In search of a privacy oriented browser

UnclePa · 2018-07-24 21:33:35

I've used waterfox, palemoon, and tor-browser in the past with various degrees of satisfaction. I'd like to try one of the chromium based browsers but as a newbie to Devuan am not sure what is safe. Is adding a source list like the following https://iridiumbrowser.de/downloads/debian safe to do?

Alternatively, I'd be interested in others' experience with privacy oriented browsers. The VPN feature of opera sounded interesting but I couldn't get opera to work at all.

cynwulf · 2018-07-25 07:22:18

You cannot really be sure anything is "safe" including the software in any given Linux distribution's repositories.

There is always an element of trust - as you, being the end user in most cases, cannot audit the code.

I use Iridium and find it to be 'ok'. I use it with both the uMatrix and HTTPS everywhere addons installed, but I'm under no illusions that it's 100% private and/or secure.

UnclePa · 2018-07-25 18:45:46

Thanks for the reply and I understand what you're saying. I'm not looking for anything absolute and I realize that almost any modern browser can actually be made fairly private and secure by the right add-ons and settings. But it makes sense to me to start with something tight and loosen only what I must have rather than trying to find all the things that need tightening.

Alas, I wasn't able to get Iridium to work anyway. It's wanting a newer library (forgotten which one) than what's in the repositories.

Edit: And by "safe," I was mainly referring to avoiding pulling in the stuff that Devuan leaves out.

Last edited by UnclePa (2018-07-28 03:06:50)

cynwulf · 2018-07-26 08:17:25

Unfortunately, with the exception of tor browser, most browsers are not configured for privacy by default. The onus is really on you to do that. Firefox for example is relatively easy to configure to be more secure. You can even just install tor browser look at what they have done to secure the browser and mimic that in Firefox.

Iridium is pretty much configured as is, to disable chromium's google tracking, but there are still some other privacy settings for you to configure, plus script and/or ad blocking if you want that.

It would be interesting to know what "missing library" was involved? Usually in Debian based systems it's enough to install the package then

# apt-get -f install

to try to resolve dependencies.

keos · 2018-07-26 12:52:18

UnclePa, i'm not an expert ... but the only thing i know is that a browser can be or can not be "safe" as long as it allow you some level of configuration.

-- i used firefox and palemoon and i allways follow instructions like this:

https://gist.github.com/0XDE57/fbd302cef7693e62c769

[spanish]: https://heptagrama.com/mejor-configuracion-firefox.htm

UnclePa · 2018-07-28 03:02:05

cynwulf wrote:

It would be interesting to know what "missing library" was involved? Usually in Debian based systems it's enough to install the package then
# apt-get -f install
to try to resolve dependencies.

It is libfontconfig, requires >= v.2.11.94. Our current version is 2.11.0-6.7+b1.

Keos, thanks, but as mentioned in the OP, I'd like to try one of the chromium based browsers. Firefox seemed to start really bogging down a few years ago and seems to be getting worse all the time.

Last edited by UnclePa (2018-07-28 03:19:32)

MiyoLinux · 2018-07-28 13:56:20

UnclePa wrote:

The VPN feature of opera sounded interesting but I couldn't get opera to work at all.

Hi UnclePa. I'm writing this from Opera (with the VPN enabled). Can I ask why Opera wouldn't work for you?

I like to use Opera periodically and have it installed on all of my computers (well...except for my 32 bit computer ). I always install it with the GDebi Package Installer, and it has always installed without a problem for me. It also adds its repo to sources.list.d so that it gets updated with the system.

I've read that the VPN on Opera isn't really that good, but it's fine with me. It does change your ip address. It only gives you a few options of "where" you are...

1. Optimal Location
2. Americas
3. Asia
4. Europe

Here's a screenshot of my typing this message using Opera.

keos · 2018-07-28 19:10:03

Hi,

UnclePa, when the firefox browser is highly configured it is normal to face this problem: some delays ... it is not a big inconvenience if you are looking for “safety" first.

MiyoLinux, Opera? i have been trying opera now ... And of course, it is faster than firefox, but the level of the configuration it provides it is to elemental compare to the one you can get in firefox with [about:config ...]. VPN? i don't trust any of these ... i think that the wide option for the configurations that firefox provide it is more "safe" that anything else. Of course i'm not an expert ... and i will like to hear your opinions.

Last edited by keos (2018-07-28 19:10:49)

UnclePa · 2018-07-28 20:32:35

Miyo, it was kind of weird. Various window frames kept popping up and closing all over the screen. I had to change to another desktop and kill it. When I was younger, I enjoyed trying to figure out how to fix things like that but now I just want them to work. So when I run into a problem like that, I usually just uninstall and try something else. Stability is one of the main reasons I switched from Arch/Void/Artix on my 3 computers. All 3 are running Devuan now. I'm not familiar with GDebi but may look into it if I want to try again. Thanks.

