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Karna ( KarnaSubarna@lemmy.ml )  to Privacy@lemmy.mlEnglish · 3 years ago

Brave to end 'Strict' fingerprinting protection as it breaks websites

www.bleepingcomputer.com

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Brave to end 'Strict' fingerprinting protection as it breaks websites

www.bleepingcomputer.com

Karna ( KarnaSubarna@lemmy.ml )  to Privacy@lemmy.mlEnglish · 3 years ago
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Brave Software has announced plans to deprecate the 'Strict' fingerprinting protection mode in its privacy-focused Brave Browser because it causes many sites to function incorrectly.
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  • Flori ( starflower@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
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    3 years ago

    Your friendly reminder that the Brave CEO is Mozillas old CEO, who was fired from Mozilla for being unapologetically homophobic.

    • BearOfaTime ( BearOfaTime@lemm.ee ) 
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      3 years ago

      So?

      What I care about in this story is the technical issues.

      • BolexForSoup ( BolexForSoup@kbin.social ) 
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        3 years ago

        Then you can not act on it and those of us who care about such things can. Does that bother you?

        • AnonTwo ( AnonTwo@kbin.social ) 
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          3 years ago

          I mean it’s derailed the entire thread so pretty much nobody is talking about the removed feature anymore.

          • BolexForSoup ( BolexForSoup@kbin.social ) 
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            3 years ago

            Are you seriously complaining about different comment threads within a post? That is literally how this works. Anybody who wants to talk about the feature is welcome to. You are not restricted to one thread at a time.

            Be real, you just don’t like the critique of brave.

            • AnonTwo ( AnonTwo@kbin.social ) 
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              I mean, it’s more like I wanted to see more discussion about brave. It’s not even like it’s talking about things the CEO specifically did to the browser, it’s just talking about the CEO.

              And yeah I’m complaining about different threads in a post, when 3 comments are about the browser and like 15 are about the CEO.

              If you have something to say negative about brave from this feature, that’s cool, but I’m not seeing it.

              • BolexForSoup ( BolexForSoup@kbin.social ) 
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                3 years ago

                You are spending more time than anybody discussing this. The person wrote one short comment and here you are going back and forth still. If you want to talk about the removed feature then talk about the removed feature! Nobody stopping you my dude

                • beardown ( beardown@lemm.ee ) 
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                  3 years ago

                  If you’re a real person then you’re very unlikable and antisocial

                  If you’re a shill against Brave then you’re bad at your job. I’m going to check Brave out now because of your offensive and unlikable behavior

              • Umbrias ( Umbrias@beehaw.org ) 
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                3 years ago

                “People want to talk about the things they care about when they should be talking about the things I care about!”

      • YeetPics ( YeetPics@mander.xyz ) 
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      • Flori ( starflower@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
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        3 years ago

        O…kay? I don’t really care lmao

        • AnonTwo ( AnonTwo@kbin.social ) 
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          3 years ago

          Wait why are you on the privacy community when you don’t care about the parts that are specifically related to privacy?

          • Flori ( starflower@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
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            • AnonTwo ( AnonTwo@kbin.social ) 
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              3 years ago

              Uhhh…that’s not a meme, as the other guy said it’s virtue signalling. I don’t even know why you would fallback on it being a meme since people generally agreed with what you said.

              If anything I think that makes you sound like an ass but that’s just me.

              • Flori ( starflower@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
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                3 years ago

                deleted by creator

        • dime ( dime@beehaw.org ) 
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          • Flori ( starflower@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
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            3 years ago

            I don’t. But “originally made by” and “currently being run by” are, in my opinion, two different things

    • Engywook ( Engywuck@lemm.ee ) 
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      He wasn’t fired. He voluntarily left. And thus Mozilla is left with an incompetent CEO whose only aim is to increase her paycheck year after year, despite pathetic market share results for FF. Enjoy that.

      That said, nobody cares about your “friendly remainders”. We’re talking about software here, not politics.

      And, to stay on topic, yes, it happened to me that Strict FP broke some website, in particular those displaying a frame with a map or similar stuff. So I’ve resorted to use “standard” FP myself.

      • Umbrias ( Umbrias@beehaw.org ) 
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        Technology and ethics and politics are not airgapped magically distinct things. Pretending that they are is a strategic political choice you are actively making.

        • Engywook ( Engywuck@lemm.ee ) 
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          3 years ago

          Ok. I’m a bad person because I enjoy using a given browser. I get that.

          Another one that goes on my ignore list. Bye.

