Hey everybody. I’m somewhat new to the field of privacy, but I am eager to learn. Right now I am wondering what mobile web browser to use for everyday activities. I’m running GrapheneOS. Options that often come to mind:
- Tor
- Firefox Focus (= Firefox Klar in German)
- IronFox (formerly Mull Browser)
- Cromite
- Vanadium
I feel like I simply don’t know enough about the underlaying mechanisms to elaborate which might be better and which might be worse. Feel free to teach me!
I tried Tor for a while but it was too clunky and when used in conjunction with a search engine like Mojeek, was unusable. Whatever it was doing in the background made it impossible to search, with most failing due to suspected bot activity.
Using Ironfox now and its a bit better. I agree, the underlying stuff is complex so maybe I dont have as much protection with Ironfox than Tor, but I dont know enough about that to know enough about it, if you get me.
So I read what people are saying in posts like this and make a call based on that. I’m happy that I’m better protected than Chrome etc. so that is enough for now.
Its really SO complex the whole privacy (umbrella term) area, boggles my brain, but I’m thankful for people on here that know more than I do. Appreciate y’all.
Yes, this is the point: Search engines are harvesting YOU and YOUR SEARCH TERMS! TOR prevents that, and they don’t like it.
OTOH, DDG Search and DDG(Onion): https://duckduckgogg42xjoc72x3sjasowoarfbgcmv/ et al., almost always works for me. Startpage and Startpage(Onion), too, but Mojeek and Brave Search show results less often.
I made up my mind years ago to stick to TOR Browser and TOR VPN network for anonymity, privacy, and security regardless of poor response times. Today, I feel that that choice has been vindicated. TOR response times are no worse than they ever were, but response times viewing heavily ad-ridden sites with “normal” browsers have caught up. TOR blocks receiving a lot of ads and tracker folderal that “normal” pages spew out to all comers. It’s just that a handful of search engines — and many and yet more Web sites — will not serve content to TOR’s VPN network. But — You know what? — screw them!
I will admit to using the Chromium browser to retrieve must-have content from sites whose Web-hosting providers block the TOR network because — believe it or not — some of those sites don’t support Firefox. It’s deja vu all over again for those of us who lived through the Netscape Browser Wars.
But if I can’t search for something simple like World Cup Results, without it timing out or blocking a suspected bot, what good is search? It feels sometimes like we are going to have to back to memorising URLs! 🤣
Mojeek in particular I find very challenging. Unless I put in a very specific and multi word search term, I never get close to what I want. And yes, I know I know, thats the point. Google makes it so easy that you only need to think your search term and they give you exactly what you want, but you pay the cost in privacy. If Mojeek is a model for how raw/clean search engines work, then its people that need to change, almost more so than software. We need to be more patient and tolerant, be more specific in our search activities, and keep in mind that its a pain in the hole because we care about our privacy.
Its a big change though, lots of behaviour change required, almost like a detox or rehab, to be unconditioned from the convenience we are accustomed to.
Not everyone has the technical insight level of an IT professional. Thats why I love this community. Most people give you really solid advice. Thanks to everyone at this point!