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Epic: A Privacy-Focused Web Browser
Rob @CmdrTaco Malda writes
"I've been advising Epic Browser, a startup building a privacy-focused, Chrome-based browser that starts where incognito mode ends. Epic employs a host of tactics designed to make what happens inside your browser stay there, to the tune of a thousand blocks in a typical hour of browsing. They also provide a built-in proxy service. If the corporations and governments are going to watch us, there's no reason to make it any easier for them. Epic has Mac and Windows builds for now. Their site goes into far greater detail about how they block tracking methods most browsers don't."
But 1000 blocks an hour is way short of what Ad-block plus gets with the standard list.
Based off Chromium, not Chrome. The first is open source.
The summary is incorrect. This browser is based on the open source Chromium, not Chrome, a subtle but important difference since Chrome has Google's extra tracking goodness. However, I have to wonder why they didn't start with Firefox, which is truly open source and not connected at all with Google, which has pretty much become the poster child of privacy invasion these days.
Wouldn't using some special snowflake browser like this make you especially vulnerable to fingerprinting?
Sounds a lot like SRWare Iron* to me - that's a long existing Chromium-based fork altered for enhanced privacy.
At a first glance, I cannot make out any advantages of Epic over Iron. Aside from the removal of all user tracking which Chrome brings, they only provide a 1-click-proxy functionality. Which, if I used it, would leave me and my privacy at the mercy of an India based startup. Instead, I'd also rather suggest JAP** which is also long and well established.
So what am I missing that makes Epic Browser worth a Slashdot post?
[1] https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php
[2] http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/
Ads and search results never include any personalized results or tracking
So, ads yes, tracking no. Or in other words, what search engine ads were like before Google. Something relevant to exactly what you typed in, nothing more.
Or at least that's the claim.
Google is very upfront about what is collected and what they do with it and who they do and do not share what data with. As someone who actually follows this stuff closely and READS agreements and doesn't just rely on Slashdot hype, I am 100% comfortable with everything Google does and what they do with the data, and also with how hard they fight back against governments who want that data. Google doesn't sell your data to ANY third parties, they use it INTERNALLY for their own stuff. As such it is actually VERY private. The data you share with Google is a lot more private than the data you share with your telco or cable company or bank in this respect.
Compare this to Facebook or LinkedIn or even Twitter, who are NOT upfront about what is collected and shared, and who not only share data with governments, but ALSO 3rd party companies at will as part of their business models. As well as your bank, your telco, etc again - all of whom routinely sell client lists including names, addresses, and phone numbers.
Who is the poster child again?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It is being made by an American company. Rest of the world does not and should not trust you anymore.
NSA: Hey Epic Exec, insert this complied module into your app
Epic Exec: Go fuck yourself NSA. We are all about protecting users here
NSA: I see. I also see that you visited a gay bar in SF last week and Boston the week before. Are you going to tell your wife and children or should we?
Epic Exec: Oh I see you are talking about National Security. Why didn't you say that before? Here at Epic we are loyal Murcans and we will be happy to help anyway we can.
NSA: That's a good bitch. Next time roll over and show your belly faster or else.....
I see nowhere on their site where the source code is available. That's just a scummy move.
Can either of them defeat Panopticlick? I don't see anything on Epic's site about hiding font lists. (And on that point, Epic is a bad name choice since it's vaguely synonymous with the death of objectivity in news reporting.)
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Uhhhh...its already been reported that NSA is running several Tor exit nodes to collect the data, you DO know this, right? There has also been people who had their doors kicked down and all their computers hauled off because they ran a Tor exit node and somebody supposedly used it to look at child porn so even running your own exit node carries significant risks.
I think everybody is just gonna have to accept the party is over and has been for awhile, and that any and every thing you do on the net needs to be treated like you were standing on a street corner holding up a sign as THAT is how little privacy you have now. And if the report is true that the NSA has the keys to HTTPS then running a proxy really isn't gonna do shit, they can set there with taps on the backbone and read it all in near real time and if they are doing a MITM on the backbone then that proxy isn't gonna do shit as those packets still have to get to your PC and they can just follow it back to the source.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.