Just tested the browser. It’s just a rebranded Chromium with Startpage.com as the start page and with some browser icons that have been changed and that’s it. I really thought they could have done things better.
No way we should recommend that over well-established browsers like Brave and Firefox.
I hope they will do things better soon.
Since I don’t have an android device so I can’t test unfortunately if it’s chromium or firefox under the hood. Moreover I have seen their comments and they’re still in beta, so yep I hope they’ll improve in future as this app shouldn’t be recommended in current state to anyone.
I wouldn’t use the app. I would be browsing startpage. com with Tor for any serious privacy/anonymity.
It really pissses me off that Startpage is aggressively saying on all browsers, including Tor, that “You browser might be tracking you” but they ship a browser with ZERO protection against tracking by default (third party cookies on, no ad blockers, etc.) not to talk about fingerprinting protection.
Agreed. This feels like the kind of behavior that puts into doubt everything they state about their search engine - currently one of the recommended ones.
Since they’re clearly making false claims about even easily verifiable facts, who knows what false claims they may be making about things that require ultimately blind trust?
I wonder how well the new Startpage browser does against the new Startpage fingerprinter.
I have no idea what’s going on at their headquarters, but they should end this pattern of prioritizing their wallet over their users’ privacy.
Update on this: its been just shy of 2 weeks since I reached out over mastodon about this and have yet to hear back from startpage. In the mean while, they have still not updated their app. Chrome 123 was released in march 19, and as its the 19th again, it currently means that it is FIVE months behind on security patches…
Rather, concerning to say the least.
Edit: pinged them again here:Blacklight447: "@StartpageSearch Hello Startpage, Its me again! …" - Mastodon
Edit 2: just emailed startpage to a few of their mail addresses, maybe they don’t check their mastodon often?
"Hello REDACTED,
Its been a while since we talked with eachother.
I reached out over Mastodon about a concern with your newly launched app. Its been two weeks since and haven’t heard back, so I am now trying it via this way.
Could you or anyone at startpage care to comment on the following?
Kind regards,
Niek de Wilde."
Kept her name private, privacy and all you know 
Qwant did the same shit with their Firefox fork.
Just a marketing grab.
edit: seems they haven’t pushed sources either since March despite releasing an update in July, nice MPL compliance there
Do you think some users actually are tricked?
And could it be beneficial if some users are using Chrome ?
At this point you should leave any hope that they will reply. They won’t. It’s proprietary with no privacy benefits.