Hmm, Brave browser (on mobile)? I thought that Brave is generally dismissed because of their silly crypto stuff, affiliate link controversy, and their CEO’s poor stances on, well, lots of things. Any other mobile browser recommendations?
Otherwise, there are some omissions (Mullvad VPN) but this looks like a great list. Thanks for sharing.
Avoid Gecko-based browsers like Firefox as they’re currently much more vulnerable to exploitation and inherently add a huge amount of attack surface. Gecko doesn’t have a WebView implementation (GeckoView is not a WebView implementation), so it has to be used alongside the Chromium-based WebView rather than instead of Chromium, which means having the remote attack surface of two separate browser engines instead of only one. Firefox / Gecko also bypass or cripple a fair bit of the upstream and GrapheneOS hardening work for apps. Worst of all, Firefox does not have internal sandboxing on Android. This is despite the fact that Chromium semantic sandbox layer on Android is implemented via the OS isolatedProcess feature, which is a very easy to use boolean property for app service processes to provide strong isolation with only the ability to communicate with the app running them via the standard service API. Even in the desktop version, Firefox’s sandbox is still substantially weaker (especially on Linux) and lacks full support for isolating sites from each other rather than only containing content as a whole. The sandbox has been gradually improving on the desktop but it isn’t happening for their Android browser yet.
I still use ironfox because of uBlock and dark reader. Cromite is also good.
Firefox on Android requires a LOT of RAM because afaik it is the only modern mobile browser that truly implements its own web engine, rather than piggybacking on Android System WebView.
It ran like crap on my low end Galaxy but I’ve had no issue with it since switching to a Pixel 8. If you’re looking for speed over features while still being decently private, Firefox Focus is a nice simple choice, though it lacks most features of a modern browser.
If you’re looking exclusively for privacy-hardening though, nothing can really beat IronFox except maybe Vanadium (but that’s GrapheneOS exclusive), and IronFox is the only one with extensive support for browser extensions.
Hmm, Brave browser (on mobile)? I thought that Brave is generally dismissed because of their silly crypto stuff, affiliate link controversy, and their CEO’s poor stances on, well, lots of things. Any other mobile browser recommendations?
Otherwise, there are some omissions (Mullvad VPN) but this looks like a great list. Thanks for sharing.
IronFox and Fennec. Both are hardened Firefox.
https://grapheneos.org/usage source
I still use ironfox because of uBlock and dark reader. Cromite is also good.
I mean firefox is not really usable on android, at least for me. While Brave has a bad reputation, there isn’t any better than Brave, at least for me.
Firefox on Android requires a LOT of RAM because afaik it is the only modern mobile browser that truly implements its own web engine, rather than piggybacking on Android System WebView.
It ran like crap on my low end Galaxy but I’ve had no issue with it since switching to a Pixel 8. If you’re looking for speed over features while still being decently private, Firefox Focus is a nice simple choice, though it lacks most features of a modern browser.
If you’re looking exclusively for privacy-hardening though, nothing can really beat IronFox except maybe Vanadium (but that’s GrapheneOS exclusive), and IronFox is the only one with extensive support for browser extensions.
For security, Vanadium (only available on GrapheneOS. For privacy, Tor. Most everything else falls between on the scale.
There is an interesting new contender: WebLibre but it’s still in alpha state.