When Astian first came around and effectively took over Midori I found the whole process extremely suspicious.
Personally, I can’t see a reason to consider them today in light of other well known and strong options.
Products focused on user privacy
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Website loads trackers from Google, Microsoft, and other third parties.
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Their AstianOS download button doesn’t even work
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These repos are the old pre-takeover ones:
- Desktop WebKitGtk based: GitHub - midori-browser/core: Midori Web Browser - a lightweight, fast and free web browser using WebKit and GTK+
- Android WebView based: GitHub - midori-browser/midori-android: Midori Web Browser - a lightweight, fast and free web browser for Android
- WebView browsers on Android should not be used
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Modern Midori does appear to be a Firefox fork on both desktop and Android
- Desktop version has commit history from Mozilla squashed too: GitHub - goastian/midori-desktop: Official repository code Midori Browser
- Android version is literally the GeckoView reference browser without commit history: GitHub - goastian/midori-android: Midori Browser for Android
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They appear to have a cryptocurrency shitcoin: MITO
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Their search engine has a bunch of blank pages:
- https://astiango[.]co/pages/about-us
- https://astiango[.]co/pages/terms-of-service
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The search engine makes numerous requests to third parties including one VeVe which is a data collection/monetization company that contains full search request/terms
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The search engine appears to literally just embed the Google CSE, but then claim DuckDuckGo is the source?
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Their PMPrivacy browser extension is a fork of AdGuard’s, except again it has commit history stripped: GitHub - goastian/midori-pmprivacy: Midori Protect My Privacy is a multi-browser extension but officially developed for Midori Browser that blocks all advertising and trackers and protects against malware, making web browsing faster and safer.
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Some upcoming VPN, and it too has blank help pages
- https://astian[.]org/features/how-midorivpn-protects-your-privacy/
- https://astian[.]org/features/hide-my-ip-address-with-midorivpn/
- https://astian[.]org/features/midorvpn-a-completely-open-source-vpn/
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Their about page is just lorem ipsum: https://astian[.]org/about-us/
I can keep going, but this just gets worse the more I go.