Why beginners should pay attention to their privacy

[Maus0728]

If your main goal is to receive Google search results with improved privacy then you can use Startpage as your search engine via any web browser. It searches Google on your behalf and returns identical results but without the privacy invasion.

I sincerely appreciate it. I recently added Startpage to my Android Firefox browser. It's a good thing though because I don't need to download another app since I'm temporarily following a "minimalist" approach since I don't have a degoogled phone or a custom rom installed.

Something else in relation to browser fingerprinting? Even though I can't install Chrome and have logged out of my Google account, does Chrome still keeps profiling (browser fingerprinting) me in the background despite the app not being used?

[Taskford]

Because scammers could use their identity for unwanted incidents like scamming or any fraudulent activities and that's the reason why they shouldn't believe on anyone asking for their identity in exchange for free tokens or anything which they don't know if that one is safe for them.

Data breach is pretty common online so beginners should understand the huge risk of providing their personal details online.

[348Judah]

Because scammers could use their identity for unwanted incidents like scamming or any fraudulent activities and that's the reason why they shouldn't believe on anyone asking for their identity in exchange for free tokens or anything which they don't know if that one is safe for them.

Data breach is pretty common online so beginners should understand the huge risk of providing their personal details online.

Here comes another prove why beginners should give more attentive ears to their privacy, using centralized exchanges has more demerits than the benefits it could offer, early this morning i come across this update on how every US crypto exchanges undergoing investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission report gives a total of about 40 crypto exchange present in the US and they are all under investigation by the SEC including the largest exchanges Binance and Coinbase, but to my greatest surprise i still see some of the bitcoiners having their asset with centralized exchange, when engaged in using CEX it makes no difference from having the rule of government over commercial banks.

One cannot claim been decentralized in using a centralized exchange, this is more of another strong warning being a reminder to pay attention to our privacy especially the beginners, if you actually want to be free from government embargo and restrictions in having access to your digital assets in your finances then remain private, example on how to remain decentralized with privacy is to: run a full node on the blockchain, use bitcoincore to run a coinjoin, use hardware wallets which are open source, or use a decentralized exchange like bisq exchange.

[aysg76]

Here comes another prove why beginners should give more attentive ears to their privacy, using centralized exchanges has more demerits than the benefits it could offer, early this morning i come across this update on how every US crypto exchanges undergoing investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission report gives a total of about 40 crypto exchange present in the US and they are all under investigation by the SEC including the largest exchanges Binance and Coinbase, but to my greatest surprise i still see some of the bitcoiners having their asset with centralized exchange, when engaged in using CEX it makes no difference from having the rule of government over commercial banks.

All these investigations going under SEC is to make sure that these exchanges are following their guidelines and data breach is very common among them but you would see not much big impact of these investigations as government wants them under their control which they will do.As you say of Binance and Coinbase then they are most famous CEX out there having most of the trading share in the market and not only some big chunk of people have their coins stored on these exchanges assuming them to be safe but are unaware of the risk associated with using their services.

Their is simple saying "Not your keys not your coins" but they have trust over these CEX easily and deposit their funds over them and when they are scammed they start to blame game but what's the fun afterwards?

Coinbase has said that in case of insolvency your funds will be treated to pay off the debts so what security your expect from them?

One cannot claim been decentralized in using a centralized exchange, this is more of another strong warning being a reminder to pay attention to our privacy especially the beginners, if you actually want to be free from government embargo and restrictions in having access to your digital assets in your finances then remain private.

This is what most people need to understand and this is what they are ignoring.

[o_e_l_e_o]

For me also Tor works exactly the best but if you are looking for some privacy focused browser then Brave is also the good choice

I'm afraid I absolutely would not recommend Brave. They are better than Chrome, sure, but only because Chrome is literally the absolutely worst browser on the planet in terms of privacy and securing your data. Brave, while they run a very flashy marketing campaign about being very pro-privacy, are actually nothing of the sort. They take money from companies like Facebook and Twitter to whitelist their trackers and allow them to spy on you. They take money from various ad companies to specifically serve you their ads (which are of course still profiled to your information), but users seem to accept that because they get paid peanuts of some useless token in return. They take money from Binance to inject their code and widgets in to the browser, which again are used to track you. The secretly auto-direct your browser to URLs you didn't enter or click on and insert their referral codes in the process. They are entirely driven by making themselves money, and a lot of the things they once stood for in terms of privacy are not long forgotten in pursuit of more profits. And don't even get me started on a so called privacy browser asking for KYC.

