Firefox Tracking Protection

As we already mentioned, many sites and online services try to obtain information related to your browsing habits and what you do online. This data is normally used for advertising purposes as this sort of information is highly valued by advertising distributors as it allows them to create targeted ads. Still though, having a browser that can protect you from unwanted collection of such information is always a good thing and Firefox is one of the browsers capable of doing it. The Privacy Protection feature blocks most trackers that try to keep tabs on your online activity which improves your overall privacy when on the Internet. While this feature isn’t flawless and doesn’t stop all forms of privacy intrusion, it is still good to have it in your arsenal.

Firefox 57

The Tracking Protection feature for Mozilla Firefox isn’t anything new – it has been around for about three years as it was added to the program back in 2014. However, up until Firefox 57 – the upcoming update for the browser, the feature was only enabled by default for the Incognito Mode browsing. Although it was still technically possible to enable it for regular browsing, most users didn’t know about that option as the feature didn’t have a corresponding UI (User Interface) setting. With the release of the next version of the browser, Firefox 57, this is going to change as there will be three separate options for the Tracking Protection feature within the browser’s settings. The first one is labeled Always which will keep the Tracking Protection enabled for the whole browser, the second one is Only in private windows (Incognito Mode) and the third one is Never, meaning that the feature would be disabled if the user chooses that.

How to enable it

Before Firefox 57, the user would need to execute several different tasks before they could enable the Tracking Protection for regular browsing and most customers didn’t know how to do it as it was certainly not intuitive and there wasn’t an actual button to do it from the settings menu. However, not all this will be made much easier when 57 gets released, all you’d have to do to enable the option is go to about:preferences#privacy (type it in the URL bar) and select the Always button to have the protection enabled at all times.

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Introduction

TOR is an acronym that stands for The Onion Router – this is a web protocol that allows users to remain anonymous by hiding their online activities using an overlay network with a number of interconnected nodes. The Tor Browser is a modified version of Mozilla Firefox that makes utilizing Tor much easier than it has previously been. Currently, everyone who wishes to, regardless of how tech-savvy they are, could gain access to Tor via this dedicated browser. Therefore, if you are a customer who is concerned about their web privacy and wishes to keep their online activities hidden from website trackers, advertising companies or even whole governments, the Tor Browser can help you achieve that.

How does The Onion Router work?

This browser review is going to differ from our previous ones because the Tor Browser has a very different focus and purpose when compared to other web browsers. Even high-security and privacy-oriented browsers such as Brave and the Epic Privacy Browser still work very much like most other browsing programs that you might have encountered before. However, with Tor, things are different.

The use of Onion as a name is a metaphor that illustrates how one’s web browsing is protected and hidden underneath multiple layers just like the layers of an onion. In order to hide your IP address, this browsers reroutes your traffic through a preset circuit of nodes. There are many different circuits with nodes all over the world making the tracing of your IP rather difficult (however, not impossible!). In fact, it must be mentioned that the simple practice of using the Tor browser as opposed to any other program might lead to the attraction of unwanted attention to you. Still,though, this is by far one of the most effective ways for concealing your IP and consequently, your physical address as well. When using the Tor browser, you can even see what trackers would see as your IP address (your apparent IP) which would actually be the address of some of the nodes and not your actual IP.

Installation and Interface

The Tor browser is free and can be downloaded by anyone using a regular browser. Once you download and install Tor, you will have to install a support code which is made easier by the program’s installer. Tor supports versions for Windows (XP to 10) Mac and Linux. Users are usually advised to install the browser on a separate USB drive to further reduce the chance of getting traced. Also, before you begin to use the browser, you’d need to disclose what type of Internet connection you have – a censored (extra configuration needed) or a non-censored one.

Interface

The Tor Browser is basically Mozilla Firefox with heavy modifications under the hood and a couple of necessary extensions to help keeping your browsing private. However, the interface is similar to that of Firefox. On the starting page you are greeted with a plea for donations – this is how the whole Tor Project is financed, via voluntary donations. There is also search bar using the Disconnect.me tool which helps you use any popular search engine but without exposing and sending your query to the search provider so that your privacy is secured in that aspect as well.

Features/Add-ons (Privacy)

Normally, we would first go over the performance of a browser before we talk about its features. However, with Tor, the additional features that it provides are different from those of any other browser and are probably the most important part of this program so we will mention them first.

