Vanadium and what to use on desktop

defcon42

I ditched all Chromium browsers years ago and i still don't trust them. Vanadium is an exception, but it is an unmatched transparent and hardened version of Chromium.
Before GOS, i have been using Firefox on all of my devices. With GOS, i am stuck with Vanadium - in this case a good thing - but what do you use on your desktop systems? And how do you store/sync bookmarks or passwords with different browsers without weakening the security that comes with GOS?

router99

defcon42 Brave might be the least invasive and most widely used of the Chromium-based browsers. I've been happy with it on desktop/laptop. I'm not sure which Firefox alternative is best because it seems like there are many and many opinions on each of them. Every alternative seems to get trashed by people in some way, so I never know what to think.

Zoanoid

Try IceCat if you want to control each JavaScript on any web page. IceCat is built on the same kernel as Mozilla Firefox, which is why it resembles this browser not only regarding the functions it offers, but also the interface.

Privacy protection features
LibreJS: GNU LibreJS aims to address the JavaScript problem described in Richard Stallman's article The JavaScript Trap.
JShelter: Mitigates potential threats from JavaScript, including fingerprinting, tracking, and data collection. Slightly modifies the results of API calls, differently on different domains, so that the cross-site fingerprint is not stable. Applies security counter-measures that are likely not to break web pages. Allows fine-grained control over the restrictions and counter-measures applied to each domain.
Fingerprinting countermeasures: Fingerprinting is a series of techniques allowing to uniquely identify a browser based on specific characterisics of that particular instance (like what fonts are available in that machine). Unlike cookies, the user cannot opt-out of being tracked this way; so the browser has to avoid giving away these kinds of hints.

defcon42 And how do you store/sync bookmarks or passwords with different browsers without weakening the security that comes with GOS?

Is it impossible with FireFox browsers? I have never used this option.

AcidDemon

defcon42 I recently sorted my bookmarks to store them on a third party app outside the browser. Raindrop was my choice because it's on the market for a long time and offers many functions in their free plan. The only thing I'm missing is E2EE.

TRoy

defcon42 Personally I always used Mullvad Browser, I think is the best if you want a privacy-focused browser. About store/sync bookmarks and password, I always opted to keep this things offline, I don't trust the service that some browser provides. If I want to transfer a some bookmarks or passwords I always opted to encrypt the file with Cryptomator, upload to Proton Drive, download the encryption file on the other device I want to, and decrypt the file.

Rizzler

Pure Chromium is the closest in security. Brave is the better choice for privacy/anti-fingerprinting.

Scott

Zoanoid Try IceCat if you want to control each JavaScript on any web page. IceCat is built on the same kernel as Mozilla Firefox, which is why it resembles this browser not only regarding the functions it offers, but also the interface.

Wikipedia writes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_IceCat)

GNU IceCat, formerly known as GNU IceWeasel,[3] is a completely free version of the Mozilla Firefox web browser distributed by the GNU Project. It is compatible with Linux, Windows, Android and macOS.[4]

brew search --cask IceCat
==> Casks
licecap

I can't find a macOS IceCat port

I am interested in testing LibreJS and other plugins that block non-free JS.

That's not user friendly :-(

Downloads

The IceCat project does not currently distribute binaries, but the GNU Guix package manager can be used to install IceCat on GNU/Linux systems based on 64-bit AMD/Intel processors.

Guix can also be used to build IceCat source tarballs that are suitable for building IceCat natively for other operating systems.

If you don't use Guix and would like to use IceCat, you could consider maintaining an IceCat package for your distribution. On any POSIX system, IceCat source tarballs can be generated from the corresponding Firefox ESR sources using the scripts available in the Git repository of GNUzilla.

AlphaElwedritsch

Or use floccus if you have a NC

AlphaElwedritsch

If you don’t want any trouble and want to be safe, then take Brave

epileptic055

Bookmarks are all via linkding for me, I can access via addon, app on phone or local site.
Passwords is a self hosted bitwarden.
GOS I use Vanadium, desktops its a mixture of Brave / FF depending on OS, I'm slowly switching to Mullvad browser however.

mmmm

epileptic055 can i ask what app do you use with linkding please?

epileptic055

mmmm https://github.com/fibelatti/pinboard-kotlin

Hb1hf

defcon42 on desktop, Mullvad Browser (which is Tor Browser + uBlock - Tor routing) and Brave.

fxnn

Probably hardened-chromium by secureblue. As the name implies, it's a hardened version of chromium with a focus on security. It's inspired by Vanadium, uses hardened_malloc and inherits many Vanadium patches. It's only officially supported on secureblue tho.

DeletedUser95

Scott

First off sorry to everyone for being a bit off topic from the original post!

I believe these plugins you are mentioning that are extensions are openly available to any Firefox based browser. Not quite sure about chromium sadly.

Either way I trust you know about Firefox's security issues so if you still want to try it out ↓

Reference links:
https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/librejs/

Hb1hf

[unknown] Firefox requires a lot of tweaking to become more private and less insecure. Take a look at https://github.com/arkenfox.
But Arkenfox is too much trouble, it's easier to just use Mullvad Browser instead.

bayesian

Secureblue's hardened-chromium. Unfortunately Firefox is very subpar yo chromium security-wise

DeletedUser33

Personally I use two web browsers:

Hardend Brave: for general webbrowsing
Hardend-chromium by SecureBlue: I use this for accounts compartmentalized with profiles.

Another great browser would be Mullvad Browser, because of it has great anti-fingerprinting protection.
Even better so than Brave, but sadly it lacks in security because of the lackluster site isolation for example.
Cromite might also be interesting, as it is also available on Linux and has a built-in adblock like Brave.
But the same situations as with Bromite could Bromite arise.
Since Bromite stopped getting updates, because of it's small team.

The issue is that web browser in the current day are not ideal, but these seem the best options in my eyes currently.

Dumdum

DeletedUser33 Cromite might also be interesting, as it is also available on Linux and has a built-in adblock like Brave.

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/10550-mull-hardened-firefox-security/36
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/16562-browser-mulch-vs-cromite/10

DeletedUser33

Dumdum

Thanks for the extra context!