Even though I can't install Chrome and have logged out of my Google account, does Chrome still keeps profiling (browser fingerprinting) me in the background despite the app not being used?

If the Chrome app isn't even installed then it can't track you, no. But depending on what OS your phone is running there could well be some deep rooted Google stuff in there that will be impossible to remove.

[vv181]

Something else in relation to browser fingerprinting?

You can't really escape from browser fingerprinting since it inherently happens because of how the web works. It can only be minimized.

If you have real concerns and are conscious of what browser fingerprinting could do/affect to you, it would be the best and easiest solution to join with the mob, which is, using a Tor Browser.

[PowerGlove]

{...} but if you are looking for some privacy focused browser then Brave is also the good choice {...}

I know you also recommended Tor Browser (which is great) but Brave is no good. o_e_l_e_o summed up the situation nicely (2 posts up). Sneaking their referral codes into URLs was the deal-breaker for me. If they're capable of doing that by "mistake" [1] then who knows what other garbage they'll attempt in the future.

They should have been upfront about it and included that as an off-by-default option in settings (e.g. "Support Brave by allowing affiliate insertion?").

[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/privacy-browser-brave-busted-for-autocompleting-urls-to-versions-it-profits-from/

[aysg76]

I'm afraid I absolutely would not recommend Brave. They are better than Chrome, sure, but only because Chrome is literally the absolutely worst browser on the planet in terms of privacy and securing your data. Brave, while they run a very flashy marketing campaign about being very pro-privacy, are actually nothing of the sort. They take money from companies like Facebook and Twitter to whitelist their trackers and allow them to spy on you. They take money from various ad companies to specifically serve you their ads (which are of course still profiled to your information), but users seem to accept that because they get paid peanuts of some useless token in return. They take money from Binance to inject their code and widgets in to the browser, which again are used to track you. The secretly auto-direct your browser to URLs you didn't enter or click on and insert their referral codes in the process. They are entirely driven by making themselves money, and a lot of the things they once stood for in terms of privacy are not long forgotten in pursuit of more profits. And don't even get me started on a so called privacy browser asking for KYC.

Yeah I am aware about those concerns you have mentioned about but was providing him with the alternative to Google chrome which is ofcourse the worst with full of spams and phising links to scam people always trying to track you with any activity you are doing.I also use Brave in rare cases like to just have some normal search and watch some add free YouTube if I want to nothing else.

The KYC was implemented on the BAT you have earned as reward points and was opposed by many and never interested in earning those shit tokens and after your post thinking to discard its usage completely.Sending tips to publisher is good idea but implementation of the KYC was a really poor one if you call yourself privacy oriented browser and there were lot of discussion about this also :

Brave KYC

So you are right on the part that if you are interested in more privacy options then you should avoid this one also and for me it was just one step ahead of chrome for making some normal work not like accessing forum from it.

For other privacy related searches ofcourse Tor is my default one browser which provides you complete anonymity not like the fake promises others made.

[darxiaomi]

Well well well, so finally Brave shows his real face?. Or their where pushed by goverment to do this?.

In the last time we are reading a lot of "news" saying instead of only click and give your opinion/taste for the marketing companies, sell them. I think this its the case, and maybe the people behind Brave or the BAT project (idont know if this was in the start but later when more people come around) its mading the first step of this.

Obviusly in our community this its a shit, because we dont like KYC so much and less in this kind of things, how the fuck you put this related to money laundry to  demand KYC?. If you (i refer to Brave browser) can know easily if a person earn the BAT by clicking or because he  receive a ton of that. This clearly have some backdoors opens....

[Welsh]

Honestly, a properly configured Firefox is probably the best way of going about things. A proven track record, and obviously Tor Browser is built on it for a reason. The latter being useful if you want even more privacy.

Sorry for the dumb question, but how can I install this on my Android device?

I have checked the github page and I noticed that there is a link under the custom F-Droid repository but the problem is upon clicking the link, it shows "403 Forbidden". On a sidenote, I've never done any custom build/installing on any device in my life, so I assume that installing it isn't just as simple as clicking the install button.