• Torbutton add-on – Clicking on this button would allow you to see the Tor network settings and circuit that you are using as well as your apparent IP address. From there, you can also request a different chain of nodes for your current browsing session or only for when you are connecting to a certain website.
• Security Panel – this can be accessed from the Torbutton and it allows you to easily set the level of privacy that you want to have on the browser. It is a simple slide that goes from low to high. At low (privacy), which is the default setting, all features of the browser would be enable whereas when it’s set to high, a lot of content including certain images would get blocked for security/privacy reasons. This makes it easier for regular users to configure the levels of privacy protection that they want to have with Tor.
• Anonymity testing – Tor tests everything you do online for anonymity and if something could potentially compromise your private web experience, the browser notifies you about it. Also, the developers of the program warn their users that the mere using of their product cannot guarantee anonymity – it just helps with achieving it but the user would still need to be careful with what they do online.

Performance

In order to provide its users with its high levels of secrecy and anonymity, Tor compromises with speed and performance. It is a very slow browser and takes quite some time to access pages due to the constant traffic rerouting through a number of different nodes. Even if you have the best Internet connection and a powerful PC, you will still find that the Tor Browser is nowhere near as quick as most other similar programs. That said, speed isn’t a top priority of Tor and if you truly want to remain anonymous online, you’d have to put up with the slower performance of the program.

The Dark Web and .onion

So far, we have only been talking about regular surfing with Tor. However, one extra feature that this browser offers is access to the so-called Dark Web – a hidden network of websites that end in .onion. Those sites cannot be accessed by regular browsers and do not show up on search results from regular search engines. This means that you won’t be able to access anything from the Dark web even if you use the Tor browser’s starting page search box as it is powered by regular search engines.

Such sites form the Dark Web are hidden for a reason and you have more than likely heard stories about them. It is true that the Dark Web is full of illegal, shady, obscure sites that we advise you to stay away from. However, this doesn’t mean that the Tor browser is solely used for criminal activities.

Conclusion

Tor is all about privacy and even if it facilities illegal deeds, it also can help activists and freedom fighters struggling against oppressive regimes communicate with the outside world without fear of getting traced by the authorities. Also, Tor can serve regular users too, if they want to have better web privacy and are willing to sacrifice a faster browser performance. There is no doubt that nowadays web privacy is scarce and tracking of users’ online activities is a common practice which further increases the need for web browsers that allow for more privacy-oriented web experience.

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Introduction

Epic Privacy Browser is a web-browser developed with the sole purpose of providing its users with the ability to safely browse the Internet without having their privacy invaded. As you surely already know, currently there is a huge number of ways in which most users’ privacy gets violated on a daily basis and unfortunately, most of the time this is actually legal. One cannot simply state that they don’t want to have their online activities traced and expect that their desire would be fulfilled. Therefore, another approach is needed in order to make one’s browsing more private. This is where Epic can be helpful with its many different features that have the sole purpose of making sure that what you do on the Internet does not become public and known by anyone except for you. You cannot expect from Epic to have the speed of Microsoft Edge, the versatility of Chrome or the customization capabilities of Opera, what you can expect from this browser is high levels of online privacy as this is the whole idea behind this program.

Interface

There isn’t really much to say about Epic’s interface. It is a browser based on Chromium so if you are familiar with Google Chrome, you should have no problem using it. Initially it looks and feels the same as Chrome and only once you’ve actually started exploring the web with it, will you notice some of the more important differences.

Performance

Epic isn’t the fastest browser out there, especially if you are using its proxy servers but then again – it is not supposed to be. Privacy demands sacrifice and in this case, speed and performance would have to suffer a bit. That said, the browser is perfectly workable and if you aren’t annoyed by pages that do not load super quickly, then you should have no issue with Epic’s performance. Also, the built-in ad-blocker might actually help load certain pages faster than they would load with a browser that doesn’t block ads.

Constant incognito mode

If you have ever used some form of incognito mode on any other browser, then you should be familiar with this feature. However, with Epic, it has been taken to a whole other level as you are basically surfing in incognito/private mode by default – no history is being kept or anything else that would suggest what your previous browsing session has been about. As you will see when you open the main menu of the browser, there isn’t even a History button.

Features

Any extra features that Epic has have been focused on making your web activities as private as possible. This browser combines all the popular privacy-protecting methods that you might have heard of as well as adding a few extra ones for additional protection.

