I have been thinking about switching to brave for better fingerprinting protection

    • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Almost all of my Linux devices have both chromium-browser and Firefox installed. Firefox is my default, but there are some apps out there that work a lot better in something chromium-based.

          • animist@lemmy.one
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            1 year ago

            Thank you for sharing this, I was unaware. I wonder if any of this has been addressed recently as the linked article is two years old (not demeaning its value, just wondering if the devs saw the article and decided to improve ungoogled-chromium).

            • dngray@lemmy.oneM
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              1 year ago

              They still disable CRLSets and have binaries built by “contributors” not in an automated fashion by the developer themselves.

            • stonemilker@discuss.tchncs.de
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              1 year ago

              Yeah, that’s why I pointed out that I haven’t used it in a couple years, I have no idea about the direction development took after that, so maybe some folks that work on the development of Chromium and its many forks can give us some insight. Personally, I just decided to stick to Firefox tweaked with Arkenfox as my main browser on desktop and I have Brave with all its annoyances turned off as a backup option

          • rmicielski@slrpnk.net
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            1 year ago

            No one is going to develop exploits only for a browser with certain default security options disabled (especially these made at compile time using toolchain). Binary exploitation is hard, and extremely not worth the effort in this case.

            • dngray@lemmy.oneM
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              1 year ago

              Disabling CRLSets though is worrisome, and its binaries are built by potentially unknown third parties with compromised systems.

    • BrikoX@vlemmy.net
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      1 year ago

      Brave might have started as a basic Chromium fork, but the various privacy/security features they added do make them standout now.

      • SatyrSack@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        It is really disingenuous to say “X is just a skin of Y” just because they share the same browser engine or are forked from the same browser. Like you say, there are a lot of changes.

          • underscores@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 year ago

            It depends. Many addons have effects that can be tested for and fingerprinted, but it’s not always straight forward. There’s a way to detect any specific chrome extension, but doesn’t work on firefox because it uses unique extension ids per person.

            With addons like CanvasBlocker, they generate random values for a bunch of apis like canvas. So each time you will look unique, but it changes every time so you’re not easily tracked. I’d assume it’s similar to what Brave does, but I haven’t looked into the details. Some stuff isn’t randomized by default, so they can get info like timezone and languages, but probably not enough to give you a unique identity.

  • fenndev@fedia.io
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    1 year ago

    Why not use Librewolf? Fork of Firefox, hardened and resists fingerprinting. Scores pretty damn well on https://privacytests.org and pairs well with Mull on Android.

    AFAIK there are no actively developed Brave forks.

    • WeLoveCastingSpelz@lemmy.fmhy.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      I use librewolf on my work laptop it removes all cookies every time you close it, this wouldn’t be a problem on mobile as I already set my phone browser(fennec) to do that but on my personal computer it crosses the border from I can deal with it to too inconvenient

    • Mihuy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      And there won’t be because brave doesn’t like it when someone forks the browser.

  • boonhet@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Firefox. Or if you don’t want to spend time configuring it, Librewolf.

    • Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      And the setting really does work. The crap is completely gone afterwards. There is no grayed out symbols, or nag screens or anything.

    • DuckGuy@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      Or more accurately: can be turned on. Everything crypto is disabled by default.

      • BrikoX@vlemmy.net
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        1 year ago

        Functionality wise yes, but it’s visible in the UI and frontpage and that can be disabled/removed .

  • Makeshift@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    I agree the crypto stuff is super annoying, but it’s a really nice and clean browser after you disable all that and tweak the settings (which you’d probably want to go through and configure with a new browser anyway)

    • 𝕷𝖎𝖉@lemmy.comfysnug.space
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      1 year ago

      even as a crypto user & dev, brave’s crypto shit is annoying af, it’s inferior by far to what everyone else uses & they push it on ur face & make u have to remove it.

      i’d rather just use firefox or even microsoft edge, even for crypto stuff

  • Freddy@lemmy.oneM
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    1 year ago

    We recommend just switching to Brave and disabling the ‘crytpo crap’ yourself rather than using a fork that is liable to go unmaintained and miss updates.

