Looking for Privacy-Oriented Open-Source Android Browsers
I’m looking for a privacy-focused, open-source Android browser. Here are some options I’ve found:
- IronFox
- recommended by LibreWolf
- Fennec
- no repo
- Waterfox
- Vanadium
- only available on GrapheneOS
- better security
- iceraven
- most stars
- bromite
- no longer maintained
- Bromite has a fingerprint randomization and Vanadium doesn’t. But Vanadium has better security if you use Graphene. So yeah, for privacy Bromite might be better
- cromite
- Bromite fork
- brave
- controversial
- duckduckgo
Is there any other browser out there that fits this criteria? Is there an even better choice? I’m particularly interested in ones that focus on privacy.
EDIT: in terms of popularity, privacy and functionality I guess the best choices are iceraven (based on firefox) as it has most stars on github and cromite (based on chromium) as brave is controversial
Solved Questions
I know that Brave is a bit controversial, but If Brave does something behind our backs wouldn’t we be able to know it since all the source code is out there? If it has some features we don’t like can’t we simply modify the source code?
@slackness
re: open source In theory: yes. In practice: maybe. It’ll probably eventually be caught by some researcher but unlike popular belief all open source code bases are not constantly being audited by the community. A random person can’t just read Brave source code for all platforms and accurately gauge if they’re doing something nefarious. It is very easy to hide stuff in code or misuse a protocol for evil purposes, etc.
You can modify the source code but as evident by the fact that there’s no Brave fork with crypto removed (there was one but their branding was too similar to Brave’s so they got sued), it’s not an easy feat to maintain that.
few questions
- What is the difference between IronFox, Fennec, Waterfox and iceraven?
Define privacy, because all of these browsers report each URL you visit to the operating system.
If privacy means resist fingerprint, which browser do you recommend?
Firefox with Enhanced Tracking Protection set to Strict and uBlock Origin along with LocalCDN installed.
Ain’t nobody drawing a diagram to get an app.
Hardly asking for a diagram. But outside of Tor, what do the others offer over Firefox really? So it’s a valid question.
You think your OS doesn’t see what your doing in Tor or any other app?
Android seeing where you’re going is by design, there’s no circumventing that.
I guess what I need is a comparison of those browsers since they all seem to be ‘private’ enough. What is the one with the best performance and more features?
exactly, we cant be going by vibes here. lets talk about specific metrics and then say ok, well these metrics are important, and this one has the ones I want.