Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Facebook and Twitter

Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by bbondy on Monday February 11, 2019 @12:00AM (#19132192)

Hi Im Brave's CTO.

There's a balance between breaking the web and being as strict as possible. Saying we fully allow Facebook tracking isn't right [1], but we admittedly need more strict-mode like settings for privacy conscious users.

We do block Facebook at least as good as uBlock origin with EasyPrivacy. The referenced code is in a separate component which does the same as Disconnect blocking.

We're taking this seriously internally and we'll iterate on where we are to improve the situation. We're looking at if we can polyfill a local JS resource instead for example as one option if it doesn't make further requests.

[1]: https://github.com/brave/adblock-lists/blob/f25b698aff4666bb...

https://github.com/brave/adblock-lists/blob/f25b698aff4666bb...

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by forgotmypw2 on Sunday February 10, 2019 @02:03PM (#19129370)

// Temporary whitelist until we find a better solution const whitelistHosts = ['connect.facebook.net', 'connect.facebook.com', 'staticxx.facebook.com', 'www.facebook.com', 'scontent.xx.fbcdn.net', 'pbs.twimg.com', 'scontent-sjc2-1.xx.fbcdn.net', 'platform.twitter.com', 'syndication.twitter.com', 'cdn.syndication.twimg.com']

a better solution for what, i wonder

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by futureastronaut on Sunday February 10, 2019 @02:22PM (#19129480)

That line is three years old, so how is this news now? And what's this "i wonder," do we not know how to use git here?

https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/commit/c4cd7c1dc41a0...

https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/commit/6edf56775f256...

https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/commit/4c30cd08af9dd...

https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/commit/0652274db0aee...

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by rvnx on Sunday February 10, 2019 @03:20PM (#19129755)

I guess it's new that it was discovered, nobody seems to have noticed while it's a major issue for a privacy tool.

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by kerng on Sunday February 10, 2019 @05:30PM (#19130514)

Security vulnerabilities commonly are discovered after a product releases... sometimes many years later.

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by regnerba on Sunday February 10, 2019 @02:05PM (#19129383)

The related commits are years old. This isn't new. Last commit to that line was 3 years ago with the comment "unblocking embedding of twitter timelines".

https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/commit/c4cd7c1dc41a0...

Also I just realized that is an archived repo that isn't used any more.

I took a quick look through the newer repos and couldn't find any kind of hard coded whitelist like that.

Am I missing something?

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by rvnx on Sunday February 10, 2019 @02:09PM (#19129412)

As mentioned by phit_: https://github.com/brave/brave-core/blob/master/components/b...

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by regnerba on Sunday February 10, 2019 @03:37PM (#19129875)

Ah, they put an underscore in the var name this time. Thanks for the link.

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by groovecoder on Sunday February 10, 2019 @10:38PM (#19131876)

Huh ... I thought that must be a sensationalist headline but sure enough - a fresh download of Brave browser loads facebook.com on pinterest.com.

https://imgur.com/a/M4B9kJ2

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by smt88 on Sunday February 10, 2019 @01:55PM (#19129322)

"until we find a better solution" to what? More context would help.

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by CDSlice on Sunday February 10, 2019 @02:01PM (#19129351)

Is this still in the current version?

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by chopraaa on Sunday February 10, 2019 @02:03PM (#19129364)

It is not.

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by rvnx on Sunday February 10, 2019 @02:06PM (#19129390)

What makes you believe so ? https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/1108

I'm trying to figure out if the code is still active case, but this is a quite recent ticket (after the release of the Chromium-based edition, and updated 4 days ago)

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by phit_ on Sunday February 10, 2019 @02:05PM (#19129386)

looks like it is? https://github.com/brave/brave-core/blob/master/components/b...

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by kakarot on Sunday February 10, 2019 @02:04PM (#19129374)

It's on the master branch... How did you determine it's not in the current version or will not be in the next version?

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by rvnx on Sunday February 10, 2019 @02:11PM (#19129418)

Brave has two versions, Muon (legacy) running mostly JS code, and the Chromium-based (current), running mostly C++.

The whitelist is in both versions

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by lostmsu on Sunday February 10, 2019 @02:58PM (#19129642)

Looks like their claim about privacy protection is bogus, eh?

It is still whitelisted in current.

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by bevacqua on Sunday February 10, 2019 @02:05PM (#19129385)

Three years old in an archived repo, hmm…

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by kakarot on Sunday February 10, 2019 @02:02PM (#19129361)

Way to ignore the comment directly before that line:

> // Temporary whitelist until we find a better solution

This post is sensationalist, flagged.

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by rvnx on Sunday February 10, 2019 @02:09PM (#19129405)

It's temporary since 3 years, that's why ;)

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by kakarot on Sunday February 10, 2019 @02:13PM (#19129433)

Then link to the new repo and provide context. Just highlighting a line with absolutely no context is sensationalist. I'm sure there have been public discussions about this.

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by microwavecamera on Sunday February 10, 2019 @03:06PM (#19129677)

I'm sure there have been public discussions about this.

Can you substantiate this? Because that would be extremely relevant to the conversation. Making statements with absolutely no context just seems sensationalistic.

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by kakarot on Sunday February 10, 2019 @03:30PM (#19129817)

I'm not entirely sure how I can substantiate an assumption.

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Re:Brave Privacy Browser Is Whitelisting Trackers of Faceboo... by threatofrain on Sunday February 10, 2019 @04:20PM (#19130104)

If you're sure that there's been public discussion about the matter, then surely you won't have to spend too much time looking it up on Google? Backing up assertions takes energy. Are you motivated enough to champion your own assertions?

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