    • deafboy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      So much this. I’ve seen countless of spite forks. Very few of them merged the updates.

      Even large projects like Electron can’t keep up with chromium, and then there is downstream crap like Discord that can’t even keep up witch Electron.

  • nomadic@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    If you want Brave without the crypto crap then spend a minute or two and turn it all off in settings. You’ll never see it again.

    • Earl Turlet@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      Except on Android, unfortunately. The overflow menu is full of all of those features right at the bottom – prime thumb real estate.

    • webghost0101@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Why not both? Firefox for sites you login. Brave configured with auto delete cookies for a fast fresh empty internet every time.

        • webghost0101@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Literally all browsers can do that but do you really want to logins everywhere every single time?

          Thats what using 2 browsers can solve. I can use brave fully anonymously. While still being logged in on lemmy and others on firefox,

          I am also using an auto accept all cookies script to remove all the cookie banners for every site. As they are deleted every instance anyway. I would never use that on the same browser i enter personal information.

      • imrichyouknow@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        They are less invasive on the privacy front, but they also push their products much harder down user’s throat due to less revenue from less accurate ads, just look at DDG’s frontpage.

        I also found them self-censoring towards IPs from China, albeit this could be the direct result of using Bing’s search results.

        It’s much easier to compare it with something like SearXNG which has the same core principle, without ads, without censorships, without invasive marketing.

  • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Bromite used to be great, but unfortunately the dev seems to have abandoned it.

    I’ve seen people talking about Mull, Mulch, Fulguris and a couple others. I think Mulch is tied to a specific Android ROM, and the others are Firefox forks.

    • dngray@lemmy.oneM
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      1 year ago

      Mulch is tied to a specific Android ROM

      Yes, that’s because it requires webview to be patched, it’s the same reason that Vanadium is only available for GrapheneOS. They do use some of Vanadium’s patches though.

      • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I wouldn’t want Brave on anything myself. The company has proven it isn’t trustworthy many times over.

        • pootriarch@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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          1 year ago

          i agree, but my unpopular opinion is that mozilla has also proven this repeatedly, with nothing and nobody being universally better. privacy people love firefox, but i spend a lot of time with each major version’s release notes figuring out how to undo the new telemetry (increasing integration with pocket, firefox suggest, location that won’t turn off).

          my threat model is ‘they’re all evil, including mozilla’, so there are additional rings around everything

      • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I literally saw a link in a thread on the OG’s github earlier today, sounds like this will be my new switch.

        Although I’m still going to give Mulch a try, with a ROM that has it integrated into webview.

        • Keli@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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          1 year ago

          DivestOS is the only Android ROM I know of that integrates the Mulch webview. But Tad (DivestOS dev) also builds standalone binaries of Mulch that can be installed independently- just add their repo into f-droid or something like droidify and you’re good to go. Link: https://divestos.org/fdroid/official

          • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Great, I’ll give that a try first. Still probably going to try DivestOS as well anyway, just for a fresh change.

      • fenndev@fedia.io
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        1 year ago

        As a heads up, I believe Fennec is the old codebase for Firefox and it’s no longer being actively maintained AFAIK.

        Unless, of course, you’re using the Fennec Browser built by F-Droid, which is confusingly based on the new Fenix codebase.

  • Mario Bariša@vlemmy.net
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    1 year ago

    At that point just use Firefox / Librewolf, os just turn off all of the brave rewards crap ( crypto )…

  • zlatiah@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    If fingerprint protection is what I want, LibreWolf comes with a very sensible default as compared to stock Firefox. If I am familiar enough with about.config and stuff then hardened Firefox can reach bonkers levels of privacy as well

    If a Chromium-based browser is required that has Brave’s level of privacy protection but none of the crypto nonsense… Yeah I’m not aware of any as of right now. Maybe once the Duckduckgo Browser becomes available?