          • MrFunnyMoustache ( MrFunnyMoustache@lemmy.ml ) 
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            • Engywook ( Engywuck@lemm.ee ) 
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              3 years ago

              The point is that pretending there is no connection when there is clearly a huge relevance here is massive.

              In the imagination of upvotes-hungry virtue-signaling people, of course.

          • Umbrias ( Umbrias@beehaw.org ) 
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            If that’s what you feel is the case if you don’t separate politics from technology then that sounds like a personal problem to address.

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        • Engywook ( Engywuck@lemm.ee ) 
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          3 years ago

          Yawn… I’m tired of this shit. You people are really ridiculous. I’m going to just block you. Enjoy your cognitive dissonance and your virtue signaling.

          • LWD ( LWD@lemm.ee ) 
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    • electro1 ( electro1@infosec.pub ) 
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  • YeetPics ( YeetPics@mander.xyz ) 
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    • LWD ( LWD@lemm.ee ) 
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      deleted by creator

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      • Mikina ( Mikina@programming.dev ) 
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        3 years ago

        This made me wonder - is there any active Best Of community on any instance? This would be a perfect candidate.

      • moreeni ( moreeni@lemm.ee ) 
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        3 years ago

        You can dig as much shit on Mozilla. Every big browser company right now is shitty

      • Pantherina ( Pantherina@feddit.de ) 
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        3 years ago

        We really need a based privacy-first Chromium fork… something that

        • allows installing addons from a custom source
        • removes everything Google tracking related
        • adds good sync compatible with things like floccus
        • is hardened with switches like MS Edge
        • has a good UI like Firefox
        • restricts fingerprinting by randomizing or blocking many identifiers
    • Pantherina ( Pantherina@feddit.de ) 
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      Their strict protections literally broke sites. Just use noscript and ublock, works way better.

      • YeetPics ( YeetPics@mander.xyz ) 
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        • Pantherina ( Pantherina@feddit.de ) 
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          These comments are rambling piles of garbage.

          • YeetPics ( YeetPics@mander.xyz ) 
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            • Pantherina ( Pantherina@feddit.de ) 
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              3 years ago

              What group?

              • YeetPics ( YeetPics@mander.xyz ) 
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                • Pantherina ( Pantherina@feddit.de ) 
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                  And what sources do you have for these accusitions?

  • tazy ( tazy@lemmy.tazy.xyz ) 
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    fuck brave all my homies hate brave

    • Pantherina ( Pantherina@feddit.de ) 
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      Their strict protections literally broke sites. Just use noscript and ublock, works way better.

    • Pantherina ( Pantherina@feddit.de ) 
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      What would you use then, if Firefox doesnt launch when using hardened_malloc on Linux?

      • unalivejoy ( joyjoy@lemm.ee ) 
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        So we’re shitting on a browser because of a bug reported 2 days ago?

        • Pantherina ( Pantherina@feddit.de ) 
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          I dont know what you want to tell with that, but yes, its long known and that bug is simply newer.

  • Possibly linux ( possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip ) 
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    Honestly you really should be using Firefox.

    • Mikina ( Mikina@programming.dev ) 
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      I’ve been having a pretty good experience with Mullvad, however I don’t hear many people talking about it. I wonder why is that, IIRC it’s being developed with Tor Foundation, and is basically a Tor browser for clear web, and that sounds perfect. So far, I didn’t run into any issues, so is there a catch, or are they just not well enough known yet? Or, maybe people are turned away by their optional VPN?

      • LWD ( LWD@lemm.ee ) 
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        • Mikina ( Mikina@programming.dev ) 
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          I was using LibreWolf before, but I really like the idea of bundling VPN + Browser, and also the way they handle payments - not only is Mullvad VPN kind of cheap, I can just pay with crypto and don’t need any account (kind of - you just generate username that also serves as an password, without any other contact information required).

          But what I like the most about it is the idea of making a browser with the goal of having the same fingerprint between users (as much as possible), and offering it with a VPN - becuase that means that most of other users of the VPN will probably also have the same fingerprint from the browser, so you will blend in with them. I wasn’t really sold on the idea of VPN before that and didn’t use one, but this was what convinced me.

          But tbh I haven’t done much research into the company, or into the effectivness of their implementation. I’m kind of betting on their cooperation with Tor Browser, which should have most of this stuff already figured out. But it’s possible that other browsers are just better at it, I never checked.

          I do however still use LibreWolf for the occasional site that breaks with Mullvad, but it’s not something that happens too often.

          I use(d) the VPN alongside it and found the add-on “hints” regarding the correct DNS settings more frustrating than helpful, too.

