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Avoid this Popular Browser that Collects & Shares Your Data
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Author:  Windy [ Thu Aug 01, 2019 3:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Avoid this Popular Browser that Collects & Shares Your Data

Not cool. They say it's safer than IE, but at what cost?

https://www.komando.com/happening-now/5 ... 2019-07-28

Author:  nexter [ Fri Aug 09, 2019 7:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Avoid this Popular Browser that Collects & Shares Your D

Windy wrote:
Not cool. They say it's safer than IE, but at what cost?

https://www.komando.com/happening-now/5 ... 2019-07-28

Ha, yeah, so what else is new? ;)

The only halfway safe ordinary browser is Firefox, and personally I don't even trust that (except if I have to download anything that's more than a few Meg). Switch to TOR Browser for most ordinary browsing for better security and privacy. (It's based on FF.) For even better security and privacy, get TAILS - a special 'live' version of Debian Linux on a USB stick. Or even better, remove Windows, install whatever flavour of Linux floats your boat, use TOR Browser there, and if you really need Windows, set it up in a VM, works a treat, and you can even prevent Windows connecting to the net except when *you* want it to. :)

We just can't trust Windows at all anymore.

Author:  Windy [ Sat Aug 10, 2019 3:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Avoid this Popular Browser that Collects & Shares Your D

I use Firefox. I only use Tor once in a blue moon. The reason is because it's slow as molasses. I also can't save my DuckDuckGo homepage settings in Tor.

Also, there are some sites that appear to either block Tor, or the site has issues with Tor because of the security settings.

Although Tor is a very secure browser, to me it isn't worth the trade-off for the speed and robust features of Firefox.

I only use Tor for certain sites when in doubt that my security settings in Firefox isn't sufficient enough to prevent tracking.

Author:  nexter [ Wed Aug 14, 2019 1:08 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Avoid this Popular Browser that Collects & Shares Your D

I agree, TOR can be a bit slow, depending also on the site visited, and of course it's pretty hopeless with downloads, streaming and the like. Email can also be a PITA, as can any kind of sites that you log into - e.g., I regularly get 'chucked out' here every time the relays change. Personally, I prefer to put up with the inconveniences for the benefit of the increased security and esp. also privacy.

Can't say I've come across any sites yet that actively block TOR, but the bundled HTTPS Everywhere and NoScript can prevent some sites from being accessed. Also, sites have no way of knowing you're using TOR if you spoof your user agent data. E.g., right now I'm using TOR under Linux Mint (in a VM), based on FF 60.8 ESR, but UA data say Fedora and FF 67.0. :) A few minutes from now they might be MacOS X Safari xxx. And so on. Most times I use it from my multi-booted Debian or Fedora, or from the TAILS USB stick for even greater security (and absolutely no write access to discs).

Anyway, good to hear you're using TOR when in doubt at least - I take my hat off to you. And DuckDuck Go, too, great. The tech companies I trust the least are Apple and Google - and then all the social media and MS.

Author:  Windy [ Sat Aug 24, 2019 1:27 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Avoid this Popular Browser that Collects & Shares Your D

Sorry I took so long to reply. I've been extremely busy-mostly dealing with taking care of my mom.

nexter wrote:
I agree, TOR can be a bit slow, depending also on the site visited, and of course it's pretty hopeless with downloads, streaming and the like. Email can also be a PITA, as can any kind of sites that you log into - e.g., I regularly get 'chucked out' here every time the relays change. Personally, I prefer to put up with the inconveniences for the benefit of the increased security and esp. also privacy.


More power to you, but the slowness and access issues are too much for me! If it weren't so slow, I would use it more. The other thing is that it's so plain Jane looking. It doesn't have the aesthetic pizazz like FF does.

nexter wrote:
Can't say I've come across any sites yet that actively block TOR, but the bundled HTTPS Everywhere and NoScript can prevent some sites from being accessed. Also, sites have no way of knowing you're using TOR if you spoof your user agent data. E.g., right now I'm using TOR under Linux Mint (in a VM), based on FF 60.8 ESR, but UA data say Fedora and FF 67.0. :) A few minutes from now they might be MacOS X Safari xxx. And so on. Most times I use it from my multi-booted Debian or Fedora, or from the TAILS USB stick for even greater security (and absolutely no write access to discs).


Whoa, that's way above my level! :lol:

nexter wrote:
Anyway, good to hear you're using TOR when in doubt at least - I take my hat off to you. And DuckDuck Go, too, great. The tech companies I trust the least are Apple and Google - and then all the social media and MS.


Agree 100%!! Unfortunately, I'm pretty much relegated into using social media (only FB) and MS and YouTube.

Author:  nexter [ Mon Aug 26, 2019 4:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Avoid this Popular Browser that Collects & Shares Your D

Windy wrote:
Sorry I took so long to reply. I've been extremely busy-mostly dealing with taking care of my mom.

Hey, no problem. Busy here myself so haven't been here for over a week. And caring for one's mom always has to be a top priority (and can be pretty exhausting physically and/or mentally, too - being dependent on my wife as my carer I have a pretty good idea what it must be like...).
Windy wrote:
nexter wrote:
I agree, TOR can be a bit slow, .... I prefer to put up with the inconveniences for the benefit of the increased security and esp. also privacy.

