How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?

Catweazle

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In the Browser you can avoid this data holes, well with the inbuild features or with extension or scripts, the biggest privacy and security hole isn't the browser, but the search engine you use and the user himself.

Ayespy

@Catweazle said in How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?:

every browser need extensions

I don't find this to be the case.

Unless you mean to say all browsers need extensions in order to hide you, which may be the case, but I never felt a particular urge to hide behind a curtain with a peephole, using remote-operated fingers to access the internet so as to remain unseen and unidentified. I know that many do.

Catweazle

@Ayespy; you can't really hide you, you can only protect you from excesive sniffings and annoying ads, pop-ups and other crap, with which webpages intents to fill your HD and browser.
Good example now is the YT problem with it's agressive anti-adblock, pop-ups, blocking and nags, which I avoid 100% with the Vivaldi adblocker and the iFrame script. It don't hide me, YT still logs my searches in the page, but not which videos I watch. In Firefox I need for this uBO and for the iFrame script Greasy-or Tampermonkey extension, in Vivaldi I can use it as is.
I don't care what websites they know what country I live in or my public IP, nor do I care about the technical data of my system, but I do care that my private data is out of their sight.
I also don't like that a page that I visit only occasionally fills my HD with cookies, databases and other shit, or that I find a zillion active serviceworkers in my browser. This is what matters to me and I try to alleviate.

RasheedHolland

@ybjrepnfr said in How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?:

next year vivaldi will likely lose any moral authority to keep including privacy self-congratulation in its promo material. without that putative rabbit, this will be the scoreline:

no html5 canvas fingerprint spoofing

no HTTP/2 Fingerprinting spoofing or blocking

no cname-uncloaking

no gui-based page element picker blocking

no user-configurable dynamic filter rules

Yes, good point. I also believe that Vivaldi should do more to protect against tracking, like Brave and Firefox. And as said before, uBlock Lite isn't good enough, so it's a must that Vivaldi's adblocker should be improved. And since it's not extension based, it should be able to bypass the Manifest v3 restrictions.

RasheedHolland

@Catweazle said in How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?:

Of course, you can continue using Firefox, register with Mozilla, knowing that they then send your data to Google (Alphabet, googleanalytics, googletagmanager), or use Edge, which does not send data to Google, but to MS and half of the other companies of the Internet, Opera, which is the least private of all, Brave sends data to Cryptocompanies and sponsors.

Yes I agree, I also don't really trust Firefox, Opera and Brave. And we all know that Edge and Chrome are spyware. But I do would like to see more advanced privacy features in Vivaldi, I wonder if they can add them or are they depending on Chromium? For example, what about Total Cookie Protection which was added to Firefox?

https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/14/23166537/firefox-privacy-total-cookie-protection-default

ybjrepnfr

@RasheedHolland the allegation you appear to support is quite misleading. it strongly implies a nexus between using firefox [or forks] & logging into a mozilla account. there is no nexus. use of ff in no way mandates needing a logged-in mozilla account, unless peeps wanna sync. sync is not axiomatic to browsing. this peep has no need of sync in any browser, & so is not using an account, ipso facto collapsing the apocryphal assertion.

furthermore, no chromium browser has granular control like ff's about:config, which provides so-inclined users substantial additional privacy & usability finessing capability vastly ahead of any chromium browser.

the trait of some here to keep alleging a user-privacy false-equivalence between ff & chromium browsers even now, let alone later this year once google finalise their mv3 impost, is highly disingenuous.

RasheedHolland

@ybjrepnfr said in How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?:

@RasheedHolland the allegation you appear to support is quite misleading. it strongly implies a nexus between using firefox [or forks] & logging into a mozilla account. there is no nexus.

Are you sure this was directed to me? I don't think I made any strong allegations about Firefox.

It's just my personal feeling that eventhough Firefox and Brave have implemented strong privacy features, there is still something shady about them. Firefox has got strong ties with Google and Brave is implementing all kinds of extra features that most people have no interest in.

What I do believe is that Vivaldi should try to implement stronger privacy features, that's all I'm saying. I think it's weird that Vivaldi doesn't portray themselves as a privacy browser, this would make it way more popular and generate a lot of buzz.

RasheedHolland

BTW, I also noticed another browser besides Brave that is focused on privacy, it's called Ulaa. I really think Vivaldi should be promoted more as a privacy focused browser. But it can only do this, if it really raises the bar. And I already asked this in another thread, but is there a list of Chrome/Chromium features that are disabled in Vivaldi?

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Deviations-from-Chromium-(features-we-disable-or-remove)
https://ulaa.com

Catweazle

@RasheedHolland, well, Ulaa isn't bad, but not specially private, more than other normal Chromium fork, it's a proprietary Browser, made by Zoho with the same PP and TOS of any Zoho product. Nothing way different of any Chromium.

barbudo2005

A famous Roman saying went:

"Caesar's wife must not only be honorable, but must also appear to be so."

With Browsers the saying would be:

"Browsers should not only promote themselves as focused on privacy but also must be."

Catweazle

@barbudo2005, I'm not saying that Ulaa isn't, after all Zoho is a good and well-known company, I'm just saying that Ulaa doesn't particularly stand out when it comes to privacy issues, apart from the usual privacy settings of any Chromium.

barbudo2005

@Catweazle

I'm sick of hearing users who maintain after 8 years the paranoia of distrusting Vivaldi, with phrases like:

1.- But it can only do this, if it really raises the bar.…. is there a list of Chrome/Chromium features that are disabled in Vivaldi?

2.- Has the unique ID been removed?

3.- Etc. Etc. Etc.

And they keep looking to see if there are "other browsers" that are more private.

Pesala

@barbudo2005 That is why this forum has a block feature.

barbudo2005

@Pesala Said:

That is why this forum has a block feature.