• Built-in ad-blocker – A lot of modern browsers have integrated this feature and for a good reason. Ads are oftentimes way too annoying and intrusive for anyone to put up with them and they could also sometimes trigger security risks as well. The feature works well and is enabled by default so if you wish to stop it, you’d have to do that manually.
• Proxy – This is likely one of the most important features that allow for better protected web privacy. On a regular browser, when a request to a website is made, the user’s IP gets sent to that site so that the site’s server would know where to send back a reply. Though this is the norm, having your IP send to a certain website can allow for your physical location to get approximately determined. With a proxy feature, the request and the reply get rerouted through another server that serves as a middle link for the web traffic. That way, if a website attempts to track you, the address that it would determine would be the address of the proxy server and not your own. In order to enable the proxy when using Epic, all you have to do is click on e the proxy button from the toolbar (top-left) and select On. You can also choose which of the proxy servers to use as there are a couple of them.
• Do not track – A lot of browsers have this feature but the difference between them and Epic is that when the Do not track header is enabled on Firefox or IE for example, the sites you visit can still decide to ignore it. This isn’t the case with Epic. Here, the Do not track is enabled by default and it actively prevents sites from keeping tabs on your web activities. Once you visit a site that is trying to track you, the browser will even display a small window showing you how many trackers have been blocked and giving you the option to turn of the tracking protection if you so desire.
• Secure search – most search engines are also know for telemetry and data collection which is why Epic has a separate search tool that is powered by the most popular search engines but does not send any search data to them. It also does not keep any search history which is why you won’t see any search suggestions from previous search queries. Also, any queries made in Epic’s search tool are automatically rerouted through the proxy by default.

Issues

Epic has some compatibility issues with certain websites as it might not be able to properly load some of them. Also, for privacy’s sake, there are very few extensions for this browser (less than 10!) but note that this is done for the sake of protecting your privacy as there are many extensions out there that are known for tracking their users and collecting personal data. Another thing more advanced users might be displeased with is the fact that the search tool does not support basic standard search modifiers and also doesn’t work smoothly in certain instances.

Conclusion

Epic Privacy browser is exactly what its title says it is – web privacy at its finest. If you are concerned about getting traced when surfing the web and about having your personal data collected by all sorts of sites and online services, then you should probably give this browser a go. It isn’t the fastest, has certain bugs and glitches and lacks the customization and versatility of the more popular browsers but, as we already stated, its purpose is different and it is surely good at what it is made to do – keep your online privacy protected and secured.

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Introduction to Brave Browser

Brave is a newly developed browser based on Chromium – its creators are led by the co-founder of the Mozilla project, Brendan Eich and Brian R. Brody. According to the developers behind this browser, it’s main purpose is to allow the users to have safer and more privacy-oriented web experience. This is the main goal of Brave and in our opinion it does indeed deliver upon it. The program combines features from other browsers into one product making it a good choice not only for people who want to stay low-key and avoid getting tracked but also for users who simply want to be able to roam the online world without getting obstructed every five minutes by some irritating pop-up or some intrusive big web-banner.

Interface

Brave’s interface is plain and clean but it looks good. There are very few buttons there – only the bookmark menu, the main menu of the browser and a bookmark button. As with all modern browsers, Brave supports tabs and one interesting thing about the way tabs are handled is that hovering over a certain tab displays a preview of the page. This can be helpful if a lot of tabs are opened at once but some users might find this feature to be distracting rather than helpful. Luckily, you can disable it from the browser’s settings.

Performance

This is a lightweight browser and it is a quite fast and well-performing one. In fact, it is no slower than the top browsers on the market meaning that it loads at least as fast as Chrome and Firefox. Therefore, if you decide to give it a try, performance shouldn’t be an issue. Also, the resources that it would require from your PC will not be too much meaning that the browser is unlikely to affect your system’s performance.

Features

As should already be obvious, most of Brave’s features are focused towards safety, security and privacy. Similarly to Opera, the browser has an integrated ad-blocker and also has a Do not Track feature that is enabled by default. Unless the user goes out of their way to disable it, website will not be able to track one’s activities and keep data records on them. In fact, many site owners have been disgruntled with Brave as it directly affects the revenue that they earn due to an increasing number of the users of this browser. Statistics about the number of blocked ads and trackers are also provided. If the users wants to, they can manually unblock the tracking and ads for a certain site while still having the rest of the websites blocked.

Extensions (Lacking)

Something that might cause users to turn away from Brave is its lack of extension support. As odd and weird as this might sound, there is actually a reason behind this decision of the developers. As some Chrome extensions could potentially be malware or some other sort of unwanted software, the creators behind Brave have decided to leave out extensions support out of security and privacy concerns. This is sure to divide users between those who want to be able to customize their browsers via add-ons and those who value online privacy and security over additional extra features. In our opinion, Brave would be good for casual browsing but the lack of extensions could prevent customers to use the browser for more sophisticated tasks.

Brave Browser Review

Having safe and secure web-experience is important and it is also nice to be able to surf the online world without getting interrupted by unpleasant advertising materials. There are certain tools and certain browsers that offer ways to achieve that but if you truly want a program dedicated to web safety and privacy, then Brave might be a good choice for you. However, you must bear in mind that due to the lack of extensions, the opportunity to customize the browser as well as the program’s versatility have been greatly limited. If you do not mind those limitations and do not need the browser for any sophisticated operations, then you will certainly enjoy Brave with its ability to remove any unpleasant web distractions and also with its superior speed and good performance.

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