As the title says, I need a Non-Brave/Non-Bromite Chromium based browser that has a good track record of privacy and security.
Why not Brave? Because of its past controversies and because it does not spoof as much data as Bromite does (including Timezones).
Why not Bromite? The lead dev stepped down (according to a random guy on github) and the current latest version is two major versions behind upstream Chromium release.
What about Firefox? I already have Firefox Beta as my primary browser, I need a secondary Chromium based browser because they are faster and more secure on Android.
We recommend Brave. Brave has had their problems but you can disable all those things just fine. Spoofing your timezone is not going to stop fingerprinting, that is a fairy tale. If that is your threat model you should seek other methods.
I see that I have to download F-Droid to add a repository on it. Privacy Guides currently recommends against using F-Droid. Any other means of obtaining the browser?
Well, it at least reduces the fingerprinting (I think) to a certain degree. A person browsing the internet with different IP addresses but the same Timezone will be easier to fingerprint than a person browsing the Internet with different IP addresses and Timezone complimenting those IP’s.
But, you are correct that these two will not defeat fingerprinting, however they can at least somewhat reduce it.
Sorry it really does not. It’s just one attribute and it will not make a difference really. Using a less used browser like Mulch will likely only make you more unique than using Brave with your timezone.
Since the thread was already necro’ed: @UnscheduledRapidDisassembly
For context, at the time this was written, Bromite was only dead for 2 months.
And Cromite didn’t really have frequently builds, or even that name yet.
Its one tool and should be used accordingly. I also read somewhere on this forum (but i dont have a link so take this with a grain of salt) that it only teats base configuration, not with any changed settings, so it would seem like only using it to evaluate browsers would be short sighted.
Like who? (I’m genuinely asking, not a rhetorical question), I’ve personally never seen Vivaldi recommended by anyone I’d consider an expert and definitely not in security circles, but it may just be a blind spot on my part).
What were their technical reasons for recommending it?
In your eyes (or theirs) what are some of the selling points of Vivaldi? Why would one use Vivaldi over other Chromium based Browsers?
My impression is that ther is no ‘gold standard’ when it comes to this kind of test, and that you can gain useful info from these tests but results should not be generalized or given too much weight.
The most important caveat with that test you need to keep in mind is that it tests default browser configurations not browsers. So general purpose browsers that are pre-configured for a broader userbase will score lower than a super niche browser configured for us privacy purists. But that doesn’t mean the general browser is less private or less secure, just that it has more relaxed defaults out of the box.
Only one of your sources would be considered somewhat reliable (the 3rd one), the first one openly says they get compensation for reviews at the bottom of the page, the second is a random VPN provider’s blog, and the last one is a publication owned by the same media org that owns Tom’s Hardware, Android Central, PCGamer and so on.
Don’t just believe random SEO’d websites because they’re almost certainly going to be questionable at best.