cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/5572424

This might have been discussed to death by now, unfortunately I couldn’t find any discussion on it on Lemmy. Though I would love to be corrected on that!

How does an always on incognito Chromium with uBlock Origin on medium mode (and other hardening/privacy settings enabled) compare to Brave (with e.g. Privacy Guides’ recommended settings) with respect to security and privacy on Linux[1]?

Commonly heard whataboutisms:

  • “With the looming advent of Manifest v3, this discussion might not be very relevant for long.” I’m aware.
  • “Just use Firefox/Librewolf or any other privacy-conscious browser that isn’t Chromium-based.” I already do, but some websites/platforms don’t play nice on non-Chromium-based browsers due to Google’s monopoly on the web. Sometimes I can afford to not use that website/platform, but unfortunately not always.
  • “Brave’s [insert controversy] makes them unreliable to take services from.” Honestly, I think that if both solutions are as effective that a reason like this might be sufficient to tip the balance in favor of one. Because ultimately this all comes down to trust.
  • "Just use Ungoogled Chromium." Some more knowledgeable people than me advice against it. Though, I’d say I’m open to hear different opinions on this as long as they’re somewhat sophisticated.
  • “Just use [insert another Chromium-based browser].” If it has merits beyond Brave and Chromium with respect to security and privacy, I’ll consider it.

Thanks in advance!

  1. I can be more specific about which distro I prefer using, but I don’t think it matters. I might be wrong though*.
  • @[email protected]English
    6•1 year ago

    Im using Brave as a browser because of the built-in adblocker so the fingerprinting is minimized between users and reduces the attack surface.

    I also love some of the embedded features such as automatically asking to use the way back machine when a website doesn’t load. There’s also too many features that is unneeded such as web 3 wallet stuff and brave rewards, but you can turn it off so it doesn’t distract you.

    Other than that, I just use the Bitwarden extension and it works well.

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      2•1 year ago

      because of the built-in adblocker so the fingerprinting is minimized between users and reduces the attack surface

      First time hearing that, thanks for mentioning that!