• [deleted]

Hey all.

I've seen conflicted opinions on what is the best desktop browser. I know that on GOS it's Vanadium.

Anyone got any suggestions or insights?

Thanks!

Just use the default browser that comes with your OS. Most linux distribution comes with Firefox, Windows with Edge, and Macbook with Safari. They are not the best, but good for being a typical user in the middle of the crowd. If you are searching for something arguably the best - maybe Qubes-Whonix could be the answer.

Brave for best security + good privacy
Mullvad browser (with mullvad vpn) for best privacy (while still being usable and not stuck in captcha hell)
Tor for best privacy overall

    Chromium based browsers have the strongest sandbox implementation among desktop browsers (also on mobile). Firefox is far less secure in this regard. In fact, you have to distinguish between privacy and security - which is more important to you? If you do not trust anything Google then you might prefer to stay away from chromium based browsers even though that might put you in a less secure position, browser wise. Brave and arguably Vivaldi, both chromium based browsers, are solid choices for standard users, I guess.

    If privacy is paramount to you, you might prefer the Tor Browser or other projects that focus on exactly this one thing - privacy with a clear strategy in mind.

    Further reading:

    Personally I like the suggestions and in-depth analysis of the German IT-security and -privacy blog https://www.kuketz-blog.de
    The author has a whole series about desktop and mobile browsers regarding data sending behavior and privacy. His current recommendations are Brave, LibreWolf and Mullvad-Browser:
    https://www.kuketz-blog.de/browser-welche-ich-aktuell-auf-dem-desktop-nutze/

    With following adjustments:
    https://www.kuketz-blog.de/einstellungen/#brave-desktop

    Out of the box, Brave has the best defaults when it comes to decent privacy (disclaimer: privacytests.org is made by a Brave developer, but provides good insights into measures that browsers can take for increased privacy).

    Firefox needs a lot of tweaking (https://ffprofile.com [watch out, it may set network.cookie.cookieBehavior to 1, while the reasoanble default is 5] or even https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js). Using uBlock Origin is a must on Firefox imho, but can also improve the experience on Brave (as long as it supports Manifest v2), especially with the Medium mode, and due to its uncloaking of CNAMEs.

    As such, I'd recommend using:

    1. Brave if you don't want to dive into settings, optionally with uBlock Origin
    2. Mullvad Browser to get a Firefox setup as close to Tor Browser aas possible but for daily use
    3. Or LibreWolf to not have a commercial company behind the browser you use and one that basically adheres to the same ideals of Mullvad Browser

    Edit: Great, I was 4 minutes late, I guess this is now a +1 for @manugraph and some useful links 😛

    @missing-root Our site's information on this is not outdated or biased... and the linked content from a third party is largely still relevant despite lack of maintenance.

      FunnyDuck Brave for best security

      Huh? How so? Edge has Enhanced Security, Brave has no such counterpart.

      • [deleted]

      Huh so it seems to be Brave. I'm surprised FireFox has some drawbacks, but I guess they all do to some degree. Thanks for your feedback everyone! :)

        [deleted] Firefox has also been a lot in the news lately; mostly since they bought that ad company and made some questionable decisions regarding HR and upper management. But frankly, they're known to act that way since a few years already.

        Fwiw, my favourite webbrowser for desktop (win, lin, mac) and mobile (android, ios) is Vivaldi (https://vivaldi.com/)
        Safe & secure, no tracing, no ads, no AI, no bitcoin, lots of personalisation, lots of functionality.

          Stephan-P I honestly never get why people would go for Vivaldi:

          • It's only partly open-source (the Chromium bit, not whatever they've built on top of it), which makes it pretty much impossible to track the development properly.
          • Vivaldi seems to have no additional hardening (privacy or security wise) whatsoever (https://privacytests.org - apparently, the built-in ad blocker is disabled by default, so this might influence the results on this website)
          • Google's Safe Browsing is enabled by default, which makes connections to Google, but it seems they do at least only fetch a list to be processed locally, i.e. they won't telephone every site you visit to Google.
          • Navigation errors are all resolved by Google's DNS
          • They claim they "value privacy", but other than disabling part of Safe Browsing, there's nothing to be found about that: Chromium isn't "ungoogled" whatsoever, easy patches to mitigate privacy issues aren't listed, let alone applied, and last time I checked there is nothing other than https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/privacy/privacy-settings/ to be found about their interest in privacy. On forums and Reddit, it looks like not many Vivaldi users are interested in this aspect, either. They just want infinite customizability.

          Their response:

          So I'd say, Vivaldi is pretty good regarding privacy, and the rest is tin foil hat territory.
          https://reddit.adminforge.de/r/browsers/comments/swgi5s/how_is_vivaldis_privacy_and_security/hxm9us4/?context=3#hxm9us4

          I don't know what to think of that...

            GrapheneOS the linked content from a third party is largely still relevant despite lack of maintenance.

            Definitely still relevant. Every once in a while I open Madaidan's article and click on the Bugzilla issues he links. Last time was last week, and they're almost all of them still open.

            FunnyDuck Brave for best security + good privacy
            Mullvad browser (with mullvad vpn) for best privacy (while still being usable and not stuck in captcha hell)
            Tor for best privacy overall

            I'd second this, with two notes:

            • MB has JIT disabled by default. Brave doesn't and it's really hard to change it (in a Mac at least, I couldn't do it)
            • even though it makes you more fingerprintable (which totally defeats the purpose btw), you can use MB's with uBO in hard mode, and you'd be surprised with how much you can browse without JS and still have sites be functional (however ugly). Brave doesn't have a mechanism for saving per-site JS preferences, so it's not something you can do for daily use.

            SovereignCopper I honestly never get why people would go for Vivaldi:

            It's a trust thing and about being happy with the choices you make even if they may not be perfect. Perfect is a Utopia.

              Stephan-P Is it? If by trust you mean trusting/trustful as in "I like Vivaldi as a product and now I am inclined to believe the claims or statements from them", I suppose so. I am vulnerable to such thinking as well.

              But if I look at the raw facts, there's nothing explicitly privacy-minded about the entire operation that's Vivaldi, other than their rhetoric. And that's too bad, because I love the interface features and I'd really love to use their mail client instead of Betterbird/Thunderbird.