Brave to end 'Strict' fingerprinting protection as it breaks websites

3 years ago by Karna to c/privacy

Brave Software has announced plans to deprecate the 'Strict' fingerprinting protection mode in its privacy-focused Brave Browser because it causes many sites to function incorrectly.
starflower 196 points 3 years ago

Your friendly reminder that the Brave CEO is Mozillas old CEO, who was fired from Mozilla for being unapologetically homophobic.

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VerseAndVermin 66 points 3 years ago

Since everyone else is piling on negatively, I appreciated your friendly reminder.

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Rose 25 points 3 years ago

Worse than merely being homophobic, as he financially supported politicians and causes that worked to prevent equal rights.

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electro1 9 points 3 years ago
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BearOfaTime -72 points 3 years ago

So?

What I care about in this story is the technical issues.

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YeetPics 30 points 3 years ago

technical issues

Well technically the CEO would have an issue with you if you were gay

Lmao

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starflower -40 points 3 years ago

O...kay? I don't really care lmao

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AnonTwo -15 points 3 years ago

Wait why are you on the privacy community when you don't care about the parts that are specifically related to privacy?

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starflower 1 point 3 years ago
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RandoCalrandian -27 points 3 years ago

For those oh so super valuable virtue signal points, as if most of the services and products they use weren’t created with slave labor and run by people who’ve done far worse

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AtmaJnana -19 points 3 years ago

Pay no attention to the butthurt shills.

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Engywuck -88 points 3 years ago

He wasn't fired. He voluntarily left. And thus Mozilla is left with an incompetent CEO whose only aim is to increase her paycheck year after year, despite pathetic market share results for FF. Enjoy that.

That said, nobody cares about your "friendly remainders". We're talking about software here, not politics.

And, to stay on topic, yes, it happened to me that Strict FP broke some website, in particular those displaying a frame with a map or similar stuff. So I've resorted to use "standard" FP myself.

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AtmaJnana 89 points 3 years ago

nobody cares about your "friendly remainders". We're talking about software here, not politics.

Nah. I care. You dont speak for me. I cant tell if you're a shill for Brave or a MAGAt or both.

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RandoCalrandian -43 points 3 years ago

Wow. The internet must be really rough for you if people don’t wear labels so you know who to hate before learning a damn thing about them!

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LWD 24 points 3 years ago
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Engywuck -51 points 3 years ago

I'm not a shill for Brave. It has its fair share of technical issues but it's the less worse browser for my use case (better than FF, anyway). Your (or mine) opinion on the CEO has nothing to do with the technical issue discussed in OP's link.

And no, what MAGA are you talking about? I'm not even 'murican. Take your meds, dude.

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Lmaydev 2 points 3 years ago
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AnonTwo -51 points 3 years ago

I mean, you can grandstand all you want while you have no platforms to safely do it on. Pretty sure having working products for privacy is more important to activism than one guy being an asshole.

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fogstormberry 51 points 3 years ago

frankly, I dont trust an aggressive homophobe with my privacy

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LWD 8 points 3 years ago
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Engywuck -17 points 3 years ago

Yawn... I'm tired of this shit. You people are really ridiculous. I'm going to just block you. Enjoy your cognitive dissonance and your virtue signaling.

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LWD 9 points 3 years ago
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troglodytis 1 point 3 years ago

Well, you're wrong.

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DangerousInternet -35 points 3 years ago
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Engywuck -8 points 3 years ago

What is beyond my understanding is why every fucking time someone posts some relevant TECHNICAL info or question about that browser there's always someone else, which appears to be less smart than an amoeba, that feels the need to write the same exaggerate and OT bullshit about the CEO.

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DangerousInternet -12 points 3 years ago
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YeetPics 111 points 3 years ago

The scam company brave? The one that scams people? With their scam based crypto rewards that don't pay out? THAT brave?

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LWD 103 points 3 years ago
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drislands 36 points 3 years ago

But other than that, there's no reason!

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shotgun_crab 12 points 3 years ago

You're right, no reason at all :)

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YeetPics 5 points 3 years ago

I had a small mountain of BAT they locked me out of due to shoddy linking with their banking affiliates and out of date DRM practices locking me out of my account due to too many devices being logged in (each OS update counted as its own device).

I noticed you didn't have that linked, that's because not every shitty move a company makes gets news coverage. Sorry I don't fit into your narrow view on what constitutes a valid reason.

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LWD 9 points 3 years ago
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YeetPics 1 point 3 years ago

The banking backend that grifted me is called uphold and at the time that was the ONLY way to move BAT out of their wallet.

The device limit was a known issue for years and I left before they fixed it.

While I was still a user I would try their forum for support. Big shocker, LOTS of other users had the same issue and reports got ignored or muted by the mods there.

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Mikina 2 points 3 years ago

This made me wonder - is there any active Best Of community on any instance? This would be a perfect candidate.

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Pantherina -7 points 3 years ago

We really need a based privacy-first Chromium fork... something that

  • allows installing addons from a custom source
  • removes everything Google tracking related
  • adds good sync compatible with things like floccus
  • is hardened with switches like MS Edge
  • has a good UI like Firefox
  • restricts fingerprinting by randomizing or blocking many identifiers
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Pantherina -6 points 3 years ago
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YeetPics 4 points 3 years ago

I just don't use brave and things are better for me.

