Since the topic comes up often, I wanted to take a moment to elaborate on some browser information.
While being security focused, MANY Open Source Chromium based browsers still opt to offer the usual “save passwords”, “autofill” and “cookie” handling. While many browsers offer “incognito” or “private” tabs/windows, most are still vulnerable to viewing the location information from where you send either in analytics or traffic analysis. The Brave browser does step this up a notch in utilization of the Tor network protocols and traffic encryption but still cannot hide your location data per Tor. To truly hide your requests and locations Tor suggests utilizing a descent VPN EVEN while using the Tor browser, whether your using it for the typical indexed surface web or even the deep web.
Mind you, the more layers you put between you and the “all seeing eyes” the more privacy you will acquire. With that said, you will experience inaccessible sites such as your banking or services that block foreign traffic for one reason or another as well as slower response and loading times, sometimes equivalent of being back on the 56k or worse regardless of your high speed connection. I have experienced speeds on deep web dives that brought back the days of BBS on a Commodore.
I certainly hope this makes sense of a sometimes off putting and confusing situation.
Very well said, @MrDeplorableUSA!
VPN is the best option to keep your data encrypted, at least during its transit between your computer and the VPN server. From there on, your signal becomes one out of thousands, so it’s so much harder to get tracked.
The ideal privacy approach is VPN and then enter TOR. Some VPN providers offer this out of the box. For those who don’t, you can use VPN and then Brave’s TOR approach. Or, just simply install the TOR Browser. (https://www.torproject.org) - Unless it exists in your repository (for many distros, it does).
Another great browser, besides Brave, to use - are:
DeGoogled Chromium (available as a FlatPak)
LibreWolf (Firefox Fork)
Falkon
Gnome Browser
There are a few more, but the above are quite compatible with every website out there.
Just keep in mind, that in order to utilize the DeGoogled Chromium’s extensions, you will need to download and manually install the Extension Store, which will allow you to install and keep your extensions updated (such as uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger.
Oh, and one last thing. All “Incognito” modes just don’t store your browser’s history locally. Your ISP can very well see what you’re doing. No exceptions there.
Hey @BigDaveAZ!
For Brave, I’d recommend Privacy Badger for sure. UBlock Origin you can install to literally block every ad out there - as Brave tends to allow some of the ads to go through (i.e. YouTube). However, keep in mind that with both the extensions enabled, Brave may not be able to access some websites. In that scenario, just disable them temporarily.
I watched an interesting video by Rob Braxman that said that adding browser extensions will make your browser more identifiable. Is that true? He said something about browser fingerprints.
Yes, but those two EFF extensions that I consider mandatory (if not using a security-centric browser like Brave) are Privacy Badger and HTTPS Everywhere should mitigate your fingerprint significantly (Privacy Badger specifically). EFF is a very trustworthy organization as well, so no worries installing any of their extensions.
Yes, it will make your browser identifiable, that much is certain. No matter what you do, your browser will always be “spotted”. There is only one way that it won’t: Disabling Javascript. The ideal approach is to use a VPN, and then utilize the TOR Browser at maximum security settings, which include no Javascript. Of course, not all modern websites will work as intended, but you will be completely private.