One of the reasons the VPN interested me is that I travel a fair amount and have run into problems with some sites being geographically restricted. I can't really justify a monthly subscription for something I would only use every now and then.

MiyoLinux · 2018-07-28 23:25:27

keos wrote:

Hi,
MiyoLinux, Opera? i have been trying opera now ... And of course, it is faster than firefox, but the level of the configuration it provides it is to elemental compare to the one you can get in firefox with [about:config ...]. VPN? i don't trust any of these ... i think that the wide option for the configurations that firefox provide it is more "safe" that anything else. Of course i'm not an expert ... and i will like to hear your opinions.

I'm no expert either! I probably should have prefaced what I wrote with...

My opinion is...I agree with you. I prefer to use Firefox and its configurations. That's why I said that I use Opera "periodically". It's not my main browser, and I only use it every now and then. Sometimes I just like to change things up, so I'll live on the edge and use a different browser. LOLOLOL!!!

I don't "surf" the internet very much. I only visit a few sites regularly. I never go all whack-a-doodle and go from site to site. I still believe that the best safety measure that anyone can use is to be careful of what sites one visits.

UnclePa wrote:

Miyo, it was kind of weird. Various window frames kept popping up and closing all over the screen. I had to change to another desktop and kill it. When I was younger, I enjoyed trying to figure out how to fix things like that but now I just want them to work. So when I run into a problem like that, I usually just uninstall and try something else. Stability is one of the main reasons I switched from Arch/Void/Artix on my 3 computers. All 3 are running Devuan now. I'm not familiar with GDebi but may look into it if I want to try again. Thanks.

Strange, but I understand...I think. LOLOLOL!!! I learned long ago that not everyone's experience can be duplicated. There's also the Brave browser (based on Chromium), but the last time I tried it, it was a memory hog.

You mentioned Void, and I have to admit that I'm a Void fan. I run it on one partition just to keep my toes wet.

golinux · 2018-07-28 23:28:56

MiyoLinux wrote:

There's also the Brave browser (based on Chromium), but the last time I tried it, it was a memory hog.

Isn't Brave browser the one that wants to force "acceptable" ads on users? No thank you!!

MiyoLinux · 2018-07-28 23:41:28

golinux wrote:

MiyoLinux wrote:
There's also the Brave browser (based on Chromium), but the last time I tried it, it was a memory hog.
Isn't Brave browser the one that wants to force "acceptable" ads on users? No thank you!!

I can't answer that ma'am...I went to the trouble to install it, and when I saw how many resources it used, that was all she wrote for me. Ticked me off (after going through that trouble to install it) that it used so many resources. LOLOLOL!!!

I just mentioned it, because UnclePa was looking for secure browsers based on Chromium. Brave claims to be more secure, but whether it is or not, I can't answer...since I only used it for about 5 minutes. I look at things differently since I have such old hardware...I look first at resource usage, then I look for some semblance of security, because I don't go online much...then I go from there.

I'm a boring user with boring traits...instead of naming it MiyoLinux, I should've named it BoringLinux. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!

golinux · 2018-07-29 00:15:51

Brave browser from Wikipedia:

History
Brave is developed by Brave Software, which was founded on May 28, 2015 by Brendan Eich and Brian Bondy. On January 20, 2016, Brave Software launched the first version of Brave with a partial ad blocking feature, and announced plans for an ad replacement feature and a revenue sharing program.[13]
In June 2018, Brave released a pay-to-surf testing version of the browser. This version of Brave is preloaded with approximately 250 ads, and sends a detailed log of the user's browsing activity to Brave. Brave announced that expanded trials will follow.[14]

Doesn't sound very private to me.

MiyoLinux · 2018-07-29 00:22:28

golinux wrote:

Brave browser from Wikipedia:
History
Brave is developed by Brave Software, which was founded on May 28, 2015 by Brendan Eich and Brian Bondy. On January 20, 2016, Brave Software launched the first version of Brave with a partial ad blocking feature, and announced plans for an ad replacement feature and a revenue sharing program.[13]
In June 2018, Brave released a pay-to-surf testing version of the browser. This version of Brave is preloaded with approximately 250 ads, and sends a detailed log of the user's browsing activity to Brave. Brave announced that expanded trials will follow.[14]
Doesn't sound very private to me.

That'll teach you to listen to me...'n stuff!!!

