needs, nor can the best browser fully protect it, if the user searches with Google or posts on Facebook.
Therefore, the most logical thing is that each user uses the extensions they deem appropriate, apart from the basic privacy protections that Vivaldi undoubtedly has, far superior to almost all other browsers.