Battle Chromium vs Google Chrome vs Brave Browser - Which One is Best?

[SearchLight]

I read a couple of posts on this site about secure and private browsing. Some have mentioned that Chromium stable(from the woolys site) is better than Google Chrome because it is vanilla Chrome without calling home. Others like Brave until they started to insert ads of their own.

Is Chromium Stable the best choice of these three in terms of privacy? Clarification would be appreciated.

As an aside, no one refers to SRware Iron Browser supposedly a Chromium derivative. Not advised? Thanks.

 

[TairikuOkami]

I think most people are just worried about hiding certain browsing habits that are publicly embarrassing.

Considering that many people lost their jobs or friends because of their hobbies going public, who can blame them, even when those hobbies were legal.

Sometimes those habits are at the edge of legality and it is better to be safe than sorry, ISPs are bound by the law to report suspicious activities. When I ordered some "stuff", I was worried, it might be stopped at customs. No one would like to be brought in for questioning and keeping it on record. I once ordered opium incense sticks from Bhutan for relaxation, too late I have realized, I was lucky not to get arrested, because it was not just the aroma.

 

[ForgottenSeer 55474]

Hey, I don't think there is a big difference between those 3, so I will stick with Google Chrome.

 

[SeriousHoax]

For all the folks who use google search, use Android smartphones, use gmail, google maps, google photos, etc google related free/paid services, it's probably better just to use Google Chrome also. Why distribute your data among everybody, give your data only to google
Btw, this is how some of my friends thinks. They trust google more than any other company. Like I said, without google we wouldn't have cheap smartphones, gmail, google maps, free unlimited photo storage with google photos etc. Google revolutionized internet, made it available to everybody so they feel thankful to google and if google provide them with better services by collecting some data then they don't mind. Google also let you delete your data connected to your account. There are many people who think like that and frankly no one should blame them. Everybody has the right to choose what they want, which company they trust over another because more or less everyone is collecting data from you. I see logic in not trusting google as well as logic in trusting them over others.

 

[mlnevese]

To be quite sincere keeping yourself anonymous on the Internet is basically impossible. If someone with the resources is trying to track you, they'll find you. I read a report a short time ago on how AI tools were able to track anonymized Internet traffic back to its source in 90% of the tests.

Now the best you can hope is to make it harder for advertisers but that's as far as it will go.

An interesting read for anyone interested:

You’re very easy to track down, even when your data has been anonymized

A new study shows you can be easily re-identified from almost any database, even when your personal details have been stripped out.

www.technologyreview.com

AI Knows a Lot About 'Anonymous' Data Feeds—How Do We Find Out? | Dell

Since artificial intelligence is smart enough to correlate "anonymous" personal data, how much privacy do we really have?

www.delltechnologies.com

 

[blackice]

For all the folks who use google search, use Android smartphones, use gmail, google maps, google photos, etc google related free/paid services, it's probably better just to use Google Chrome also. Why distribute your data among everybody, give your data only to google
Btw, this is how some of my friends thinks. They trust google more than any other company. Like I said, without google we wouldn't have cheap smartphones, gmail, google maps, free unlimited photo storage with google photos etc. Google revolutionized internet, made it available to everybody so they feel thankful to google and if google provide them with better services by collecting some data then they don't mind. Google also let you delete your data connected to your account. There are many people who think like that and frankly no one should blame them. Everybody has the right to choose what they want, which company they trust over another because more or less everyone is collecting data from you. I see logic in not trusting google as well as logic in trusting them over others.

Agreed, and google doesn’t want to hurt their business just like ISPs don’t, by exposing people’s private browsing habits publicly. Based on the metrics a lot of people are viewing adult material and/or torrenting. They aren’t going to expose the majority of their user base it’s bad for business. But I’m writing this from an American perspective. If things being done are illegal here, or elsewhere, or there are borderline legalities involved I understand the concern.

 

[SeriousHoax]

Agreed, and google doesn’t want to hurt their business just like ISPs don’t, by exposing people’s private browsing habits publicly. Based on the metrics a lot of people are viewing adult material and/or torrenting. They aren’t going to expose the majority of their user base it’s bad for business. But I’m writing this from an American perspective. If things being done are illegal here, or elsewhere, or there are borderline legalities involved I understand the concern.

Right. I think unless something is specially demanded by the government companies like google won't expose anything. They have nothing to gain from that.

