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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

#51

Post by adrianN »

unpopular42 wrote: post #48
gaellelo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, here's Gaëlle Medeiros-Logeay, Data Protection Officer at Vivaldi. The data we collect is not personally identifiable, and we try to keep it as minimal as possible. :) We're not in the business of collecting data, and we do not sell them to advertisers like others do. The collected data helps us to understand where most of our users come from. Our stats show us which country our users are located in and nothing…

> The data we collect is not personally identifiable, and we try to keep it as minimal as possible. :) Hey Gaëlle! Huh? Unique ID + /24 + screen resolution is the opposite of "not personally identifiable". You may not use it that way yet , but that's only because no one applied enough incentive or force yet .

There aren't all that many Vivaldi users out there so the /24 is probably already enough to uniquely identify the user in many cases.

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

#52

Post by adrianN »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #35
drchaos wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not open source per OSI criteria, however they claim the source is available and can be inspected: https://help.vivaldi.com/article/is-vivaldi-open-source/

Interesting. > This means that for all practical purposes the Vivaldi source code is available for audit. Acid test: can I build it myself and expect to see identical binaries to what they ship?

Can you do that with Firefox? Reproducible builds are pretty hard.

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

#53

Post by ealhad »

rjvbk wrote: post #37
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.

You're talking about the same Firefox that displays ads on my home page by default, sends analytics to them by default, and is owned by a foundation that is owned by a for-profit company?

You've got it backwards, the Mozilla Corporation is owned by the Mozilla Foundation (non-profit).

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

#54

Post by unpopular42 »

IlGrigiore wrote: post #41
ailideex wrote: post #39

So on their landing page - they say "We are cookie-free" - but they put these values in localstorage: h_user: 9019..... user: {"isLogged":false,"error":false,"userSetting":{"searchRegionKey":"GB","searchMode":0,"safeSearch":1,"enableSuggest":true,"targetBlank":true,"showTrends":1,"showSmartNews":true,"showSmartVideos":true,"showSmartSocial":true,"selectTheme":0,"showFavicon":true,"continentKey":"WESTERNEUROPE","searc…

But those are just cookies related to the functionality and the personalization of the search page. I guess they could have written that they do not have any tracking cookies, but I guess the intent was to be clear to the average user: "we are cookie free", therefore we do not track you.

Except that the "h_user: 9019....." part looks like a unique user ID that you don't need for any personalization or functionality. Unique IDs are only useful for tracking.

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

#55

Post by ealhad »

Liquid_Fire wrote: post #40
rhabarba wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you noticed that Mozilla Firefox has started to become a tracking device? https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/16/16784628/mozilla-mr-robo... German-specific: https://blog.mozilla.org/press-de/2017/10/06/ein-neues-cliqz... Oh, yes, they were deeply sorry about it. I'm sure that Google would be as well.

What does the Mr Robot extension have to do with tracking?

As stated in the article:

> Mozilla developers can distribute addons to users without their knowledge

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

#56

Post by gruez »

nmbr213 wrote: post #34
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.

> Mozilla Firefox The browser that's has Google Analytics integrated, comes with pre-installed third-party tracking app, and that reports home every UI interaction you have? No, thanks, I'll stick with Iridium. [1] https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/firefox.html

>No, thanks, I'll stick with Iridium

...which was last updated may 2018.

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

#57

Post by ealhad »

m3nu wrote: post #45
drngdds wrote: post #42

Searx seems like the best option in this space, since you can host your own instance and avoid having to trust anyone (except the developers, assuming you didn't audit the code yourself).

Sadly Searx is just a scraper for Google and some others. So it doesn't give you any real freedom. Popular instances also get blocked now and then.

https://screenshotscdn.firefoxusercontent.com/images/8fde028...

A few others indeed.

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

#58

Post by MaxBarraclough »

adrianN wrote: post #52
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. > This means that for all practical purposes the Vivaldi source code is available for audit. Acid test: can I build it myself and expect to see identical binaries to what they ship?

Can you do that with Firefox? Reproducible builds are pretty hard.

Fair point. Of course, to a FOSS purist, it's still not good enough, as mere source-inspectibility isn't enough to qualify as OSI Open Source, or as FSF Free Software.

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

#59

Post by Yizahi »

novaRom wrote: post #3

From their privacy policy: "When you install Vivaldi browser, each installation profile is assigned a unique user ID that is stored on your computer. Vivaldi will send a message using HTTPS directly to our servers located in Iceland every 24 hours containing this ID, version, cpu architecture, screen resolution and time since last message. We anonymize the IP address of Vivaldi users by removing the last octet of the…

Yes, it is enough: https://panopticlick.eff.org/

PS: my result

Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 1,852,797 tested in the past 45 days.

Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys at least 20.82 bits of identifying information.

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