Why is Vanadium better than a hardened version of Brave?

matchboxbananasynergy

ve3jlg If you want to set up blocking, you can do that via DNS. Vanadium plans to eventually use Chromium's content filtering engine to implement something similar, but that's not done yet.

poubellier

matchboxbananasynergy I'll try this way. But I hope someday Vanadium will see this being improved. Or Firefox will work to make their Android version as secure as desktop's.
Thank you for your help tho!

Helmic

I've been using the ad and tracker blocking from Mullvad and that works OK. Not as good as uBlock Origin on Android Firefox or Mull or whatever, which can clean up the white space, but it's servicable.

I think the main thing I'm missing is dark mode support. Having most of my OS be a comfortable dark theme (sure do wish we'd get AMOLED configurable as a theme option in AOSP so I didn't have to set it in every app) but then getting flashbanged whenever I need to use the browser is not great in terms of accessibility.

matchboxbananasynergy

Helmic Sites that support it will be in dark mode when you browse to them. If you're using dark mode and go to https://github.com, for example, you'll get the dark mode by default.

[deleted]

Not as efficient as some extensions (some icons are displayed badly), but it's possible to set a dark mode by default in chrome://flags and enable"auto dark mode for web contents".

ve3jlg

[deleted] it's possible to set a dark mode by default in chrome://flags and enable"auto dark mode for web contents".

Fantastic - thanks! I had no idea about this (or the chrome://flags) being a longtime FF user. This will be very useful.

matchboxbananasynergy

This is realistically something that should be supported by sites and not forced by the browser; it's 2023! :P

[deleted]

matchboxbananasynergy
as 2FA, but we'll all be dead before that happens :-/

ve3jlg

matchboxbananasynergy This is realistically something that should be supported by sites and not forced by the browser

Very unlikely to happen soon, if at all. There are tons of sites out there that do not support dark mode at all or you need to log in just to read to enable dark mode, so you are now tracked.

A browser on a Pixel with a LED display should be conveniently supporting, easy user-switchable, lifetime-preserving (for both battery and screen) dark mode in 2023. (I realize that it won't be perfect in some sites.)

Have a look at the general way that IETF standards are mostly developed, and the excellent approach that a receiver should gracefully accommodate flaws in a sender's transmission / protocol sequence.

ve3jlg

matchboxbananasynergy JIT is disabled by default,

What are the observable downsides to this for the user? Slowdown only?

matchboxbananasynergy

ve3jlg In my experience, there hasn't even been any noticeable slowness, really, except for some websites. In those cases, JIT can be selectively enabled for that site on Vanadium.

I've also heard the same about people using Apple's Lockdown Mode which also disables JIT for Safari; you mostly don't notice it, but the benefit in security is significant.

ve3jlg

matchboxbananasynergy In Vanadium's settings > privacy and security, there is an option called "open external links in incognito".

Users should be aware this incognito mode disables screenshots (apparently).

I was trying to make a screenshot today and received the notice "Disabled by admin". I was looking all over my current profile and owner settings to see what I had accidentally changed. I finally clued in that I was in an incognito tab (opened from another app IIRC).

It is a time-wasting, unhelpful message, and the behaviour is not helpful. I use the mode to help protect my privacy, not protect others from my saving of their web page.

Is this configuration part of Vanadium or Chromium?

matchboxbananasynergy

ve3jlg I believe that screenshots being disabled on Vanadium is part of Chromium, not something that Vanadium explicitly added.

billinmtl

Where is the screenshot setting in Vanadium ? I can take screenshots and can't find a setting that enables or disables it ?

matchboxbananasynergy

billinmtl I don't believe it is a setting. If you're in incognito mode, it prevents screenshot. If you're not, you should be able to take a screenshot normally.

billinmtl

Sorry about that - missed that detail in the thread.

matchboxbananasynergy

billinmtl No problem!