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Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

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Re: Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

#91

Post by jerf »

fearingreprisal wrote: post #81
giancarlostoro wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or fill it with some AAA Steam games shouldnt take long to fill the whole thing.

Why would any of these suggestions be better than the following? dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

Simply filling the disk by any means runs the risk of your incriminating (or whatever) information being retained in a sector that got remapped out from under you that you can no longer write to.

Wiping the encryption key takes care of that problem, as well as being much faster.

Re: Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

#93

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

bartread wrote: post #23
Fiveplus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm already using Windows and despite me ticking all privacy checks - I am, as such, trusting MS with my data. Might as well switch over to Edge when I need a chromium-based browser. Threads like these move me in inch closer to that decision. (currently default: Firefox and secondary: Brave) ps: Edge's reader mode and narrator are top-notch.

I can definitely see the reasoning. I suppose I'm still debating whether it's good to have all my personal information with only one company or spread around a bit more. If I was going to plump for one company, Microsoft might not be the worst choice simply because their business model doesn't revolve around monetizing my personal information.

> Microsoft might not be the worst choice simply because their business model doesn't revolve around monetizing my personal information.

Yet they seem intent on collecting as much data as possible.

Re: Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

#94

Post by mapgrep »

bartread wrote: post #43
stevehawk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

appropriated name?

Yes: the concept of browsing the web with your privacy preserved has literally zero to do with the concept of bravery. The name is clearly a statement but not one that's ever made any sense to me.

Doesn’t have anything to do with firefoxes or electroplated chromium either. Shrug.

Re: Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

#95

Post by yaiNua9o »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #83
yaiNua9o wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you can temporarily load extensions in firefox, but I certainly won't reload all my extensions manually at every startup :) I don't think there's really a good browser for both privacy and hacking. I use chromium when I have no choice (not sure what you're referring to concerning the disable modal ; if it's an issue with chromium too, I haven't hit it, and I have 11 extensions loaded from sources). But my "main…

Disable modal may only impact unpacked extensions then. My apologies for the confusion. Forking a text browser is impressive. Though to be honest the older I get the less energy and time I have to be picky. (And building Firefox was so painful I vowed to only make changes via extensions.)

It's not that a big deal to modify elinks, because it's a codebase way simpler than full blown browsers. But yes, it still a handful of hours of work, like modifying any software, so you have to actually find it fun to tinker with free software :)

Actually, my first attempt to fix my problem was to try to find in firefox codebase where it deletes the extensions loaded from sources, either at the end or the start of the session, I supposed, to shunt that "feature". But after a week a free time spent on it, I made no progress. The codebase and the architecture are just too gargantuan to be tinkered with - at least for me.

Re: Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

#96

Post by yaiNua9o »

nix23 wrote: post #71
yaiNua9o wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you can temporarily load extensions in firefox, but I certainly won't reload all my extensions manually at every startup :) I don't think there's really a good browser for both privacy and hacking. I use chromium when I have no choice (not sure what you're referring to concerning the disable modal ; if it's an issue with chromium too, I haven't hit it, and I have 11 extensions loaded from sources). But my "main…

Try mothra, the browser for the real 'hackers' ;) http://man.9front.org/1/mothra

Thanks, never heard about it, I'll have a look.

Re: Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

#97

Post by methodsignature »

bartread wrote: post #23
Fiveplus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm already using Windows and despite me ticking all privacy checks - I am, as such, trusting MS with my data. Might as well switch over to Edge when I need a chromium-based browser. Threads like these move me in inch closer to that decision. (currently default: Firefox and secondary: Brave) ps: Edge's reader mode and narrator are top-notch.

I can definitely see the reasoning. I suppose I'm still debating whether it's good to have all my personal information with only one company or spread around a bit more. If I was going to plump for one company, Microsoft might not be the worst choice simply because their business model doesn't revolve around monetizing my personal information.

my understanding is that most of the web reports back to Google anyways:(

Re: Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

#98

Post by esperent »

morganvachon wrote: post #85
bartread wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've disliked Brave from the beginning. Initially because of the pretentious - and frankly appropriated - name, but now for the much more substantive reasons you've cited. Seriously, if you want a browser that gives you control over your data and privacy, use Firefox. It doesn't do any of this shady nonsense.

> I've disliked Brave from the beginning. As have I. The entire money making scheme behind it, while innovative, is a privacy nightmare. > Seriously, if you want a browser that gives you control over your data and privacy, use Firefox. It doesn't do any of this shady nonsense. Agreed, with the caveat that Firefox does have its own, completely different privacy issues[1][2]. Still, it's probably the best choice for a…

Your first link is about Firefox studies.

I had never heard of these before, but when I go to about:studies, I see that I have never participated in any studies, and when I click the link from that page to "Firefox data collection and use" setting, I see that I am opted out from everything. Pretty sure I didn't do that manually.

Your second link is to a page called "Firefox health report". I have no idea what conclusions I'm supposed to draw from that.

Can you provide more info about the privacy violations you're referring to?

Re: Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

#99

Post by giancarlostoro »

jerf wrote: post #91
fearingreprisal wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would any of these suggestions be better than the following? dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

Simply filling the disk by any means runs the risk of your incriminating (or whatever) information being retained in a sector that got remapped out from under you that you can no longer write to. Wiping the encryption key takes care of that problem, as well as being much faster.

Thank you, this is what I was trying to avoid doing by simply filling an SSD with random data. As you mention, I suppose FDE is better, but now you have to ask yourself whether OS level or hardware level is best. In this case if you override an encrypted partition with a fresh OS installation it wont matter as much since most of what will be left will be gibberish.

Sometimes I do just that, I'll install Linux encrypted, and then reinstall later without migrating any bytes. My main concern is work related / personal finance documents being left over on a laptop. I've tested plenty of forensic utilities on my system after erasing files.

Re: Brave Browser, wiping history still leaves trace of visited sites

#100

Post by 867-5309 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #38
867-5309 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that seems a little naive. what about actual evidence of performing said wipe? a little progress bar showing the 35× overwrite technique maybe, verified by a failed recovery. do any browsers have these small, open source capabilities baked in? seems like nowadays the only way to ensure and audit personal privacy is by having network inspection and disk utilities constantly monitoring these "pro-privacy" apps

Store browsing data in memory. That said, data being available to forensic level HD recovery is very different from data still being used to populate the most visited sites.

storing in memory would only provide browsing data for the current session, permanent storage of history is not possible without writing to disk
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