UnclePa · 2018-07-29 13:14:47

golinux wrote:

Brave browser from Wikipedia:
History
Brave is developed by Brave Software, which was founded on May 28, 2015 by Brendan Eich and Brian Bondy. On January 20, 2016, Brave Software launched the first version of Brave with a partial ad blocking feature, and announced plans for an ad replacement feature and a revenue sharing program.[13]
In June 2018, Brave released a pay-to-surf testing version of the browser. This version of Brave is preloaded with approximately 250 ads, and sends a detailed log of the user's browsing activity to Brave. Brave announced that expanded trials will follow.[14]
Doesn't sound very private to me.

Brave claims that your browsing history remains private. IOW, they count hits but do not tie the hits to you. As someone else mentioned, it all boils down to whom you can trust. If legitimate, Brave is an innovative attempt to solve a real problem. A huge number of web sites eventually have to face the decision of either using ads or shutting down because user donations are very unreliable and usually taper off over time even when traffic increases. Finding sponsors for anything controversial is well-nigh impossible. There are some sites where I don't mind the ads because I understand that everyone has to eat and food and bandwidth cost money. Giving the user control over which ads he sees may be a good compromise. TANSTAAFL.

Anyway, I'm trying Brave now. If I start seeing ads targeted to my browsing, I'll know my browsing is not private.

Edit: Oh, and the "support your favorite sites" is optional. The default is to block ads. I've got a message and buttons at the top of the window:

Hello! Ready to support your favorite sites? Brave will fill your wallet with tokens to get you started!   [No Thanks]  [Maybe Later]  [I'm Ready]

So apparently you can opt in at any time, or just say "No".

Last edited by UnclePa (2018-07-30 14:26:52)

UnclePa · 2018-07-30 16:15:37

Well, this is off-topic, but since it's my topic, perhaps I can take that liberty.

MiyoLinux wrote:

You mentioned Void, and I have to admit that I'm a Void fan. I run it on one partition just to keep my toes wet.

Yeah, I liked Void a lot, but the forums for Artix and Void were not very newbie friendly. There seemed to be an attitude that they only wanted experienced users. Arch tends toward that as well. I also got annoyed that the moderators locked a discussion regarding the github takeover because some negative things were being said about Microsoft. I definitely do not belong in a place where Microsoft is a sacred cow.

Anyway, I really appreciate the patience I have seen here with newbies. I hope the attitude of wanting to be an O/S for everyone will continue. Perhaps I should qualify that a bit as such a goal is probably not achievable, but hopefully you get my drift--that all are at least welcome to try and we'll help as best we can. Many thanks to the devs, moderators and forum white knights. I'm really liking Devuan and the community so far.

Anyway, to bring this back on topic, it looks like Brave creates one or more new PIDs for every tab. While it does use a lot of resources, that may actually be useful. Often (usually?) the slowness in Firefox appears to be a rogue script but I've never figured out a way to determine which one. I usually have dozens of tabs open and closing them one by one may or may not help me find the problem. Possibly if I run into that with Brave, "top" will tell me which PID is using all the CPU. There's a chance that killing that PID may target the exact page that is causing the problem. Of course, there's also a chance that would crash Brave. Perhaps I'll find out.

MiyoLinux · 2018-07-30 18:45:27

Okay. You've gone too far. We don't put up with people taking their own topic off-topic...and making the off-topic topic the topic...and then having the audacity of going off-topic from the off-topic and bringing the topic back on-topic in the same post!

LOLOLOL!

Let us know how you fare with Brave.

UnclePa · 2018-07-31 16:39:52

Odd, I thought for sure cynwulf posted something here earlier this morning.

So far, I think Brave looks pretty good. It is a bit of a resource hog, but someone recently gave me a server that had been infected by a ransom-ware virus and it has 16GB RAM so I probably won't notice it as much as I would have on my old laptop that has 4GB. 854 trackers blocked, and 2,739 ads blocked in 2 days looks impressive. The only problem I've had with it is that I can't get it to work with Atlassian. I could probably turn on all cookies for all sites and it would work, but I don't really want to do that. You can only turn on cookies selectively for the active site and apparently Atlassian pulls some scripts from domains that don't have a web page I can make active. I generally need 2 browsers open anyway as I have some sites I need multiple connections to that conflict, so it isn't a show stopper. And my desktop is "synergy-ed" to my 2 laptops on either side so I can also use either of them.

LambOfNothing · 2018-08-08 22:15:09

golinux wrote:

MiyoLinux wrote:
There's also the Brave browser (based on Chromium), but the last time I tried it, it was a memory hog.
Isn't Brave browser the one that wants to force "acceptable" ads on users? No thank you!!

