My question is why would tor or mullvad choose to use Firefox as base rather than chrome? Since it seems that chrome is stronger from a security standpoint. Plus since most people use chrome it seems like it would be easier to hide in the crowd. Anyone understand their logic?

    goslife It’s basically just an artifact of history. The Tor Browser was first released in January 2008, and the Chromium Project started in September 2008. It would take a tremendous amount of work to transfer all their privacy work to a new web browser engine.

      • [deleted]

      Lot of negative feedback here not sure why... I like the browser. The anti-fingerprint works great out of the box. The browser will upgrade automatically compared to Librewolf which doesn't.

      It is a convenient way, for less tech people to be more privacy aware on the web.

        kopolee11 gotcha. But for mullvad I would have thought starting with something like vandalum since they are brand new but I guess its prob just marketing and easier to use TB recognition

        OpSecJunkrat

        To add on to this, the reason the Tor Browser is effective against fingerprinting is because there's buckets of users using Tor Browser that look almost equivalent. Note on the word "almost", if you do nothing at all, you are unique. What TB and by extension what Mullvad does is have groups of users who look very very similar.

        Overall, there is simply no better tool than using Tor Browser to fight advanced fingerprinting. Mullvad is based off of the Tor Browser, sure, but until it has an actual userbase, you're still probably going to be identifiable.

        The problem I see with Tor in many countries is that it's very hard to avoid being victimized for it. Something unrelated happens in your area, and you get instant suspicion, a knock on your door, harassment, etc. Has not happened to me personally because I do not use Tor, but I have witnessed it.

        I've heard suggestions to live in a Tor-only commune of dozens or hundreds for safety / anonymity in a crowd, but it's very impractical for most.

        Seems like the mullvad browser is trying to advertise itself as the missing middle? Not as extreme as Tor, not as basic as vanilla Firefox?

        I'm having trouble distinguishing Librewolf from Mullvad browsers myself, although I am not very knowledgeable.

        a month later

        After testing both Librewolf and Mullva Browser in coveryourtracks.eff.org it appears that Mullvad Browser conveys 15.4 bits of identifying information as compared with Librewolf, which has 17.72 bits.

        When comparing with amiunique.org, both browsers are showing up as being unique.

        Does Chromium offer similar bowser anti-fingerprinting measures as Librewolf or Mullvad Browser? It seems as though there is greater confidence from an exploit mitigation standpoint, but what about fingerprint resist features?