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
- https://lemmy.world/u/Thetimefarm@lemm.ee - As far as I know ironfox supports any extensions normal firefox mobile does, but neither give you access to the full full extensions store. Iceraven is the only mobile browser I know of that lets you use all the extensions that you can on desktop firefox.
- 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- no longer maintained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?
As far as I know ironfox supports any extensions normal firefox mobile does, but neither give you access to the full full extensions store. Iceraven is the only mobile browser I know of that lets you use all the extensions that you can on desktop firefox.
I should mention that DuckDuckGo recently released an android browser and it is privacy focused. I cant tell you how well it does its job BUT the important thing is that it has an experimental feature that creates a virtual network interface that routes coms and blocks phone home attempts and tells you what app is doing what.
I have had it running for a few months and its crazy to see how much traffic is going on without your knowledge.
I use Cromite and Brave (yeah yeah) plus IronFox via Accrescent.
Brave may well have undesireables like the CEO, cryptocurrency etc., but so easy to switch off. Use your device with RethinkDNS (with or without Wireguard configured) to remove further wrinkles.Been using Fennec for about a year, love it
would you say it is better than iceraven in terms of resist fingerprint?
Be aware that Firefox-based browsers on Android are horrible for security and don’t even have an internal sandbox.
If you decide to download IronFox, download it through Accrescent, since it enforces that the devs or anyone else won’t push a malicious update.
Edit: fixed an ambiguous sentence
I’ve never heard of Accrescent. How is it better than F-droid?
I think Louis Rossman has a video explaining why F-Droid is not great
So, it’s a GrapheneOS-developed competitor meant to address F-droid’s perceived limitations?
Fennec development has not stop, why do you think that’s the case? The github repo shows it’s on the current firefox build.
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?
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?
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.
Probably also Mullvad Browser and Tor Browser, but I don’t know them much
Mullvad has ceased development
Edit: my bad I was confused with a different firefox based browser
See also:
Firefox-based
Chromium-based
WebView-based
Isn’t webview-based still essentially chromium-based?
Sorta. It’s the same engine, but it is generally less private and less secure than actual Chromium.
DivestOS used to have some handy tables, before they shut down the website.
I know Brave is controversial but they were the only ones (edit: not sure about Vanadium, I’m curious if they were vulnerable) disallowing JS to access localhost thus blocking Meta and Yandex’s recently discovered spying.
Sounds like such a no brainer to not allow random websites to communicate with the localhost and very easily circumvent all sandboxing you spent thousands of hours building. Looking at you Android (Google) and all the browser vendors (also Google?, huh).
actually I’m a bit curious about how an Open Source project could be “controversial”. 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?
It has cryptocurrency integration and it did some shady ad-referral stealing. But yes, it’s fully open source.
Based on this information, I’m really surprised that no one has forked a Brave branch to remove the undesired feature.