          Hmm, I don’t think I’ve ever noticed anything about DNS. I think I’ve actually never click on the browser vpn extension, though :D Is it the encrypted DNS hint?

          EDIT: Found this, apparently it’s doing pretty well https://privacytests.org/

    • ☂️- ( umbrella@lemmy.ml ) 
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      • Possibly linux ( possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip ) 
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        The UI is somewhat clunky and it feels half dead.

        I really wish Mozilla would rethink there business.

        • ☂️- ( umbrella@lemmy.ml ) 
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          • Possibly linux ( possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip ) 
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            With tons if spacing between everything

            • ☂️- ( umbrella@lemmy.ml ) 
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  • moitoi ( moitoi@feddit.de ) 
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    Brave to end ‘Strict’ fingerprinting protection as it breaks owns ad revenue.

    • Pantherina ( Pantherina@feddit.de ) 
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      No it literally breaks sites. I was using Firefox with Arkenfox user.js, basically Torbrowser, and nothing broke unless the site told me “your browser is not supported”. Braves strong defaults broke Github and more.

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        • Pantherina ( Pantherina@feddit.de ) 
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          Not much Brave can do there? I dont know what they did. You are probably better off with UBO and NoScript (both MV2 btw).

          But everyone is escalating about Brave removing a broken feature as if they where getting worse or something. The feature was broken, they removed it. Thats it.

      • AnonTwo ( AnonTwo@kbin.social ) 
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        Was strict the default? I’d assume the standard would be the default.

        I’d imagine if you were using strict you want the sites to break because you absolutely do not want fingerprinting. That kindof restriction usually comes with the breaking being expected.

        • Pantherina ( Pantherina@feddit.de ) 
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          Yes probably. I have no idea what they did though, because Arkenfox / Torbrowser doesnt break anything.

          Noscript and ublock origin are both MV2. But Brave wants to keep supporting MV2.

          So I think they should not try implementing stuff extensions already do better, but at the same time something like this is the only way if they want to also go full MV3 and save themselves a lot of maintenance

  • ZeroHora ( ZeroHora@lemmy.ml ) 
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    Another issue is that Strict mode is used by roughly 0.5% of Brave’s users, with the rest using the default setting, which is the Standard mode.

    How are they getting this data? If it’s with telemetry this data doesn’t seem reliable, I doubt that people who change the fingerprint setting don’t disable telemetry.

    • Umbrias ( Umbrias@beehaw.org ) 
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      Alternatively, lol

  • LainOfTheWired ( LainOfTheWired@lemy.lol ) 
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    I used brave for a while, but left as I felt there was something fishy about them. Seems I was right

    • Pantherina ( Pantherina@feddit.de ) 
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      Their strict protections literally broke sites. Just use noscript and ublock, works way better.

  • const_void ( const_void@lemmy.ml ) 
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    Brave is shite

    • Pantherina ( Pantherina@feddit.de ) 
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      Their strict protections literally broke sites. Just use noscript and ublock, works way better.

  • baud carbon ( bc1@lemmy.l0l.city ) 
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    Whenever people tell me to use Brave, I know they fall for marketing very easily

    • Pantherina ( Pantherina@feddit.de ) 
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      Brave is simply usable Chromium. On GrapheneOS it is not the most secure as it has its own Chromium engine which is not as hardened poorly.

      On Linux it works well with hardened_malloc while Firefox straight up does not run. This is probably because Firefox has memory issues.

      It sucks relying on Chromium as Firefoxes UX is top tier. I have no idea why normies are using Chromium Browsers, they all suck for UX, especially Chrome.

      But on Android and Linux Chromium is very secure, while Firefox is at least questionable.

      Brave sets very weird priorities though, they dont focus on many features people need and instead bloat everything with news or crypto stuff that doesnt even support Monero.

  • Byter ( Byter@lemmy.one ) 
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    I’d ask why they don’t make it optional (I’m not a Brave user) but it seems it was.

    Another issue is that Strict mode is used by roughly 0.5% of Brave’s users, with the rest using the default setting, which is the Standard mode.

    This low percentage actually makes these users more vulnerable to fingerprinting despite them using the more aggressive blocker, because they constitute a discernible subset of users standing out from the rest.

    Given that, I’m inclined to agree with the decision to remove it. Pick your battles and live to fight another day.

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  • Dark_Dragon ( Dark_Dragon@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 
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    I don’t like brave browser from first use. Something seemed off.

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    Damn I didn’t hate on brave before for all the dumb crypto hate, but this is fuuucked

    • Pantherina ( Pantherina@feddit.de ) 
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      Their strict protections literally broke sites. Just use noscript and ublock, works way better.

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