Protonmail Recommended Browsers • Hacker News Board

Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#91

Post by shagie » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

alexmingoia wrote: post #87

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.

The "it stores tabs in the cloud" appears to be for syncing between devices. Using private browsing on safari should alleviate those concerns.

https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/browse-privately-ibrw...

> Your open webpages aren’t stored in iCloud, so they aren’t shown when you view all your open tabs from other devices.

> Your recent searches aren’t included in the results list when you use the Smart Search field.

Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#92

Post by gunapologist99 » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 1:53 PM UTC

shubhamkrm wrote: post #70

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.

I wonder how Brave compares to (Firefox + uBlock Origin + Privacy Badger).

Or you can run those two with Brave and not use Brave's built-in shields as much.

Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#93

Post by gunapologist99 » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 1:55 PM UTC

ikurei wrote: post #76

openplatypus wrote: post #18

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

Many comments here that I agree with, but I'd add that thinking purely in terms of commercial vs non-commercial is very reductive. Mozilla is a not-for-profit company, and that matters, but they do engage in advertising deals and things of the sort. Non-profits do have less incentives for unethical behavior, but they don't have zero incentives. I don't think we can only recommend non-commercial companies, although gi…

Yes, that situation is strange to me. Mozilla makes hundreds of millions (or more?) annually. In what tangible way is it different from a for-profit company?

Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#94

Post by twstdzppr » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 2:05 PM UTC

I'll stick with Chrome, thanks.

Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#95

Post by vorticalbox » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 2:11 PM UTC

gunapologist99 wrote: post #92

shubhamkrm wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how Brave compares to (Firefox + uBlock Origin + Privacy Badger).

Or you can run those two with Brave and not use Brave's built-in shields as much.

On desktop you can also add your own lists to braves filters and even create your own if you so wish.

Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#96

Post by jlund-molfese » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

msh wrote: post #49

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #7

Protonmail and Brave do indeed seem like a good fit. Two somewhat sketchy, very commercial outfits that market themselves as more private than the competition and that will gladly break existing standards and practices to so. They also seem to attract surprisingly similar groups of users, including a larger-than-chance overlap. Protonmail, in particular, seems to have become a sort of running joke as the e-mail provi…

Brave seems more that somewhat sketchy, like their rewriting of affiliate codes: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-we...

Yes, that was definitely a mistake, but it happened in 2020, and they apologized. I don't know how relevant that example is today, as it doesn't represent current behavior of the browser.

Disclaimer: I don't use Brave

Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#97

Post by ballenf » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 2:19 PM UTC

bongobingo1 wrote: post #21

openplatypus wrote: post #18

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

All I remember brave for is some crypto nonsense, and looking at wikipedia it seems they were doing some kind of suspect "content creator payments" that were opt-out and not forwarded? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)#Controvers... At the face of it, it sounds like they had a "Donate to platypus" button but you'd only get the donations if you knew to sign up with them on the back end? Gross.

It's opt-in for people to choose Brave over another browser.

It's opt-in for creators to accept payouts.

All the complaints mentioned in your link were resolved 2 years ago. Brave returns money to donators if the creator doesn't sign up within 90 days. And creators status with Brave is clearly prominent in the UI.

The list of sketchy stuff in Chrome over the years makes Brave look saintly. And Firefox and even Safari.

Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#98

Post by jlund-molfese » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 2:20 PM UTC

Yizahi wrote: post #46

fzfaa wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys will eventually have to get over that old "blink is chrome" trope. The world has moved on. It's time that you do.

As soon as will see even a single real fork of the Chrome, I will of course call it a separate browser. Just like I called Safari if you saw above. Safari and Chrome grow from the same source years ago, but Apple decided to make a real own browser, not just tune some settings and add or remove plugins.

Well, it's the other way around, actually. Safari's WebKit was based on Konqueror's KHTML, and Chrome's Blink was in turn based on WebKit. See here [0], it's pretty interesting

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebKit#Origins

Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#99

Post by jiggunjer » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 2:20 PM UTC

jussion_zoonist wrote: post #90

Barrin92 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They are targeted, but the targeting is imprecise and occurs client-side to improve anonymity.

Re: Protonmail Recommended Browsers

#100

Post by Yizahi » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 2:23 PM UTC

fzfaa wrote: post #53

Yizahi wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main part of the browser is its main developer. In this case it is Google. If Google decides to add QUIC support to the browser it will appear in all of the clones too, because they are not standalone. If Google decides to move to the Manifest V3 then all closes will move to it too. Whatever Google decides to implement deep in the Chrome browser, other will have no choice but to accept.

That's false. For example, Brave will continue supporting Manifest V2. https://nitter.net/BrendanEich/status/1134141335881912320 https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/20059#issuecom...

Yes, if they will keep this promise it will be great. It is a big effort for almost no profit, so I guess then Brave could be counted as a separate browser. It would probably depend on the extension authors too, since they would need to support two different versions, one of which for the Brave only, and another for all Chrome variations including Chrome itself.