 

[blackice]

So everyone can do their ‘fun’ image searching in peace, using the best search engine.
But seriously, as much as I try alternatives google gives the most effective results when I’m searching.

 

[mlnevese]

For images Yandex usually give me better results...

 

[SeriousHoax]

So everyone can do their ‘fun’ image searching in peace, using the best search engine.
But seriously, as much as I try alternatives google gives the most effective results when I’m searching.

True. I used Duckduckgo and startpage almost exclusively for 2 years but sometimes they totally failed to find what I'm looking for if it was something not so common even though startpage uses google. But when I search the same thing on google it always comes up something and for common searches, like you said google gives the most effective results.

 

[ForgottenSeer 85179]

Google give the best results as it's analyze every data it get. That's just their business.

Also even if Google isn't privacy friendly, they always build secure Software (e.g. chrome) and hardware (e.g. Pixel's)

 

[valvaris]

Me using Edge Chromium (Private and Corp.) - Out of the benefit of SSO (Single Sign On) with Microsoft Online Services, Like O365 - Azure and more... - The other reason is Application Guard but can be used with other Browsers as well. - Since I already have a Microsoft (Private and Corp. Account) my Bookmarks and Settings follow me around and is super easy to use. As Extensions: 1Password - Ublock (Advanced Mode) - Random UserAgent more for webdev. things then for Privacy but can be used both ways.

 

[The_King]

Does anyone know if the issues with regards to privacy with the Edge browser were resolved since this article was published last year?

Windows 10 Privacy Warning As Edge Browser Data Issue Is Confirmed

You may want to switch from the Windows 10 default Edge web browser after security researchers reveal the extent of data that is sent back to Microsoft.

www.forbes.com

Windows 10 SmartScreen Sends URLs and App Names to Microsoft

Over the weekend, privacy concern were raised regarding how Microsoft Edge is uploading the URLs to SmartScreen. After further testing by BleepingComputer, we learned that Windows 10 also transmits a great deal of potentially sensitive information about your applications to SmartScreen when you...

www.bleepingcomputer.com

I have been using all 3 browsers in this thread and feel Brave is the best overall.

 

[Arequire]

Does anyone know if the issues with regards to privacy with the Edge browser were resolved since this article was published last year?

They haven't. They claim that doing real-time URL checking allows them to have the freshest dataset and thus provide superior protection to end users.

 

[SeriousHoax]

Does anyone know if the issues with regards to privacy with the Edge browser were resolved since this article was published last year?

Windows 10 Privacy Warning As Edge Browser Data Issue Is Confirmed

You may want to switch from the Windows 10 default Edge web browser after security researchers reveal the extent of data that is sent back to Microsoft.

www.forbes.com

Windows 10 SmartScreen Sends URLs and App Names to Microsoft

Over the weekend, privacy concern were raised regarding how Microsoft Edge is uploading the URLs to SmartScreen. After further testing by BleepingComputer, we learned that Windows 10 also transmits a great deal of potentially sensitive information about your applications to SmartScreen when you...

www.bleepingcomputer.com

I have been using all 3 browsers in this thread and feel Brave is the best overall.

Chromium-based Microsoft Edge no longer sends SID
The sending of the SID was an odd thing and does not seem to be referenced anywhere in Microsoft's SmartScreen documentation.

The good news is that the new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge no longer sends the SID during a SmartScreen request.

It does, though, continue to send an unhashed URL. That practice will only end if and when Microsoft decides to start hashing the URLs, which probably would require significant code changes across many of their products.

So it doesn't send SID anymore which is great. Sending only the full URLs shouldn't be an issue unless someone is paranoid about privacy. Sending full URLs is definitely beneficial and even Google Chrome has an option now to send full URLs though that's disabled by default.

 

[Stopspying]

True. I used Duckduckgo and startpage almost exclusively for 2 years but sometimes they totally failed to find what I'm looking for if it was something not so common even though startpage uses google. But when I search the same thing on google it always comes up something and for common searches, like you said google gives the most effective results.

Sadly I have to agree with your findings.

 

[blackice]

So it doesn't send SID anymore which is great. Sending only the full URLs shouldn't be an issue unless someone is paranoid about privacy. Sending full URLs is definitely beneficial and even Google Chrome has an option now to send full URLs though that's disabled by default.

You can also turn smartscreen off and use an extension that is more private like Malwarebytes.