A different question rather than “what is the best internet browser for privacy?” is … given a choice of internet browser, what are the best settings and most appropriate extensions for privacy? There is no simple answer to that because there are so many (confusing) settings. A good browser choice therefore is one that is more private and more secure out-of-the-box.
Another question is “what sites should I simply avoid if I care about privacy?”
Almost all privacy / security mechanisms that you might enable also might break a given web site. So whatever web browser or extension functionality you use, it must allow you to make exceptions for sites where your desire to use the site outweighs your lack of trust.
A different approach is not “what is the best internet browser for privacy?” but instead … using as many web browsers as possible in order to keep browsing with one browser separate from browsing with another browser. This for example may confound “fingerprinting”, should keep cookies separate, may mitigate browser exploits that escape out of one page.
If you use Firefox then you should consider enabling the “resist fingerprinting” option.
This is true - but given that this is the model, people should think twice before just blocking ads. Blocking ads is not in and of itself enhancing your privacy - although the process by which the choice of ad arose almost certainly did compromise your privacy.
With the understanding that it is just an advisory to the web site and very likely is ignored by just about all web sites.
Perhaps the government could give “Do Not Track” legal authority. It’s the sort of thing that might happen in Europe, but not here, where the government is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Just looking at my taskbar on W7 I have IE, Edge Beta, Chrome, Brave, Vivaldi, Firefox developer (almost daily updates) Opera and Tor. My goto is Firefox. But I am sitting behind a router based firewall with Denial Of Service turned on, and a few other security measures also. That does reasonable security for other members of the home that are not poking around too much. On my PC I have MS security, realtime Malwarebytes and Acronis that put up warning screens if something is questionable (it appears one of banks home page is). I use Opera with the VPN turned on to watch location specific videos on YouTube. If I want something to load quickly I use Brave, but not all pages will load so it is a dance between browsers. Tor can be painfully slow for videos during peak times and if I need VPN in peak times I use Opera.
But this really doesn’t answer the question “best browser”. I don’t have one, but I have loaded Firefox on my partners PC as a safe browser because it is behind real time security supplied by the twice daily updated router. I monitor web traffic supplied by the router and have all the active warnings turned on.
And then there is the smart switch that sits between the cable modem and the router.
Agreed, however I think you will find that on Windows and possibly Mac, (not sure on that one), based systems it is a search engine add-on to Chrome based browsers and on Android it is a search engine and browser all-in-one.
I have been using it on my Galaxy S7 and 2 Android tablets for over 2 years and can search and also do the usual things you do with a browser such as access news sites, review sites and even access and login to Choice as well and check email through webmail and anything else you can think of.
It has caused me no issues and does everything that Firefox and all the other Chrome based browsers do in one package.
Tor at it’s most secure will not let videos run unless you allow them through, letting them through somewhat defeats the security of Tor but it still provides fairly secure browsing even then. You normally get a warning before you can proceed to allow these items through to your PC.
Use a search engine directly from a web browser by visiting the web site of the search engine provider.
Requires no add-on or extension or anything else. The DDG web site definitely works in Chrome out-of-the-box
Use a search engine implicitly from a web browser.
May or may not require an add-on. A web browser will come with a pre-installed set of supported search engines.
Firefox comes with a good number (including some that aren’t search engines as such but which might be useful to throw a search at).
Unsurprisingly, Chrome defaults to Google as the implicit search engine. It wouldn’t surprise me if you needed a Chrome add-on / extension for some competing search engines. However it appears that you can override the default of “Google”, changing it to DDG, out-of-the-box i.e. no add-on or extension needed.
Once you install an add-on or extension, you may or may not get additional functionality, over and above the conducting of the search.
Obviously they have a vested interest in promoting the idea that … e.g. Firefox is good for privacy but even better is to use it with a VPN … which is not wrong.
Me too, at least until I changed to Mac. Since then, however, it has slimmed down dramatically and is now a serious contender on all platforms (IMHO). It is now my preferred browser on Linux and Windows. (Safari on Mac, iPad and iPhone has too many advantages in cross-app integration.)
I have also always liked the Opera browser (the FIRST to introduce tabbed browsing).
Like @darwin464 I use Firefox with Privacy Badger, HTTPS Everywhere and DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials.
One problem is that the links in the CHOICE Community email all go via u2247794.ct.sendgrid.net. I would trust Choice enough to allow/whitelist one of their domains but I’m not going to allow a US email marketing company’s domain.
Friends at Choice, how can I follow the interesting links in your Community email without giving myself up to your marketing vendor?
I must admit that I had not noticed that. It may be SendGrid is simply in the mix to make it easier to manage an email list and distribution, but it would be nice to know exactly where they fit into the CHOICE ecosystem.
That said, pretty much everything online nowadays runs through someone else’s ‘stuff’ at some point. Whether the website is supported by a CDN or run using someone else’s managed services, I think it is close to impossible to be completely independent of all possible influences.
Finally, I use most of your security tools and a few more (including Ghostery and uBlock Origin). None of these seem to have a problem with the links in CHOICE emails - and I am pretty strict in my settings. A quick search of Ghostery settings shows that it doesn’t even list SendGrid as a potential privacy concern.
Most of my browsing these days is done on my iPad, and since extensions and addons arent allowed, you have to get a browser thats fairly secure from scratch. Safari isnt bad, but Brave and Ghostery are better. That said, I seem to revert to Safari anyway.
Use a disposable email address for sign up, they are easy enough to obtain. It doesn’t stop it coming to you via sendgrid but there is nothing that can’t be browsed on the CHOICE site that requires you to click the link. Just take note of the topic or copy it and then on CHOICE just search for the topic that interested you. The disposable address allows you to drop it if it ever becomes a burden, or in your profile just as often as you like amend your disposable address to a new one.
That won’t stop you from being tracked when clicking a link in a CHOICE email, as the link is presumably unique to and thus specifically identifies you.
As @grahroll states, if you take note of the topic and then search on the website you will avoid that tracking.
I use DDG for most of my search, but it does occasionally fail on more complex/specific searches. Just something to keep in mind.
