I have been testing Tor Browser and Mullvad Browser using fingerprint.com. I get unique persistent identifiers that are unique per machine and persist over rebooting sessions. Javascript was on during this test.
This could be very dangerous to people using Tor Browser and Mullvad Browser.
For example, if someone visits Rainbow Railroad, an organization for leaving repressive countries with hostile LGBT policies, and then watches a video about the organization on YouTube, and then also does something, like create a Discord Server, and use Tor Browser to get around geoblocking but link it to their personal phone number, then a hostile regime buying data from data brokers could possible determine that user is considering using rainbow railroad. Even if this exact example isn’t realistic or plausible (although governments do buy form data brokers), users should be aware that persistent identifiers in Tor Browser and Mullvad Browser allow for continuous tracking of a user using the same machine.
I posted this information on privacyguides forum and they deleted my account after, leading me to wonder if the forum is a giant honeypot that curates acceptable privacy discussions and unacceptable private discussions. I honestly wonder if they are infiltrated by the government. They repeatedly delete the posts of other people as well and the whole thing is starting to not sit well with me.
Isn’t Mullvad browser kind of deprecated? Vivaldi is quite good, despite its closed-source UI components.
No, Mullvad is not deprecated at all (are you maybe thinking of Mull?) Vivaldi is Chromium based, that’s a no-go: don’t support Google’s hegemony by any means
Vivaldi is also proprietary. Not a good privacy browser.
Then that’s great, at some point Mullvad’s browser development slowed down and I had the impression that it was abandoned. Glad that it isn’t.
And of course Vivaldi isn’t the best option out there - it’s just one of the least offending Chromium browsers. Mozilla itself isn’t in too great shape either, sketchy politics and they’re on life support from Google funding.
Firefox forks though? Quite good stuff out there. I’ve heard some recent praise for the Zen browser in particular.
And if you’re on macOS, then Orion browser is a great option (and WebKit-based).
I suspect from what you’re choosing to say that you’ve very, very recently started comparing browsers. You should read more before posting about this topic. Your comments are very uneducated.
Excuse me, which part is uneducated, and what’s there to read about? I’ve been a solutions architect for years, and I haven’t seen a “one size fits all” type of software. That includes browsers too, which have their technical quirks, compatibility, and inherent risks. I’m capable of creating my own browser, but I don’t believe that makes me qualified to be called a “browsers expert for Earth”, so unless you happen to be Linus Torvalds of browsers, please keep it civil by not being judgemental of folks just discussing. Being open minded is better than being John Firefox, or John Chromium.
What about solo projects? One person is the single point of failure. Small teams without past history? That’s a coin flip, you either encounter genuinely good people, or those who push spyware on you. Or their project becomes abandonware - browsers have thousands of lines of code, and dependencies to be maintained. It’s a very taxing task, which definitely takes away the time for other hobbies. Which leaves us with true community-led projects, which persist regardless of the fate of a corporation or another entity.
Mozilla being sustained by Google just so that Google can’t be sued for monopoly is a vicious circle on its own - Mozilla CEOs are quite unethical at their corporate politics, and very unfair to their employees. Typical 80-90s management style.
So how is mentioning Vivaldi bad? Chromium exists regardless of Google, you don’t need Google to exist for the code base to be intact and developed by people across the globe.
Besides the obvious second-class citizenship treatment from web developers, Firefox is still lackluster in site/process isolation. Its users trade potential privacy gain for a cybersecurity vulnerability & less crash resilience - and most people aren’t Team Blue or Team Red to be on vigil at all times.
I would guess they were probably thinking more about your Zen Browser reference1, and your comment on Mullvad Browser. Both are misinfo and I would agree it’s good to do a little DD on your own before posting hearsay. Even with the disclaimers it’s contributing to spreading and giving credibility to those claims.
1: Perhaps the least inspiring major FF fork from a privacy perspective… https://codeberg.org/dialhome-study/browser-network-insights
That’s a good reply I can agree with. I mean we all don’t want to be verbose all the time, but giving some context or counter argument is the point of a healthy discussion. Thank you for the source!