We all have our favorite internet browsers. In fact, we can be as picky about our browser of choice as we are about our operating system, football team, and even political party.
But, is there truly a significant difference between browsers? And if so, which internet browser should you be using?
When it comes to data privacy, there certainly is a significant difference. Here at Craft Compliance, we have often discussed data security and privacy when it comes to online applications, but all too often, people take their browsers for granted as well.
That is why one security researcher put together a little website, called WEBKAY, to demonstrate how much data our browsers can collect about us, which includes location information, operating system, browser version, browser plugins, hardware, local IP and information on local network, social media accounts, auto-fill information, browsing history, and more.
In fact, the worst privacy offenders even include unique identifiers for all of that data to track a user's activity over time. And you can't easily avoid that tracking, even when using incognito mode.
But, some browsers are worse than others. In fact, ExpressVPN performed an in-depth technical study on which browsers truly protect a user's privacy the best and worst.
Which internet browsers protect (or fail to protect) your data privacy the most:
Below are the reported findings from the study (ranked from best to worst):
Tor Browser
Mozilla Firefox
Brave
Chromium
LibreWolf
Pale Moon
Vivaldi
Opera
Iridium
GNU IceCat
Waterfox
Google Chrome
Apple Safari
SeaMonkey
Microsoft Edge
Yandex Browser
In addition, the privacy-focused DuckDuckGo search engine just released their own privacy focused browser—but it was released after this study was performed.
This question isn't purely academic, either.
While people can make their own decisions about their personal privacy, organizations and security teams have to consider what proprietary information may get leaked by wide-spread corporate use of less private browsers (or search engines).
Keep that in mind the next time you run a quick Google search for “how to fix security problem X…”
If you have further questions about data security and privacy, please reach out to us on our website or send Nat Shere a message on LinkedIn.
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