this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2023
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I have been thinking about switching to brave for better fingerprinting protection

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[–] poVoq 90 points 1 year ago (5 children)

So Chromium?

Just use Firefox, its the better browser anyways.

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ungoogled-chromium is a good substitute in that case

[–] stonemilker@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Haven't used Ungoogled Chromium in a couple years, but I've seen some criticisms of it even compared to regular Chrome: https://qua3k.github.io/ungoogled/

[–] animist@lemmy.one 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.one 4 points 1 year ago

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

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[–] BrikoX@vlemmy.net 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

[–] naoseiquemsou@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago

But they still contribute to google's monopoly over web standards.

[–] SatyrSack@lemmy.one 10 points 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.

[–] xavier666@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] WeLoveCastingSpelz@lemmy.fmhy.ml 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I already use Firefox but brave is just better at fingerprinting protection

[–] underscores@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There's CanvasBlocker for Firefox that can do fingerprint protection.

[–] milk@lemmy.fmhy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Arkenfox is also good at protection from naive fingerprinting

[–] BrikoX@vlemmy.net 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Adding add-on makes you more fingerprintable, not less.

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[–] fenndev@fedia.io 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.ml 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] priapus@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 year ago

You can turn that off in the settings

[–] Mihuy@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

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

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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

[–] andrew0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I also recommend Librewolf. It's very good at what it does. They also have a list of recommended addons to enhance your privacy.

[–] boy@feddit.nl 4 points 1 year ago

The only issue with librewolf is that updates sometimes take a few days. For that reason I’m still using ff+arkenfox

[–] BrikoX@vlemmy.net 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

All of the crypo crap can be turned off in settings.

[–] Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 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 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

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[–] privacyfalcon9899@lemmy.one 20 points 1 year ago

Just switch off brave rewards and sponsored content. And, your fork is ready.

[–] Makeshift@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 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.one 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 5 points 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 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] EarlTurlet@lemmy.zip 8 points 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.

[–] Relected@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago (5 children)

just use firefox and ffprofile.com

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[–] imrichyouknow@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

To me, Brave or DuckDuckGo are as malicious as Google

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[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago (9 children)

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.one 3 points 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.

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[–] Vertelleus@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Looks like Brave is the best for privacy over all.
https://privacytests.org/

That site and testing is run by a Brave employee, right? I'd be very skeptical of Brave's high scores.

[–] goryramsy@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

That's with firefox on default settings. If you turn it on to 'strict' and install uBlock, then it wins.

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[–] MarioBarisa@vlemmy.net 4 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Brunette6256@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] zlatiah@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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?

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[–] ch1cken@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

well, brave's crypto is opt in anyways, it wont be used unless you manually enable it yourself

Firefox paired with arkenfox's userjs, or librewolf which basically configures all of that for you, are also good options.

[–] klarker@lemmy.one 3 points 1 year ago

Just follow guides on turn it off "crap" that you don't want.

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