Your preferred browser for enhanced privacy.

Lounge
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I use Windows 11, although my summer project (one of them) is to begin to learn Linux. I use Edge exclusively for work stuff–partly because I like to keep all my work stuff separate from everything else. I use Firefox and Vivaldi for personal browsing. I have a few passwords saved in Vivaldi and use it for sites that require log-in.

I am looking at options for enhanced privacy. There are many options of course, including DuckDuckGo (can we trust them??), LibreWolf, Waterfox, Mull, and of course TOR.

I am interested to know which one(s) people prefer and why. Pros andn Cons of the various options? Thanks.

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First step is ublock origin and maybe privacy badger extensions in Firefox. Are you already using those?

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I hadn’t heard of that…went looking and the search came to uBlock …likely a typo in your post but also seems like Chrome is trying to make it hard to use …I removed edge from my system but maybe the same for it or not…I will have to look into this one…I do have privacy badger but not much else…

https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1j2ec76/ublock_origin_is_gone/?rdt=63013

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Hi, thanks. No I do not have those extensions yet–brand new PC here, new Windows installation, etc. Still getting everything set up and files copied. Just downloaded and installed RawTherapee 5.11 last night.

I see that LibreWolf already comes with at least UBlock, so I thought maybe just go with that instead. Is there an advantage to sticking with Firefox instead of just using a different fork?

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Yes, phone auto correct :dizzy_face:

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I have been using Brave Browser with Privacy Badger and some other extensions. The fromt page shows how many ads and trackets have been blocked.

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I use Vivaldi and Firefox. Both with uBlock Origin. On Top every traffic is routed over my Pi-hole.

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Thanks. I was about to install uBlock when it informed me that it would have permissions to:

  • Access your data for all websites
  • Read and modify privacy settings
  • Access browser tabs.
  • etc.

'Scuse my ignorance here, but–As with DuckDuckGo–I wonder, “can we trust them?”. I see that they are highly rated and recommended here (and elsewhere), but seems to me that users are just handing everything over to them, and I wonder who could get their hands on the data some day…

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Well uBlock have to access data from websites otherwise it’S hard to recognize what is content and what rubbish.

Regarding DuckDuckGo, I have no clue. I mainly use Startpage. Qwant and Ecosia. But if you can trust them is a personal thing. Just like the word trust already says.

In the End I would guess, that they can’t be worse than google and Bing. :grimacing:

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Brave is horrible for privacy, the browser itself tracks you and does a man in the middle and injects their own ads. Plus its crypto.

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I thought it was ok. Will reconsidder. Thanks for the info.

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Vivaldi all the way.

  1. Yes it is not opensource
  2. The dev team is very privacy focused.
  3. It is actually the same folks who did the original Opera (not to be mixed up with the current opera owners)
  4. comes with a lot of productivity improvements builtin. (workspaces, tab stacks (which i stopped using in favor of workspaces), tab tiling (ever needed the docs up, while replying to a post?))
  5. very good builtin ads/tracking blocker.
  6. also on iOS and android.
  7. (edit) I forgot to mention … compared to firefox. An actually useful browser history where you can find stuff again.
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uBlock Origin can still be installed manually (even though it’s no longer available on the Chrome web store).

On the mobile, I use Brave with ‘forget me when I close this page’ turned on. Crypto features are disabled, and I don’t see ads. As for its own tracking, I’ll have to check.

On the PC, for me it’s Firefox, and the nifty add-on ‘temporary containers’: basically, it keeps a separate cookie jar + local storage for each page, and wipes them when leaving the page.
I also use other extensions that build on Firefox’s container feature (Facebook Container, Google Container). I have a container for discuss.pixls.us, one for GitHub and so on, so I don’t get logged out (but they are still kept isolated from the others). Severance, anyone? :slight_smile: (and, just to add another off-topic angle: I don’t watch the show any more, they pissed me off.)

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you mean profiles right?

and yes I have a special profile for YT and so on too :slight_smile:

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Containers.

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You are employing uBlock Origin as your security guard. You have to trust your security guard.

Any ad blocker is going to need to read the incoming data to find, and alter the pages having removed, the ads it is blocking. Far more than ads too: all sorts of filters to remove annoying web elements. It is not hard to make your own. It is very, very useful.

I have to use something like it to even access this site. Discuss, rather than just professing lack of support, actually shuts users out if they do not use one of its few blessed threads. Horrible behaviour, but that is a topic for elsewhere, and anyway, it is as it is.

My chosen browser, originally for aesthetic reasons when Firefox changed its look and feel, is Palemoon.

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so a mix between workspaces and profiles in vivaldi.

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Firefox + ublock + bit warden extension

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I like Vivaldi a lot. I’m not aware of any other browser that’s so feature packed… Nice to see them actively develop it

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For Chrome, I use:

uBO Lite (uBOL) is a permission-less content blocker based on the MV3 API.