I just want to use this degoogled chromium to maintain the search results similar to using chrome but with an improved privacy aside from using DDG for casual(common) searches.

You can install F-Droid, and then add a custom repo directly in F-droid. That's basically how you download custom repo's from F-Droid directly, adding the repo will then allow you to see the applications inside of F-droid, and download whatever you want. Obviously, if the source is down you won't be able to do it. I'm not overly familiar with degoogled chromium as I use other alternatives, but give it go adding it to f-droid as long as you're comfortable with its safety.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I also use Brave in rare cases like to just have some normal search and watch some add free YouTube if I want to nothing else.

But there is no reason to use Brave for either of reasons. Firefox is better option for almost everything. You can use container tabs or separate profiles to keep different usages of Firefox separate. If you really want, you can install Firefox more than once, or install different versions of Firefox (default, beta, developer, etc.) or even run a separate instance of Firefox in a VM to keep some use completely separate from other uses, and allow you to have a very hardened version of Firefox with appropriate browser extensions as well as a completely basic and out-of-the-box version of Firefox too.

And if you really need a Chromium based browser for a specific task, then as I've said before, Ungoogled Chromium is the best option.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I know you also recommended Tor Browser (which is great)

It's great privacy-wise, and probably the best option out there. I just want to note down the privacy tradeoff, for beginners or anyone who chooses it:

• Far slower connectivity.
• Some sites forbid access from Tor exit nodes (whose IP addresses are those you "exit" the Tor network to clearnet with).
• Captchas can be annoying.

Brave KYC

I thought that was a joke. LOL!

[PowerGlove]

{...} Regarding browsers' private mode, it can help somewhat, but I believe it is more helpful to use containers {...}

{...} You can use container tabs or separate profiles to keep different usages of Firefox separate {...}

Firefox container tabs [1] are really useful!

They won't do much to protect your privacy on their own but they can be very handy to reduce the usefulness of gathered data and I'm all for anything that makes life harder for the people trying to profit from invading your privacy.

You can (for example) be signed-in to YouTube in one tab and then use Google Search in another without the SSO (Single Sign-On) trying to automatically sign you in and "link" the two different types of activity.

I (mostly) use YouTube without signing in, but if Google ever decides to make that mandatory (knowing them, I'm guessing it's just a matter of time) then making a dummy account and using YouTube from a container will be the way to go!

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/

[aysg76]

But there is no reason to use Brave for either of reasons. Firefox is better option for almost everything. You can use container tabs or separate profiles to keep different usages of Firefox separate. If you really want, you can install Firefox more than once, or install different versions of Firefox (default, beta, developer, etc.) or even run a separate instance of Firefox in a VM to keep some use completely separate from other uses, and allow you to have a very hardened version of Firefox with appropriate browser extensions as well as a completely basic and out-of-the-box version of Firefox too.

And if you really need a Chromium based browser for a specific task, then as I've said before, Ungoogled Chromium is the best option.

I understand your point and if we are so concerned about our privacy then we should avoid these browser at all and yes Firefox container tabs is really useful option and switching on the different profiles like you have mentioned is quite useful keeping it all safe once you install them and works fine for us and will focus on them discarding Brave to the full.

But still we are having the browser fingerprint problem where the previous container information could be leaked based on our OS and hardware according to GitHub reports also but those who are unaware about their working can read them here :

Containers

But my most of the work is absolutely handled through Tor only so no need of chromium based browser to me although Ungoogled Chromium is best in that case.

I thought that was a joke. LOL!

These days privacy is becoming a joke for these self pro claimed privacy oriented browser also but soon they show their real face and only you need to be careful about yourself and for them your privacy is just a joke.

[o_e_l_e_o]

But still we are having the browser fingerprint problem where the previous container information could be leaked based on our OS and hardware

Which is why I mentioned entirely different Firefox installations above. If you run one version of Firefox with certain add ons and settings via one IP, and a different version of Firefox with different add ons and settings (and maybe even spoof your user agent) via a different IP, then it becomes significantly harder for browser fingerprinting to link your two browsers. Even better if you run one from inside a VM.

Or go for the safest method and just use Tor.