The Best Web Browsers for Privacy

today most web browsers use the exact same base chromium apart from two Safari and Firefox but that doesn't mean that all web browsers are equal or the same especially when it comes to privacy they all have vastly different tracker blocking features they don't all resist fingerprinting and depending on the company that makes them they can collect no data at all or a lot of it so today we'll look at all the major web browsers and we'll try to find the best options to stay private online and speaking about privacy how about I tell you about our sponsor this video is sponsored by protonmail the private and secure email service based in Switzerland and they are designed to protect your privacy by using end-to-end encryption and all other protections that you'd expect to keep your inbox safe like for example email aliases and if you don't know where these are they're basically like secret identities for example thanks to Proto on males hide my email aliases you could create an alias to subscribe to a newsletter the minute they start bombarding you with unwanted emails you simply disable the Alias and they won't reach you anymore same thing if you're selling something online instead of giving your real email address give them the Alias when your object is sold remove that Alias and no one will be able to bother you you could also use aliases to sign up for an online account if it ever suffers a data breach you can disable that Alias and your true email address won't be compromised so head over to the link in the description to create your free protonmail account and you'll also get a free VPN a free calendar and a free secure cloud storage space and you can always upgrade to proton unlimited if you want more features more storage or unlimited email aliases so here we'll focus on three main areas first how they protect you from trackers either from ads from cookies from scripts or social media login buttons second what data the browser collects with or without using an account to sync your browser data and finally fingerprinting which is a method websites can use to track you anyway by using your user agent some data about your OS your web browser your location time zone installed apps and extensions Hardware details and more combining all of this it becomes pretty easy to know that it's actually your unique device visiting a website and to link browsing data to that to build a profile it's pretty hard to resist this because while you can reduce the amount of information a website gets the best way to fight it completely is to disable JavaScript which makes most websites unusable and this also means that the less users your web browser has the easiest it is websites to fingerprint you because you're not one of the millions of chrome users on a MacBook Pro you're the one gnome web user on Rockstar OS running on a 10 year old ThinkPad so Chrome is the most used browser in the world on mobile and on desktop it's ubiquitous but for privacy it's definitely not one of the best choices which shouldn't be surprising as Google's entire business model is based on you giving them the biggest amount of data possible and yes it's ironic to say that in a YouTube video but talking about privacy on a platform where everyone's system is already so hardened they can't even click their Mouse is not going to do any good to anyone so Chrome out of the box doesn't have an ad blocker or a Tracker blocker enabled to use that browser to the fullest you will also need to use a Google account and thus everything you do in your browser will be collected unless you specifically disable it by default Chrome collects a user ID and a device ID plus location data browsing history Telemetry and even financial information and that data is linked to the rest of the data Google already has as about you although it's important to point out that if you don't use a Google account to sync your stuff then this data stays stored locally now you can disable a lot of things in your Google account and the web browser settings but you will need to download extensions to block the most invasive trackers and to limit fingerprinting Chrome is also not open source so you have to trust Google that they don't actually collect some stuff that they don't tell you about and seeing that they're very regularly find enormous amounts of money for doing exactly that I personally would not trust them very much now on privacytests.org we can also see that Chrome has pretty weak fingerprinting resistance since it lets website consult the various properties of how you display them they also don't block the major tracking scripts or pixels by default or advertising cookies either so Chrome is very obviously and earned surprisingly not a good choice for being private like you can disable a lot of stuff and you can install extensions to block the major trackers but if you use a Google account to sync your data then you're basically forfeiting any privacy now Firefox has a good reputation for privacy but it's not the best choice either by default it doesn't collect anything apart from some Telemetry data including how many tabs you have open how many windows how many web pages you visit the number and type of extensions the duration of your browsing sessions and some technical data on your OS the version of your browser the language and your IP address in their server logs okay so they do collect a lot of data but it's all anonymized and you can disable all of it in the settings but still it's on by