More power to you, but the slowness and access issues are too much for me! If it weren't so slow, I would use it more. The other thing is that it's so plain Jane looking. It doesn't have the aesthetic pizazz like FF does.

I understand your issues with it well. Bandwidth is a huge problem still, there simply aren't enough relays with massive amounts of it, some even come in at less than 10 Mb/s! What we really need is for the big corporate internet users to "donate" the odd Gb/s, and better still would be if broadband providers moved all traffic over the TOR network, in the interests of privacy! If the whole internet operated through the TOR net, there'd be no speed losses.

As for the plane Jane look, yeah, I know that that puts some people off, but personally I don't even really notice it, it doesn't bother me in the slightest. It will improve with time, it is, after all, 8 major versions behind the current mainstream FF and probably always will remain a long way back.
Windy wrote:
nexter wrote:
.... E.g., right now I'm using TOR under Linux Mint (in a VM), based on FF 60.8 ESR, but UA data say Fedora and FF 67.0. :) A few minutes from now they might be MacOS X Safari xxx. And so on. Most times I use it from my multi-booted Debian or Fedora, or from the TAILS USB stick for even greater security (and absolutely no write access to discs).

Whoa, that's way above my level! :lol:

LOL! Nah, not really - you can get FF add-ons (although TOR advise against using add-ons in general) that let you change the UA string - and even have it change at random - but they can be a bit hit and miss, i.e., they often provide UAs that are way out of date really, etc. I'm lucky in that I have an acquaintance who does bits of Linux coding and wrote a small utility that lets you mix-and match different browsers and OSs and provide a complete UA string, and then 'hacks' into TOR Browser to change it. Unfortunately, it's Linux only and doesn't work with all distros.
Windy wrote:
nexter wrote:
Anyway, good to hear you're using TOR when in doubt at least - I take my hat off to you. And DuckDuck Go, too, great. The tech companies I trust the least are Apple and Google - and then all the social media and MS.

Agree 100%!! Unfortunately, I'm pretty much relegated into using social media (only FB) and MS and YouTube.

Yeah, there's no getting away from MS completely, alas. OTOH of course, if I had to use Linux alone all the time I'd really miss Winstep - I miss it even whenever I'm using Linux even now. That said, some of the desktop environments available under Linux are slightly better than Windows, but only slightly. A complete Winstep-like DE (and window manager) would be a huge improvement. Hate social media myself - in general, they're anything but! But I know some people for whom they are a virtual life-line because they are severely disabled and have no social life at all otherwise.

Author:  Windy [ Tue Sep 24, 2019 4:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Avoid this Popular Browser that Collects & Shares Your D

Again, I have to apologize for taking so long to respond. Not only did I have to deal with the threat of severe weather, but then I had to take my mom to the hospital because she was complaining that she had chest pains.

After they checked her out, she was admitted and had to stay for several days. She had two blood clots, one in each lung. I've been focused on her more so since her return home.

Now for my question. I changed my DNS server to a faster one to make Firefox and Tor a little faster (it did make Firefox faster) hoping that it would speed up Tor a bit, but as usual, it's still hit and miss.

Would using a VPN make Tor faster?

Author:  nexter [ Fri Sep 27, 2019 2:18 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Avoid this Popular Browser that Collects & Shares Your D

Windy wrote:
Again, I have to apologize for taking so long to respond. Not only did I have to deal with the threat of severe weather, but then I had to take my mom to the hospital because she was complaining that she had chest pains.

After they checked her out, she was admitted and had to stay for several days. She had two blood clots, one in each lung. I've been focused on her more so since her return home.

Now for my question. I changed my DNS server to a faster one to make Firefox and Tor a little faster (it did make Firefox faster) hoping that it would speed up Tor a bit, but as usual, it's still hit and miss.

Would using a VPN make Tor faster?

Sorry re: your mom - no joke, blood clots on lung. Hope she's getting better.

As for VPN, no, would not make Tor any faster, on the contrary could actually slow it down some more. It's not Tor itself that's slow, it's that there are too many low and very low bandwidth relays, alas. Some have as little as 5Mb/s when what's really needed are relays in the Gigabits range. The Onion Network - which is what makes TOR, TOR - is, in a way, a kind of VPN, just that it's random and multi-stage. It's the latter that makes it anonymous.

Author:  winstep [ Fri Sep 27, 2019 2:45 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Avoid this Popular Browser that Collects & Shares Your D

Ouch, only read this now. Sorry about your mom too, Windy. Hope she's doing better now. :(

Author:  Windy [ Fri Sep 27, 2019 4:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Avoid this Popular Browser that Collects & Shares Your D

Thanks Jorge. It's been a rough and tumble month and a half, but I'm trying my best to stay afloat. Between doctor appointments, making food and general care, I now have even less social time than before which I need to help prevent me from becoming stressed out...I'm really close.

It's tough dealing with Alzheimer's and dementia, especially since she has about 75% of her faculties (which makes it harder to deal with than if she had almost none) and her mobility has gone down quite a bit. She fell a couple of weeks before she was admitted to the hospital.

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