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Protonmail Recommended Browsers

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Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#81

Post by alexmingoia »

robot9000 wrote: post #27
deepstack wrote: post #8

Why is safari/webkit not in there. It my understanding that it's the most privacy respecting browser in the area of finger printing.

Apple collects your browsing history, something which I have yet to find a good explanation for. https://apps.apple.com/zm/app/safari/id1146562112

Safari history and tabs are end-to-end encrypted: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

And Apple provides iCloud+ members with a VPN which does not tie browsing history to users by separating ingress and egress traffic and using encrypted forwarding (similar to onion routing): https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/iCloud_Private_Relay_Over...

Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#82

Post by alexmingoia »

cyberpunk wrote: post #47
asimpletune wrote: post #22

I don't understand why Safari isn't on the "recommended" list. Doesn't it respect your privacy?

No, apple takes a copy of your browsing history, apparently “anonymously” and you can’t opt out. Don’t use it.

Their iCloud security page says “Safari History, Tab Groups, and iCloud Tabs” is end-to-end encrypted. So they store history to sync across devices but the keys are only on your devices.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#83

Post by 1shooner »

rvnx wrote: post #37
plaguepilled wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The short answer is that yes, Brave as a company does have some competing incentives which rightly should be constantly criticised, HOWEVER, Brave the browser performs well in multiple independent reviews of browser privacy. A nice one is https://privacytests.org/ , though there are also some academic studies which I will link if I find.

"Independent tests" PrivacyTests.org is run by a Brave employee (Arthur Edelstein) He is extremely smart person though, just that money can taint any good intentions easily. Especially in a very "shark" ecosystem.

His disclosure statement, FWIW:

>Full disclosure and transparency

>(Updated June 2022)

>This website and the browser privacy tests are an independent project by me, Arthur Edelstein. I have developed this project on my own time and on my own initiative. Several months after first publishing the website, I became an employee of Brave, where I contribute to Brave's browser privacy engineering efforts. I continue to run this website independently of my employer, however. There is no connection with Brave marketing efforts whatsoever.

>I am committed to maintaining this website's accuracy and impartiality. It is my goal not to promote any browser here, but rather to offer objective test results for all browsers that encourages a general improvement in privacy across the industry.

>By keeping this project fully open source, I endeavor to provide the maximum possible transparency and verifiability of the tests and results. Anyone who wishes to check the results can clone the git repository and run the browser tests independently. Ideas for additional tests, or code (pull requests) for additional tests that provide further insight into browser privacy, will be gratefully accepted.

Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#85

Post by wanderingmind »

brobinson wrote: post #13
deepstack wrote: post #8

Why is safari/webkit not in there. It my understanding that it's the most privacy respecting browser in the area of finger printing.

Librewolf wins those competitions by a mile.

So does ArkenFox that works within Firefox and hardens it without a new clone of the browser

Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#86

Post by lazyier »

feanaro wrote: post #72
mherrmann wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I do consulting work for Brave. Opinions my own. Maintaining a browser is a huge amount of work. The web evolves constantly and security fixes are extremely important. Being competitive in the space requires a very large amount of engineering resources. A commercial entity has a sustainable path to providing those resources. While nobody likes ads, I think they're opt-in in Brave and at the end of the day…

> Most of Brave is developed in the open. Where it isn't, there are good reasons why such as for example security. I don't think you can muster a good security reason for not developing something in the open.

It's normal in any open source project to keep security mailing lists and things of that nature private. And for good reasons.

One of the reasons is they are dealing with security related bug reports. Public disclosure before having a fix in place puts users at risk.

Besides that 'security' is a process that all groups are responsible for. So it can't help being _developed_ in the open if the project is open. Which Brave is.

Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#87

Post by alexmingoia »

nextstep wrote: post #78

What’s wrong with Safari privacy-wise?

Nothing, as far as I can tell. End-to-end encrypted history and tabs, and recent versions with iCloud+ use encrypted DNS and VPN (iCloud private relay) that uses encrypted forwarding so ingress servers can’t tie your requests to a destination.

Outside of using Tor and your own VPN, it looks like Safari w/ iCloud+ protects browsing history from everyone (Apple and ISPs) while delivering a seamless experience.

Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#88

Post by poetril »

wanderingmind wrote: post #84

As an aside, I'm looking to move to proton. Any feedback on how good and prompt is their customer care?

I've moved all my email to Proton over the course of the last year or so. Each interaction I've had with customer support as been great, resolving my issues usually same day as I've opened the ticket. Only two downsides in my mind is the lack of an iOS calendar app (its in closed beta atm) and twice since I've signed up they have suffered multi-hour outages that left me without access to email.

Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#89

Post by giancarlostoro »

feanaro wrote: post #72
mherrmann wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I do consulting work for Brave. Opinions my own. Maintaining a browser is a huge amount of work. The web evolves constantly and security fixes are extremely important. Being competitive in the space requires a very large amount of engineering resources. A commercial entity has a sustainable path to providing those resources. While nobody likes ads, I think they're opt-in in Brave and at the end of the day…

> Most of Brave is developed in the open. Where it isn't, there are good reasons why such as for example security. I don't think you can muster a good security reason for not developing something in the open.

Code wise, sure, but if you're discussing a 0-day in the wild, you may want to keep it private while you work out the details and the solution, otherwise you're inviting more abuse.

Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#90

Post by jussion_zoonist »

Barrin92 wrote: post #40
openplatypus wrote: post #18

Why do privacy folks recommend Brave? Isn't Brave a commercial, ad serving entity?

yes. Brave is functionally sort of like a mafia protection racket. They just insert themselves between you and whatever you're browsing, block everyone else's ads, and insert their own. except their ads are supposedly the good ones, and they cut you in on it by giving you some of their made up token currency

Brave Ads are better than the ads they block in my opinion. They are opt in. They aren't targeted/tracking. They appear as notification bubbles so they don't disrupt page content. They don't run javascript which can be a security and performance problem.
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