General Browser recommendations:
- Firefox: Fast, reliable and open source. Mozilla (developers of FF) respects your privacy. Also you are able to configure your browser to achieve higher anonymity
- Tor Browser: TOR is an extra layer of anonymity and based on Firefox (basically it’s a modded Firefox version). It comes with pre-installed privacy add-ons and an advanced proxy.
- Brave: Brave is a pretty new open source browser. It automatically blocks adds and trackers, making it faster and safer. Also Brave is based on chromium so it’s easy to switch from Chrome to Brave.
Is your Browser configuration unique (Fingerprint) ?
When you browse a site your browser sends information like installed fonts, browser type, installed add-ons etc. This combination is your (unique) browser-fingerprint. Through that it’s possible to track you without using cookies or being in need of your IP-address.
EFF developed a tool called “Panopticlick” to check your browsers fingerprint. (https://i.fiery.me/517p.png)
In order to solve that problem you have to use those variables which are used by the most. This means having the same fonts, add-ons, having a spoofed User-Agent. If you have JS disabled or you are using Linux that will make your browser stick out from the mass.
In order to protect your privacy you should use some 3rd party add-ons as most browser are not primarily focused on the users privacy. (CanvasBlocker, PrivacyBadger, …).
WebRTC:
WebRTC is a communication protocol which relies on JavaScript and can leak your real IP-address even if your are using a VPN.
You can check it here: https://ipleak.net/
In Chrome for example you can not completely fix leaking through WebRTC, though it’s possible to fix it through 3rd party add-ons I won’t explain that any further as Chrome has nothing to do with Security and Anonymity.
In Brave it’s disabled by default and in Firefox you can easily prevent it by typing in “about:config” in your URL bar.
There you set the following:
media.peerconnection.enabled = false
media.peerconnection.turn.disable = true
media.peerconnection.use_document_iceservers = false
media.peerconnection.video.enabled = false
media.peerconnection.identity.timeout = 1
Privacy Add-Ons:
Privacy Badger is a add-on that stops advertisers and 3rd party trackers from tracking you where you go and what pages you look on the web.
uBlock Origin is an efficient blocker that doesn’t use much memory. You can configure it by loaded thousands of filters and in addition it’s open source and non-profit.
Cookie AutoDelete automatically removes cookies for you. You can configure when the cookies should get deleted etc.
HTTPS Everywhere encrypts your communication with websites making your browsing more secure. You can also block HTTP completely or just letting your browser redirect to the https version if possible.
Decentraleyes emulates Content Delivery Networks locally by intercepting requests, finding the required resource and injecting it into the environment.
Terms of Service: “I have read this” is probably the biggest lie on the web. This add-on aims to fix that by grading websites based on their ToS and gives short summaries.
The following to add-ons require a lot of user interaction
uMatrix gives you control over requests that sites make to other sites. That prevents tracking through facebook, google etc.
NoScript is highly customizable and lets you disable JavaScript, Java and Flash.
about:config tweaks for FireFox:
- privacy.firstparty.isolate = true
- privacy.resistFingerprinting = true
- privacy.trackingprotection.fingerprinting.enabled = true
- privacy.trackingprotection.cryptomining.enabled = true
- privacy.trackingprotection.enabled = true
- browser.cache.offline.enable = false
- browser.safebrowsing.malware.enabled = false
- browser.safebrowsing.phishing.enabled = false
- browser.send_pings = false
- browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo = 0
- browser.urlbar.speculativeConnect.enabled = false
- dom.battery.enabled = false
- dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled = false
- geo.enabled = false
- media.eme.enabled = false
- media.gmp-widevinecdm.enabled = false
- media.navigator.enabled = false
- network.cookie.cookieBehavior = 1
- network.cookie.lifetimePolicy = 2
- network.http.referer.trimmingPolicy = 2
- network.http.referer.XOriginPolicy = 2
- network.http.referer.XOriginTrimmingPolicy = 2
- webgl.disabled = true
- browser.sessionstore.privacy_level = 2
- extensions.pocket.enabled = false
- network.IDN_show_punycode = true
- extensions.blocklist.url = https://blocklists.s…locklist/3/ / /