default which really sucks if you use a Firefox account to sync your data between devices they will also get your email address and your age in terms of protections Firefox doesn't block tracking scripts or pixels but it does block social media trackers cross-site cookies crypto Miners and all tracking when you're in incognito mode Firefox is open source so you can be reasonably sure that it doesn't collect more than what it tells you they do say they block fingerprinting but as shown in the privacytest.org charts it falls short at least in terms of denying the website access to the screen properties of your device which are used by many websites to try and recognize you so you'll need to install extensions like for example u-block origin to block ads and trackers and you'll also need to dig deep into the about config page to disable more stuff related to fingerprinting now if you like Firefox but you don't want the Telemetry and you want improved fingerprinting and tracking protection then there's Libra wolf it blocks the same things as Firefox but doesn't send data to anyone it replaces Google by a more private search engine it includes ublock origin by default and it's also hardened against tracking URLs it is a very good browser that all privacy-minded Firefox users should probably move to and yes that includes myself but let's move on to something that clearly focuses on privacy Brave they offer a lot of what you would be able to do in another browser with extensions but it does so out of the box they call these shields and they block ads trackers fingerprinters and cross-site cookies by default they also Auto redirect Google's amp pages to the real website and they redirect tracking URLs so you're not even visiting the tracking domain at all Brave also blocks LinkedIn embedded posts and has options to block Facebook logins or embedded tweets which also track you even if you never click on them or visit Twitter or Facebook but these aren't blocked by default and I don't know why because they are clearly not an integral part of the content like if the article you're reading is based exclusively on an embedded tweet then it's probably not worth reading now Brave does send daily usage data data to the apparent company but it's all anonymized you can disable that in the settings as well so same deal as with Firefox Brave also uses Tor to hide your IP address when using private browsing and they also use their own search engine by default instead of using Google like most other web browsers so even your searches online will be private as Brave search doesn't collect any personal data or IP addresses Brave search does have ads though hey since no one wants to pay for a web browser you do have to make money in some kind of way at some point Brave blocks tracking scripts pixels cookies and prevents websites from accessing your screen's properties so it's also relatively resistant to fingerprinting on privacytest.org it's one of the best at least relative to the test that they run and sure you can replicate most if not all of what Brave does on other browsers but with brave it's here by default the only thing that I personally don't like about Brave is their involved movement in the crypto world but that's subjective and that will be up to you now the ultimate private browser is probably Tor Browser but it won't be for everyone Tor is a network of relays through which your traffic passes randomly before reaching the website you're trying to access your request is encrypted multiple times and each relate decrypts one layer of the URL before passing it to the next the first relay does get your IP address but no other information and the other relays after that don't know anything about you at all it's basically like a VPN but you're routing your information through multiple servers so none of the relays has all the information about your request all at once where with a VPN they do Tor Browser blocks everything that the website might want to learn about you so there's no tracking at all and no fingerprinting but ads aren't blocked and extensions designed to block them might not work properly it's based on Firefox so it could install any Firefox extension but the Tor project recommends against it tall browser by default doesn't store any browsing history and cookies are deleted at the end of the session since the traffic passes through three relays it's also a lot slower than browsing with a more mainstream browser Tor virtually hides everything about you your location or your device but you have to sacrifice some convenience which is generally the case when you want to stay private it's a trade-off between convenient something super easy but you're tracked everywhere or something where you have to jump through hoops but your data isn't being sold to anyone I personally like Hoops now just for a laugh we'll talk about Microsoft Edge Edge is based on chromium the base for Chrome but they remove everything Google related from it to mostly replace it with Microsoft related things like a Microsoft account Edge by default has an opt out for Telemetry it will block trackers from some third party sites and some air trackers as well it also collects required diagnostic data that you cannot opt out of if you use a Microsoft account you will also give them a bunch of data in the process including device information usage data browsing activity bookmarks and More in its default configuration Edge is exactly like Chrome but it does block more major tracking cookies including all of