I am not worried about myself, but about the mental contamination that these characters introduce into the minds of new users, who enter into doubt.

RasheedHolland

@Catweazle said in How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?:

@RasheedHolland, well, Ulaa isn't bad, but not specially private, more than other normal Chromium fork, it's a proprietary Browser, made by Zoho with the same PP and TOS of any Zoho product. Nothing way different of any Chromium.

OK I see, didn't know that it was made by Zoho. Of course, you never know if these browsers are truly good for privacy, I mean they can simply make up lies.

RasheedHolland

@barbudo2005 said in How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?:

@Catweazle

I'm sick of hearing users who maintain after 8 years the paranoia of distrusting Vivaldi, with phrases like:

1.- But it can only do this, if it really raises the bar.…. is there a list of Chrome/Chromium features that are disabled in Vivaldi?

2.- Has the unique ID been removed?

3.- Etc. Etc. Etc.

And they keep looking to see if there are "other browsers" that are more private.

You need to calm down. I think you misunderstand certain people like myself. It's not that I don't trust Vivaldi, but I would like to see more privacy focused features in Vivaldi, so that it will attract more people. Vivaldi is currently focused on being the browser with the most useful features, this is cool, but it should also compete more with Brave, Firefox, Epic, Ulaa and Librewolf when it comes to privacy features, that's all I'm saying.

Catweazle

@RasheedHolland, well, privacy is quite relative. The question isn't that the browser hide all data, but it's a greate difference protecting private data or tecnical data. You can protect both, yes, but the price is, when you protect strong tecnical data, most pages will break or give strange results. Vivaldi protect personal data 100% but with tecnical data it's to find a balance of things which make sense and those which not.

Fingerprint is one of these things, it is not so important that webpages know your OS, your Screen resolution and in which country you are, because this are data which are the same for millons of others, but allows the page to show you the page in a correct format and in your lengage, which is the main reason for this data. Your public IP and your ISP is shown anyway if you don't use an VPN in every browser.

Any browser, also Firefox and Brave need extensions to complete the privacy and security, yes or yes. In Vivaldi yo can protect you with the inbuild blocker and maybe the Canvas Blocker extensions. The inbuild blocker can be improved more with some filterlists, even avoid Cookie advices and other pop up, but the same problen if you add too many filters, you wil be afe and private, but half of the pages you visit don't work anymore and your browsing will slow down a lot

PS Brave, nor Firefox are so private as you think, Brave protect you from ads, except from those of it's sponsores, like Facebook and worst, shady crypto.companies.

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/brave.com?stars=2

Mozilla even use tracking cookies, sending (account) data to Alphabet, googleanalytics and google-tagmanager, Vivaldi send nothing to third parties.

All browser say, that they are private, even Chrome and EDGE, because of this is important to read TOS and PP of every software and services, this shows how privat they are in fact. The text of these must especific all measures how they treat and protect your data and if these a shared with third parties or not, because they are legal contract documents which you accept or not, important is the company eyjic respect the user. The rest depends on the search engine you use and your common sense

RasheedHolland

@Catweazle said in How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?:

@RasheedHolland, well, privacy is quite relative.

PS Brave, nor Firefox are so private as you think, Brave protect you from ads, except from those of it's sponsores, like Facebook and worst, shady crypto.companies.

Yes, I know that Brave and Firefox are probably not as privacy friendly as they portray themselves.

But to me it's about getting Vivaldi to the next level when it comes to both privacy and security. We all know that Google is going to cripple adblockers this year, so Vivaldi should come up with a more powerful and handy adblocker, similar to Ghostery and uBlock Origin.

Vivaldi could also add protection against certain types of fingerprinting and protection against cookie tracking. Vivaldi could develop its own more secure password manager with 2FA code generator, instead of relying on the insecure one of Chromium. This is the type of stuff I would like to see.

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Fingerprinting-Protections
https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/14/23166537/firefox-privacy-total-cookie-protection-default
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-use-safaris-built-in-2fa-code-generator-and-why-you-should/

Catweazle

@RasheedHolland, the Vivaldi adblocker does its job (better than the one Brave has), the difference with eg.uBO is, that it lacks the possibility to block selectivly certain elements with the context menu, like uBO can do, but this is on the other side also not a feature used very often.
Worst the fingerprint protection, which is a flaw in Vivaldi, but easy to fix with the Canvas Blocker extension or similar.

As said before, every browser need extensions, in Firefox it is uBO and in Vivaldi the Canvaas Blocker, also Brave can't be used without to cover some flaws it has, due to the Chromium limitations.

But also that the main privacy problem isn't the browser itself (at least if you use other than Chrome, EDGE or Opera), but the search engine, the browser with the best privacy protection, even using a VPN, can't protect you when you search with Google or Bing, or you are sharing data in Fakebook.

All other you can easy fix in a simple way:
Visit Browserleaks or Device Info, run the tests and adjust your settings to patch the holes.
Adjust your Blocking filters using the Adblock Test page.

Vivaldi will surely improve these aspects, but this also depends on the path that Google is going to take and the challenges that the Vivaldi team faces to gut the Chromium base. In the meantime there is little point in worrying too much about minor privacy issues in Vivaldi.

RasheedHolland

@Catweazle said in How will Vivaldi deal with Google's Manifest V3?:

Vivaldi will surely improve these aspects, but this also depends on the path that Google is going to take and the challenges that the Vivaldi team faces to gut the Chromium base. In the meantime there is little point in worrying too much about minor privacy issues in Vivaldi.

That's the thing, I'm not that worried, because otherwise I would switch to Brave and Firefox. But it's just that I want Vivaldi to be the best in everything, in terms of features, speed and security.