A new study Web Browser Privacy: What Do Browsers Say When They Phone Home?, looked at the six popular desktop web browsers Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based), Apple Safari, Brave, and Yandex, to uncover what these browsers send back to the mothership.
If you just want the result, the study found that used out of the box, Brave "is by far the most private of the browsers studied" followed by Chrome, Firefox and Safari. Brave is the only web browser that did not use identifiers that allowed tracking of the IP address over time and did not share details of web pages visited to backend servers.
Where is my Moon?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 27 2020, @02:12PM (3 children)
But I don't really care all that much.
I use a couple different browsers, Firefox (ESR not updated for quite some time) with various ad blockers and javascript disabled, and a Chromium-based browser (most certainly not Chrome) with several ad/tracking blockers when javascript is "required." In the latter case, i always use a "private" browsing window, regardless of the site visited.
What's more, I use Pi-hole (which is why I'm more pissed off than usual at Mozilla, but the FF version I'm running doesn't have DoH capability, which will be disabled if I ever update to one that does) to block many malicious/capricious/spying scumbag domains.
I also do not connect my
portable tracking devicephone to my local WiFi either. Having an unlimited data plan and not using my phone for anything useful or interesting is worthwhile.I have multiple ISPs and use DNS from both through the Pi-hole.
I don't really care if my ISP tracks my DNS queries, and I can't stop them from monitoring my connections either. If I wish to perform any network activity that I don't want my ISPs to know about, I use TOR.
In my estimation, unless I'm doing stuff that could get me thrown in jail or disappeared, it makes little sense to care about my ISPs' (potential) monitoring. Since I don't do that sort of thing, it's not really a big deal to me. Should they sell my network access information, it would only really be useful to marketers, and the ad/tracking blockers and Pi-Hole address that pretty well.
Should I decide to go over to the dark side, purchasing a pre-paid phone with *cash* and separately purchasing a SIM card with *cash*, then using TOR to perform (including e2e encrypted messaging) my nefarious activities from places not related to me in any way would help. But since I haven't, it's not really relevant.
I'd add that if I were to go completely dark (VPN to VPS with all traffic encrypted) to my ISP, I might well draw *more* attention than doing what I already do.
And since, unlike others around here, I don't believe that I'm being hunted by small children committed to the Zionist cause, that's plenty for me.
Or am I missing something?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 27 2020, @05:12PM (2 children)
Only your
privatesprivacy.To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 27 2020, @06:08PM (1 child)
The snark is strong with this one.
How would you suggest I get my privacy back, friend?
Or are you just playing this for laughs?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 28 2020, @05:20PM
Careful. That snark really is a Boojum, you see.