I had no clue they were forcing them on users. Originally, there were several people involved in Brave that were previously involved in privacy-related endeavors, including Tor, and the perspective I had heard was that they were building a browser that allowed for more privacy, but also allowed users the ability to voluntarily distribute monetary compensation to pages/sites whose content they supported heavily. Somewhat of a Flattr meets Palemoon scenario, at least what was espoused. If what was said above was true about the tracking and the forced ads, pretty amazing to see what just a few months to a year can do for turning around the initial premise of what was supposed to be a reputable endeavor. Can't say I'm surprised though. I could see a scenario where there needed to be a discussion of cashflow in order to maintain San Francisco office space and an unnecessary amount of developers or w/e the fuck, and then that turned into a hard pivot that completely cut against what was advertised initially. It's human nature for most to only be as noble as they can be within a certain realm of comfort.

Last edited by LambOfNothing (2018-08-08 22:17:10)

UnclePa · 2018-08-10 01:50:05

I've been using Brave for over a week now and it does not force ads on you. It blocks all ads by default. You can opt in to accept ads to help support sites that you choose. Moreover, they claim that the tracking they do does not include anything that could be traced back to you. It's open source so you can check it.

ChuangTzu · 2018-08-10 20:25:44

UnclePa wrote:

Moreover, they claim that the tracking they do does not include anything that could be traced back to you. It's open source so you can check it.

And that's the kicker, "they claim". I looked into Brave before and it did not seem too trustworthy IMO. Lots of vague promises and clichés, similar to political speeches, or Google saying "Don't be evil".

chris2be8 · 2018-08-21 12:52:49

I've searched Synaptic package manager for web browsers and found:
chromium - web browser
conkeror - keyboard focused web browser with Emacs look and feel
dillo - Small and fast web browser
firefox-esr - Mozilla Firefox web browser - Extended Support Release (ESR) <--- installed on my system
hv3 - Lightweight web browser
iceweasel - Web browser based on Firefox - Transitional package
konqueror - advanced file manager, web browser and document viewer <--- I'm using this to make this post
links2 - Web browser running in both graphics and text mode
luakit - fast and small web browser extensible by Lua
midori - fast, lightweight graphical web browser
netsurf - small web browser with CSS support - transitional package
qupzilla - lightweight web browser based on libqtwebkit
surf2 - Simple web browser by suckless community. Version 2.
xombrero - minimalist web browser

And that's ignoring text based browsers.

So I'm a bit spoilt for choice looking for a privacy oriented browser. Which would be worth considering? Or should I ask which are not worth considering for privacy?

Chris

GNUser · 2018-08-21 13:30:29

I use Firefox with the Privacy Badger and HTTPS Everywhere add-ons (both made by EFF). For even more privacy, use VPN and have Firefox clear your cache everytime you close it.

chris2be8 · 2018-08-24 16:04:37

I've tested NetSurf, it has the same flaw as Konqueror in that it doesn't cache web pages you visit. So if you go back a page it re-fetches it, which is slow and loses your place on the page. Especially if you search for something in your favourite search engine, click one hit to read it, then go back the search is re-run.

In Konqueror I've taken to right-clicking and selecting open in new window so I just need to close the window to go back quickly. But that's a clumsy way to do it.

Firefox at least has a cache. But needs a lot of work and add-ons to make it respect privacy and security (don't trust javascript from arbitrary sites, don't leak what I'm doing to Mozilla, etc).

Chris

EpicCrackhead · 2018-09-01 12:00:50

Ungoogled chromium and waterfox are the only acceptable browsers for me.

Waterfox is basically firefox but slimmed down really well (in terms of disk space, ram and CPU usage) and has disabled all the mozilla telemetry, perfect browser for anyone running a crappy computer but wants a modern browser.
Pretty much FF without all the bloat garbage, oh, and support pre 57 addons too!

ungoogled chromium is pretty much chromium but without the spyware.

idk why people use garbage like brave, firefox, chrome and opera when they have these

PS: if you can't find something in the package manager, just download it manually.

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#1 2018-07-24 21:33:35

In search of a privacy oriented browser

#2 2018-07-25 07:22:18

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#3 2018-07-25 18:45:46

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#4 2018-07-26 08:17:25

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#5 2018-07-26 12:52:18

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#6 2018-07-28 03:02:05

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#7 2018-07-28 13:56:20

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#8 2018-07-28 19:10:03

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#9 2018-07-28 20:32:35

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#10 2018-07-28 23:25:27

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#11 2018-07-28 23:28:56

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#12 2018-07-28 23:41:28

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#13 2018-07-29 00:15:51

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#14 2018-07-29 00:22:28

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#15 2018-07-29 13:14:47

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#16 2018-07-30 16:15:37

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#17 2018-07-30 18:45:27

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#18 2018-07-31 16:39:52

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#19 2018-08-08 22:15:09

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#20 2018-08-10 01:50:05

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#21 2018-08-10 20:25:44

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#22 2018-08-21 12:52:49

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#23 2018-08-21 13:30:29

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#24 2018-08-24 16:04:37

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

#25 2018-09-01 12:00:50

Re: In search of a privacy oriented browser

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