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Pantherina 2 points 3 years ago

These comments are rambling piles of garbage.

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YeetPics 2 points 3 years ago

That's great, but what do you think about brave and their cool scam group?

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tazy 89 points 3 years ago

fuck brave all my homies hate brave

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Pantherina -1 points 3 years ago
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Pantherina -5 points 3 years ago

What would you use then, if Firefox doesnt launch when using hardened_malloc on Linux?

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joyjoy 12 points 3 years ago

So we're shitting on a browser because of a bug reported 2 days ago?

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Pantherina -1 points 3 years ago

I dont know what you want to tell with that, but yes, its long known and that bug is simply newer.

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possiblylinux127 81 points 3 years ago

Honestly you really should be using Firefox.

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RandoCalrandian 3 points 3 years ago

The real answer

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Mikina 2 points 3 years ago

I've been having a pretty good experience with Mullvad, however I don't hear many people talking about it. I wonder why is that, IIRC it's being developed with Tor Foundation, and is basically a Tor browser for clear web, and that sounds perfect. So far, I didn't run into any issues, so is there a catch, or are they just not well enough known yet? Or, maybe people are turned away by their optional VPN?

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LWD 1 point 3 years ago
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Mikina 1 point 3 years ago

I was using LibreWolf before, but I really like the idea of bundling VPN + Browser, and also the way they handle payments - not only is Mullvad VPN kind of cheap, I can just pay with crypto and don't need any account (kind of - you just generate username that also serves as an password, without any other contact information required).

But what I like the most about it is the idea of making a browser with the goal of having the same fingerprint between users (as much as possible), and offering it with a VPN - becuase that means that most of other users of the VPN will probably also have the same fingerprint from the browser, so you will blend in with them. I wasn't really sold on the idea of VPN before that and didn't use one, but this was what convinced me.

But tbh I haven't done much research into the company, or into the effectivness of their implementation. I'm kind of betting on their cooperation with Tor Browser, which should have most of this stuff already figured out. But it's possible that other browsers are just better at it, I never checked.

I do however still use LibreWolf for the occasional site that breaks with Mullvad, but it's not something that happens too often.

I use(d) the VPN alongside it and found the add-on “hints” regarding the correct DNS settings more frustrating than helpful, too.

Hmm, I don't think I've ever noticed anything about DNS. I think I've actually never click on the browser vpn extension, though :D Is it the encrypted DNS hint?

EDIT: Found this, apparently it's doing pretty well https://privacytests.org/

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PumaStoleMyBluff 2 points 3 years ago

Firefox's resist fingerprinting breaks sites too.

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possiblylinux127 2 points 3 years ago

It doesn't really break things for me personally. However if it does break something just turn it off.

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dditty 1 point 3 years ago
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umbrella -1 points 3 years ago
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possiblylinux127 -7 points 3 years ago

The UI is somewhat clunky and it feels half dead.

I really wish Mozilla would rethink there business.

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umbrella 2 points 3 years ago
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possiblylinux127 0 points 3 years ago

With tons if spacing between everything

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Samueru -21 points 3 years ago

Firefox lacks a ton of features and its default settings have terrible fingerprinting protection to start.

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LWD 30 points 3 years ago
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const_void 5 points 3 years ago

You forgot built in crypto scams that can't be disabled.

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Samueru -1 points 3 years ago

Which one cant be disabled?

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Samueru -15 points 3 years ago

FIrefox lacks vertical tabs, can't change the default new tab page background color without having to use a custom .css file.

Having to use a userContent.css for something so basic is insane. That is orders of magnitude more work than disabling the crypto ads in brave which you don't even have to go in the settings to disable, it is right on the homepage menu.

Also firefox lacks configurable keybinds and when I used librewolf I had to add two extensions for something that basic.

One was to change the default keybinds to changing tabs from alt+123 to control+123 because for some reason they changed it on linux to that which is retarded (opening a new tab is still control+t so you can't just say that it is all the control options that got moved to alt lol).

The other extension was to deattach the tab which firefox has no keybind set for it.

And one of the best features that firefox has, which is the userChrome.css has only gotten worse over time with it breaking with new updates and also now having it disabled by default and hidden inside the about:config menu.

The default vpn on brave is terrible, although that only affected windows. And firefox is only slightly better on this because and pardon me if I'm mistaken (I don't wanna install firefox to check lol) didn't they change the default settings to send all dns over https to cloudflare? On librewolf they got rid of the default one and you have to provide one instead.

Edit: Look no further, you even have to install ublock origin on firefox to get rid of ads and also configure its filter list if you want to get rid of cookie prompts, something that brave does by default already.

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Pantherina 11 points 3 years ago

These are all UI things you can add with extensions or some modding. Firefox needs forks for that.

Not to speak of actual features like sandboxing on android, user namespace sandboxing on Linux, and more.

