treenutz68 I can chime in on this one, Brave makes quite a few pings, most of which are harmless.

-sync-v2.brave.com
-go-updater.brave.com
-componentupdater.brave.com
-variations.brave.com
-a.espncdn.com
-www.instagram.com
-ir.ebaystatic.com
-static.xx.fbcdn.net

This is with all telemetry turned off. It connects to 1st one the most, which makes sense since I use their sync feature. The last 4 are at every start up of the browser which is annoying cause I have top sites turned off but it still pings them.

      PeterG What about Vivaldi? It's a very nice browser, with a big focus on privacy. Also, Brave deals in some sketchy shit, with crypto and AI etc. Would be cautious about Brave.

          Panda-na I would read this before offering that type of advice

          https://vivaldi.com/privacy/browser/

          When you install Vivaldi browser (“Vivaldi”), each installation profile is assigned a unique user ID that is stored on your computer. Vivaldi will send a message using HTTPS directly to our servers located in Iceland every 24 hours containing this ID, version, cpu architecture, screen resolution and time since last message. We anonymize the IP address of Vivaldi users by removing the last octet of the IP address from your Vivaldi client then we store the resolved approximate location after using a local geoip lookup. The purpose of this collection is to determine the total number of active users and their geographical distribution.

              AlphaElwedritsch Can you point to what exactly you are referring to? I have seen this comparison before, and I can't see anything noteworthy negative about Vivaldi.

                mmmm yeah, this is like any other browser/app/service. I'm not really concerned about this. And if you are, just use Vanadium.

                • mmmm replied to this.

                    Panda-na well, thats a potential direct link to you, and to be frank, a browser isn't at all like most apps or services. Most apps or services are specific, a browser is where your whole life can be laid bare.

                    To search I would only rely on a self hosted instance of searx or at a push duckduckgo. To browse I woudn't choose a browser that tells me directly it can work out where I am or who i am uniquely based upon an ID to which I am automatically assigned. They claim to be privacy oriented - but thats the furthest from privacy that there can be.

                      DeletedUser88 I manually removed them during my initial set up but for whatever reason Brave still pings them. I just block them at the DNS level.

                      edit - I had one device where the shortcuts weren't removed, after taking your advice, those pings have stopped!