Google's well why would you give your main competitor any data right they don't block The Trackers from Bing ads though you can disable everything here except for the required Telemetry so in the end Edge is no better or worse than Chrome it's basically the same but you're giving your data to Microsoft instead of Google Now Opera is yet another chromium based browser which gets the worst results on privacytests.org it has a unique fingerprint it doesn't block tracking scripts or tracking pixels any doesn't resist fingerprinting really well it also doesn't remove tracking parameters and it doesn't block the major tracking cookies it doesn't send do not track signals by default either their privacy policy also states that they might share personal data with third parties which can be worrying as Opera has been bought by your Chinese Consortium in 2016 which by Chinese law will be required to provide all collected data to the Chinese government so you might not be comfortable with that even though we don't know if Opera sends them this data or not in shorts do not use Opera if you care about privacy you don't know what kind of data it collects or who they send it to it's not open source so you cannot check and it doesn't have adequate protections from tracking out of the box Vivaldi is also a chromium-based browser with a proprietary user interface on top of the main open source components at first start it will ask you what you want to block and since we're talking about privacy here I will assume everyone here will click the block trackers and ads setting with that setting turned on Vivaldi will resist fingerprinting it will block tracking scripts and pixels and tracking cookies as well but it won't remove tracking parameters from URLs it's not perfect it's better than Firefox or Chrome or Edge but it's not as good as Brave in that regard Vivaldi doesn't collect any data any browsing history or anything else even if you use a Vivaldi account because everything is encrypted in there Vivaldi isn't fully open source though so you will have to trust them on that their business model is built on search engines paying them to appear in the browser and bookmarks being added to your speed dial but not on data collection so it should be reasonably safe here Vivaldi is a good choice for privacy if you trust them since they are not fully open source it's on you to decide if you trust the company or not so what should you choose here well it depends on your browser usage for normal browsing that's fluid fast and lets you retain login information across browsing sessions I would say Brave and Vivaldi are your best options they don't collect any data they block most Strikers and are pretty good at resisting fingerprinting of course most other browsers can be raised to that same level of protection but Brave and Vivaldi do that out of the box if you want the absolute best protection available then go with store browser coupled with a VPN you trust ideally a self-hosted one it's not bulletproof nothing is but you will definitely be safe from tracking since websites have no idea where you really are what device you're using and these browsers don't collect any form of telemetry and they have pretty good cookie isolation too as always with privacy it's a matter of trust and a trade-off between convenience and privacy today's sponsor though comes with no trade-offs if you're a linear user and your computer is due for replacement stop buying devices that were made to run Windows and try to retrofit Linux on top of it by something that was made to support Linux from tuxedo they have a big range of devices that cover basically every need and every price point from small Ultrabooks to Giant workstations or gaming laptops they have a ton of stuff and plenty of configuration option for every single one of their devices all the laptops are openable repairable and upgradable and they're based in Germany but they ship to most countries in the world and while they only offer a selection of distros that can come pre-installed on their laptops you can also just install any distro you want because the hardware has been picked specifically because it works well with Linux so if you need a new computer and you plan to run Linux on it stop buying Windows devices click the link in the description below and get yourself a tuxedo PC so thanks everyone for watching the video I hope you enjoyed it if you did don't hesitate to like to subscribe to turn on notifications or to write a comment and if you didn't like the video well you can always dislike it and tell me why in the comments as well and if you really enjoyed the channel and you want to help me make more of these videos I left plenty of links to support it in the description you know the drip so thanks everyone for watching and I guess you'll see me in the next one bye foreign [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Linux Experiment

Views: 49,705

Keywords: linux, open source, linux help, linux tutorial, linux 2023, linux tips, distro, linux for beginners 2023, linux tutorial 2023, linux vs windows, best web browser, best browser, secure browser, most secure browser, web browser, what is the most secure browser, most secure web browsers, google chrome, most secure browser for mac, most secure web browser 2023, private browser, best web browser for privacy, brave, vivaldi, opera, firefox, librewolf, microsoft edge, tor browser

Id: k8hUs0W-UWY

Length: 17min 7sec (1027 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 21 2023