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possiblylinux127 8 points 3 years ago

Then customize it. Honestly they aren't all that bad and by using Firefox you ate not supporting google.

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Samueru -5 points 3 years ago

I have done that, and it a horrible, it takes more work to make a useChrone.css on firefox than to setup a wm on linux lol

You can also use any of the forks of chromium and not support google, what you said is like telling people not use grapheneos because it is a fork of android.

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sir_reginald 1 point 3 years ago

If we had a working alternative to Android as a whole, we would surely use it. But Linux on mobile works only in few devices and not flawlessly at all. But for the Chromium monopoly we have an actual alternative that works.

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bc1 79 points 3 years ago

Whenever people tell me to use Brave, I know they fall for marketing very easily

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Samueru -3 points 3 years ago

Braves default fingerprinting protection is better than the one that librewolf uses, or at least it is according to the EFF.

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EvokerKing -15 points 3 years ago

I use it. I don't get marketing because I use brave, which has a fucking indestructible adblocker. Like while everyone was panicking from the YouTube issues, I've never seen a single message to turn it off on YouTube. And there was a bunch of other things that users has reported, like slow videos, that brave just didn't have problems with.

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MetaCubed 28 points 3 years ago

Firefox with ublock origin and you will unironically have an near identical experience

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Streetdog 21 points 3 years ago
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callyral 4 points 3 years ago

ublock origin works fine for me on firefox. i use freetube (desktop client), but when i use the youtube website i don't have ad issues.

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Pantherina -18 points 3 years ago

Brave is simply usable Chromium. On GrapheneOS it is not the most secure as it has its own Chromium engine which is not as hardened poorly.

On Linux it works well with hardened_malloc while Firefox straight up does not run. This is probably because Firefox has memory issues.

It sucks relying on Chromium as Firefoxes UX is top tier. I have no idea why normies are using Chromium Browsers, they all suck for UX, especially Chrome.

But on Android and Linux Chromium is very secure, while Firefox is at least questionable.

Brave sets very weird priorities though, they dont focus on many features people need and instead bloat everything with news or crypto stuff that doesnt even support Monero.

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moitoi 45 points 3 years ago

Brave to end 'Strict' fingerprinting protection as it breaks owns ad revenue.

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Pantherina -9 points 3 years ago

No it literally breaks sites. I was using Firefox with Arkenfox user.js, basically Torbrowser, and nothing broke unless the site told me "your browser is not supported". Braves strong defaults broke Github and more.

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Darken 12 points 3 years ago
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Pantherina -2 points 3 years ago

Not much Brave can do there? I dont know what they did. You are probably better off with UBO and NoScript (both MV2 btw).

But everyone is escalating about Brave removing a broken feature as if they where getting worse or something. The feature was broken, they removed it. Thats it.

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AnonTwo 2 points 3 years ago

Was strict the default? I'd assume the standard would be the default.

I'd imagine if you were using strict you want the sites to break because you absolutely do not want fingerprinting. That kindof restriction usually comes with the breaking being expected.

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Pantherina 1 point 3 years ago

Yes probably. I have no idea what they did though, because Arkenfox / Torbrowser doesnt break anything.

Noscript and ublock origin are both MV2. But Brave wants to keep supporting MV2.

So I think they should not try implementing stuff extensions already do better, but at the same time something like this is the only way if they want to also go full MV3 and save themselves a lot of maintenance

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ZeroHora 38 points 3 years ago

Another issue is that Strict mode is used by roughly 0.5% of Brave's users, with the rest using the default setting, which is the Standard mode.

How are they getting this data? If it's with telemetry this data doesn't seem reliable, I doubt that people who change the fingerprint setting don't disable telemetry.

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LainOfTheWired 32 points 3 years ago

I used brave for a while, but left as I felt there was something fishy about them. Seems I was right

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Pantherina -2 points 3 years ago
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const_void 26 points 3 years ago

Brave is shite

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Pantherina -2 points 3 years ago
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JoeKrogan 17 points 3 years ago

I'd rather have the sites break to be honest

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Byter 13 points 3 years ago

I'd ask why they don't make it optional (I'm not a Brave user) but it seems it was.

Another issue is that Strict mode is used by roughly 0.5% of Brave's users, with the rest using the default setting, which is the Standard mode.

This low percentage actually makes these users more vulnerable to fingerprinting despite them using the more aggressive blocker, because they constitute a discernible subset of users standing out from the rest.

Given that, I'm inclined to agree with the decision to remove it. Pick your battles and live to fight another day.

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RandoCalrandian 10 points 3 years ago

Unless there’s a strong correlation between those who set fingerprint protection to strict and those that disable telemetry

In that case they’re about to piss off a much larger portion of their users than they realize

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sir_reginald 2 points 3 years ago

but if they have all that disabled, they probably have their ads disabled too, which means they are not making Brave any money. So they don't care.

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LWD 1 point 3 years ago
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Dark_Dragon 8 points 3 years ago

I don't like brave browser from first use. Something seemed off.

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library_napper -2 points 3 years ago

Damn I didn't hate on brave before for all the dumb crypto hate, but this is fuuucked

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Pantherina -3 points 3 years ago
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