From this post:
Vivaldi's approach to privacy almost made me laugh, "we block others from tracking you so we can do it ourselves"
When you install Vivaldi browser (“Vivaldi”), each installation profile is assigned a unique user ID that is stored on your computer. Vivaldi will send a message directly to our servers located in Iceland every 24 hours containing this ID, version, cpu architecture, screen resolution and time since last message.
If being fingerprinted by hardware wasn't bad enough, your literally assigned a unique id, don't even bother defending vivaldi on this one.
Vivaldi is proprietary so no one can audit the browser, no one can fork it to remove spyware, you base everything on blind trust.
Their new tab is bloated by tracking companies meaning on each new tab a query will be made to amazon, youtube etc. Sure you can remove these, but most people won't and it shouldn't be included by default.
Its default search engine is bing, how great, so "we at vivaldi care so much about user privacy that we recieve monetary gain from microsoft by sneaking that little search engine in, which a huge percentage of our users will use as they're not aware of the privacy issues because they trust vivaldi"
We at vivaldi block trackers so we can boast about it, but our adblocker is disabled by default because we dont want anyone using it.
Google safe browsing is on by default with no proxied option
It uses googles blink engine, which is fairly common so i can't hate on it for this alone, but bare that in mind.
I used edge as an example, dont actually use edge for privacy.
I do think Edge has better UX than many browsers, but you should be aware that Microsoft holds the same stance as Google on Manifest V3:
We're replacing Web Request API with Declarative Net Request API ... We believe this change will have positive impact on extensions that use feature-rich declarative capabilities. As more extensions transition to the DNR APIs, this change will improve user privacy, which contributes to enhancing trust in the use of extensions.
(from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/extensions-chromium/developer-guide/migrate-your-extension-from-manifest-v2-to-v3#web-request-api)
uBlock Origin is already inferior on Chromium browsers, and this change will make it even worse. They claim "privacy", but a change that makes uBlock Origin perform worse will never be beneficial for privacy. And they're even keeping observational parts of the web request API, so malicious extensions will still be able to track you.
Microsoft Edge uses unique hardware IDs to track you:
From a privacy perspective Microsoft Edge and Yandex are much more worrisome than the other browsers studied. Both send identifiers that are linked to the device hardware and so persist across fresh browser installs and can also be used to link different apps running on the same device. Edge sends the hardware UUID of the device to Microsoft, a strong and enduring identifier than cannot be easily changed or deleted. Similarly, Yandex transmits a hash of the hardware serial number and MAC address to back end servers. As far as we can tell this behaviour cannot be disabled by users. In addition to the search autocomplete functionality that shares details of web pages visited, both transmit web page information to servers that appear unrelated to search autocomplete.
(from https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf, conclusion)
Microsoft haven't made a statement on whether they support Google's FLoC to my knowledge.
I wouldn't use Vivaldi, but at the very least they have made statements in support of ad blocking and will not include FLoC code from Chromium.
Do not trust Microsoft. Do not trust Google.
Basically, if you care about privacy at all (you should), don’t use Chrome or Edge. The best option is to use Firefox with uBlock Origin.
Well you shouldn't be using Edge or Chrome. Check this post out and really consider switching to Firefox
I find the complaints about default search engine and new tab bookmarks strange. Firefox does the same thing, and like Firefox, it's likely a significant (if not the main) source of revenue.
Edit: I don't think Vivladi's tracking is worse than edge if it's a per-profile ID. Edge uses a hardware ID that will be used to track you across profiles. The list of transmitted information also seems pretty reasonable.
The fact the browser is not completely open source is more concerning to me than the other points. Everything else doesn't seem much different than what Firefox does by default.
Firefox is still a better option simply by not contributing to the Google monopoly, but Vivaldi still has features going for it. Firefox is sometimes praised for customization, but Vivaldi has many more UI options and wasn't considering removing a compact mode like Mozilla was. Like Firefox, it supports custom CSS and even has a community for it on its official forums.
If I had to choose between Chrome, Edge, Brave, and Vivaldi, I would go with Vivaldi because it isn't an advertising company like the other three, and it's clear that their main focus is on creating a useful browser for power users.
Luckily, I don't have to choose because I will be sticking to my Firefox+uBlock Origin combo for as long as I can.
I wouldn't make the argument about default search engines myself especially if it isn't a privacy oriented browser.
If I had to choose between Chrome, Edge, Brave, and Vivaldi
I think I'd actually go with Brave because it's open source but yeah fortunately we don't have to choose.
Brave was originally my preference for a Chromium-based browser, but what put me off is all of its crypto bullshit and its controversies. Being open source didn't stop them from rewriting URLs or effectively stealing donations.
I also disagree with their stance on ads. This comment from the linked reddit thread sums up my opinion on that. Brave supporters will say that ads are opt-in, but it's still clear that ads are a main focus to the company, something I'm fundamentally opposed to.
I'm not a fan either but I guess I'd just rather use an open source browser, you know? Obviously I'm a big Firefox fan so I haven't given this much thought :) I really don't like it when I see Brave being recommended on the privacy communities tho
I can definitely understand that perspective. The transparency of open source software is pretty important for something like a browser.
I don't like seeing Brave recommendations either...