The Security Enhancing Challenge Coin

Security isn’t a big differentiator today when choosing a web browser. First of all, 3 of the top 5 browsers all use the same engine – Chrome, Edge and Opera are all based on Chromium. Second, there’s no real conflict of interest between browser makers and browser users when it comes to security – it’s a win-win situation. Also, most browsers today are plenty fast enough and come with similar user features. So to me, the real differentiator when choosing a web browser is privacy. Today I’ll give you my top choices for the most privacy-respecting web browser. (Spoiler alert: Chrome didn’t make the list.)

NOTE: I’m giving away TEN free subscriptions to ProtonMail plus! All you have to do to enter is sign up for a free ProtonMail account here and then shoot me an email from your new account (send it to proton at firewallsdontstopdragons.com)! That’s it! Do it by 11:59AM Eastern Time on May 6th.

In other news: The US and 60 other countries have signed an aspiration Declaration for the Future of the Internet; in a twist of fate, Russia is now the target of global hacking; another nasty Java zero-day bug has been found; leaked Cellebrite documents detail which iPhones they can hack into; Amazon and third parties are mining your Alexa requests for personal data; Microsoft is going to add a free VPN to its Edge browser; Facebook is pulling detailed user data from the US college financial aid site FAFSA; and apparently Facebook has no clue how to tell the source of all the data it collects (making it impossible to comply with privacy regulations); Google is now giving you a way to remove some person info from its searches; and Brave and DuckDuckGo are both blocking Google “AMP” links which collect data about the sites you visit.

Article Links

1. EFF Statement on the Declaration for the Future of the Internet https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/eff-statement-declaration-future-internet 
   1. Declaration for the Future of the Internet: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Declaration-for-the-Future-for-the-Internet_Launch-Event-Signing-Version_FINAL.pdf 
2. Russia Is Being Hacked at an Unprecedented Scale https://www.wired.co.uk/article/russia-hacked-attacks 
3. Java Cryptography Implementation Mistake Allows Digital-Signature Forgeries https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/04/java-cryptography-implementation-mistake-allows-digital-signature-forgeries.html 
4. Cellebrite iPhone cracking: Here’s which models the kit can unlock and access, and how to protect your data https://9to5mac.com/2022/04/29/cellebrite-iphone-cracking/ 
5. Report: Amazon and third parties use Alexa voice data for ads while Siri respects privacy https://9to5mac.com/2022/04/29/amazon-alexa-voice-data-used-for-ads/ 
6. Microsoft Is Adding a Free VPN to the Edge Browser https://www.pcmag.com/news/microsoft-is-adding-a-free-vpn-to-the-edge-browser 
7. Go read this exposé on how FAFSA got caught sending personal info to Facebook https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/29/23048305/fafsa-facebook-department-of-education-us-student-financial-aid-meta-tracking-pixel 
   1. Applied for Student Aid Online? Facebook Saw You https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2022/04/28/applied-for-student-aid-online-facebook-saw-you 
8. Facebook doesn’t know what most of its user data is used for https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/04/27/facebook-doesnt-know-what-most-of-its-user-data-is-used-for 
9. You can now ask Google to remove your phone number from search https://www.androidauthority.com/google-search-remove-phone-number-3158456/ 
   1. Google request site: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9673730 
10. Brave, DuckDuckGo updates target Google AMP sites in privacy push https://www.macworld.com/article/633804/brave-duckduckgo-updates-target-google-amp-sites-in-privacy-push.html 
11. Which Is the Most Private Browser? https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/which-is-the-most-private-browser/ 

Further Info

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