 Sunday, April 4, 2021 in Privacy  1 Comment |  |  Most of us use web browsers out of habit.
If you surf the web with Microsoft Edge, that may be because you use Windows. If you use Safari, that`s probably because you are an Apple customer. If you are a Chrome user, that could be because you have a Google phone or laptop, or you downloaded the Google browser on your personal device after using it on computers at school or work.
In other words, we turn to the browsers that are readily available and familiar. It`s easy to fall into browser inertia because these apps are all fast, capable and serve the same purpose: visiting a website.
So if the differences are minimal, why bother looking for something else?
I hope to persuade you to at least try something else: a new type of internet navigator called a private browser. This kind of browser, from less-known brands like DuckDuckGo and Brave, have emerged over the last three years. What stands out is that they minimize the data gathered about us by blocking the technologies used to track us.
That`s generally better than what most mainstream browsers, especially Chrome, do. While some browsers like Safari and Firefox also include tracking prevention, the smaller brands have been focused on even more privacy protections.
We have also reached an inflection point in digital privacy. The online advertising industry is on the brink of ceasing to use web cookies, pieces of code planted in browsers that follow us from site to site and help target us with ads. Google, whose Chrome browser is the world`s most popular, has been trying to develop a new way to target us with ads without the cookie.
Let`s not wait for that. You can decide now that you don`t want to be tracked.
What is a private browser?
It`s important to know what private browsers do, and what they don`t. So let`s look under the hood.
Private browsers generally incorporate web technologies that have been around for years:
— They rely on something called private mode, also known as incognito mode, which is a browsing session that does not record a history of the websites you have visited. This is useful if you don`t want people with physical access to your device to snoop on you.
— Private browsers also use tracker blockers, which can often be downloaded as an add-on for a browser. The blockers depend on a list of known trackers that grab information about your identity. Whenever you load a website, the software then detects those trackers and restricts them from following you from site to site. The big downside of this approach is that blocking them can sometimes break parts of websites, like shopping carts and videos.
Privacy-focused browsers typically turn private mode on by default, or automatically purge browsing history when you quit the browser. The browsers also have tracking prevention baked in, which lets them aggressively block trackers using approaches that minimize website breakage.
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