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Vivaldi now includes Qwant, a privacy-focused search engine based in Europe

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Re: Vivaldi now includes Qwant, a privacy-focused search engine based in Europe

#11

Post by dogma1138 »

novaRom wrote: post #9
thecopy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is this information enough for them to uniquely identify and track each user? No. How could they identify who i am based on that information alone?

1) each installation profile is assigned a unique user ID that is stored on your computer 2) every 24 hours it sends IP, ID, version, cpu architecture, screen resolution and time since last message 3) then we store the resolved approximate location after using a local geoip lookup So, what they have for each ID: approximate location, CPU architecture, screen resolution. They can easily know places you visited. From Q…

Add to that that we don’t know how the ID is generated and it can be system derrived.

Re: Vivaldi now includes Qwant, a privacy-focused search engine based in Europe

#13

Post by cmroanirgo »

onyva wrote: post #7

Stick with Mozilla Firefox. Don’t understand why people still believe a for-profit Corp will prioritize users rights. ... not to mention Brendan Eich’s divisive and controversial behavior befor he was forced out of Mozilla.

Some fact checking (because I wanted to read about these accusations) reveals this is not the case.

> Stick with Mozilla Firefox

Brendan Eich is CEO of Brave browser. He is not listed as being part of vivaldi browser, which this phrase implies.

> forced out of Mozilla.

Brendan Eich was not fired nor forced out by Mozilla. Mozilla themselves report these statements: [0]

1. Q: Was Brendan Eich fired? A: No

2. Q: Was Brendan Eich asked to resign by the Board? A: No

3. Q: Was Brendan Eich forced out by employee pressure? A: No

4. Q: Did Board members resign over Brendan’s Prop 8 donation? A: No

[0] https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat...

(Edit: formatting & more info)

Re: Vivaldi now includes Qwant, a privacy-focused search engine based in Europe

#14

Post by thecopy »

novaRom wrote: post #9
thecopy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is this information enough for them to uniquely identify and track each user? No. How could they identify who i am based on that information alone?

1) each installation profile is assigned a unique user ID that is stored on your computer 2) every 24 hours it sends IP, ID, version, cpu architecture, screen resolution and time since last message 3) then we store the resolved approximate location after using a local geoip lookup So, what they have for each ID: approximate location, CPU architecture, screen resolution. They can easily know places you visited. From Q…

But how how they identify me?

Re: Vivaldi now includes Qwant, a privacy-focused search engine based in Europe

#15

Post by lumberjack »

simias wrote: post #8
Val_ wrote: post #2

A privacy-first search engine using Bing API, it's a joke.

As long as Bing doesn't get direct access to the metadata of the device making the query why does it matter? I assume they're not using the Bing API straight from the client browser, are they? They're basically proxy-ing Bing's results and add their own features on top of that. At least that's how I understand it.

Privacy is one but not the only problem with centralised web search. The other big problem is manipulation of search results. Of course it already happens for ads and filesharing and that is bad. But worst is when they do it for political reasons. Bing cannot tell who you are, but they can still promote their own agenda by tweaking the ranking of search results. Blog against MS? Send it to the 10th page or hide it entirely. Of course I use here a very innocuous example. You can imagine the power of tweaking search results. You can change the perception of reality, essentially.

Re: Vivaldi now includes Qwant, a privacy-focused search engine based in Europe

#16

Post by hawski »

onyva wrote: post #7

Stick with Mozilla Firefox. Don’t understand why people still believe a for-profit Corp will prioritize users rights. ... not to mention Brendan Eich’s divisive and controversial behavior befor he was forced out of Mozilla.

Firefox is developed by a for-profit corporation the Mozilla Corporation, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. It's of course not to say that the Mozilla Corporation is an evil profit seeker, but merely a perspective.

I for one think that modern web standards are used by most web site authors not in users interests. Therefore implementing those standards in good faith not necessarily mean implementing an _user_ agent. Firefox is great, but web as it is mostly served is increasingly not. I just would like to see an user agent dedicated to users, not standards. Even if it would mean omitting JS and most of CSS. I would use it for information seeking and Firefox for necessary web apps.

Re: Vivaldi now includes Qwant, a privacy-focused search engine based in Europe

#17

Post by amelius »

simias wrote: post #8
Val_ wrote: post #2

A privacy-first search engine using Bing API, it's a joke.

As long as Bing doesn't get direct access to the metadata of the device making the query why does it matter? I assume they're not using the Bing API straight from the client browser, are they? They're basically proxy-ing Bing's results and add their own features on top of that. At least that's how I understand it.

Well, you're still sending information to Bing. For example, let's say you want to know if someone patented idea X. You can search for X on Qwant, but since they send the information to Bing, now Microsoft knows about X and they can scoop you. Just one example.

Re: Vivaldi now includes Qwant, a privacy-focused search engine based in Europe

#18

Post by vntok »

thecopy wrote: post #14
novaRom wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) each installation profile is assigned a unique user ID that is stored on your computer 2) every 24 hours it sends IP, ID, version, cpu architecture, screen resolution and time since last message 3) then we store the resolved approximate location after using a local geoip lookup So, what they have for each ID: approximate location, CPU architecture, screen resolution. They can easily know places you visited. From Q…

But how how they identify me?

Statistically, if they geolocate you once per 24h, they will find you either at home or at work. Once both locations are known, determining which is which does not strike me as very hard.

Re: Vivaldi now includes Qwant, a privacy-focused search engine based in Europe

#19

Post by alvis »

novaRom wrote: post #9
thecopy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is this information enough for them to uniquely identify and track each user? No. How could they identify who i am based on that information alone?

1) each installation profile is assigned a unique user ID that is stored on your computer 2) every 24 hours it sends IP, ID, version, cpu architecture, screen resolution and time since last message 3) then we store the resolved approximate location after using a local geoip lookup So, what they have for each ID: approximate location, CPU architecture, screen resolution. They can easily know places you visited. From Q…

To be exact, it is 'the IP address of Vivaldi users by removing the last octet of the IP address'.

It's true that they can still approximate location based on that. But unless you're travelling a lot so that you've many locations in their record, it's impossible for them to identify you.

Re: Vivaldi now includes Qwant, a privacy-focused search engine based in Europe

#20

Post by [deleted] »

cmroanirgo wrote: post #13
onyva wrote: post #7

Stick with Mozilla Firefox. Don’t understand why people still believe a for-profit Corp will prioritize users rights. ... not to mention Brendan Eich’s divisive and controversial behavior befor he was forced out of Mozilla.

Some fact checking (because I wanted to read about these accusations) reveals this is not the case. > Stick with Mozilla Firefox Brendan Eich is CEO of Brave browser. He is not listed as being part of vivaldi browser, which this phrase implies. > forced out of Mozilla. Brendan Eich was not fired nor forced out by Mozilla. Mozilla themselves report these statements: [0] 1. Q: Was Brendan Eich fired? A: No 2. Q: Was Br…

[deleted]
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