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Re:The Mullvad Browser by detrites on Monday April 03, 2023 @06:53AM (#35421392)
From the FAQ [0]:

> Why is the time is wrong?

> The timezone is spoofed, to combat fingerprinting.

> What's this weird spacing around the websites?

> It’s called letterboxing, a function to combat fingerprinting (using your browser window size to identify you together with other measures).

> How do I stay logged into specific websites between sessions?

> It’s not possible. It’s an action to combat tracking.

Not sure if there are other measures, other than that the browser itself doesn't track anything.

Looking much better than a stock firefox, and presumably will improve over time.

[0] - https://mullvad.net/en/help/tag/mullvad-browser/

Re:The Mullvad Browser by ta1243 on Monday April 03, 2023 @06:58AM (#35421450)
Except most of the time I don't want to spoof my timezone, don't want weird spacing around websites, and do want to remain logged in to websites.

> How do I stay logged into specific websites between sessions? > It’s not possible. It’s an action to combat tracking.

Turns me off immediately

Re:The Mullvad Browser by archb on Monday April 03, 2023 @07:01AM (#35421487)
I thought it'd be possible by simply turning off "Always use private browsing mode" setting, but it doesn't seem to work. Sessions are still cleared upon browser exit.

In my case, I had to turn off that setting because without it, 1Password wouldn't work.

Re:The Mullvad Browser by detrites on Monday April 03, 2023 @07:24AM (#35421678)
Well, some of us don't want to be tracked, don't want to be tracked and don't want to be tracked.

Given your stated preferences, are you actually looking for a privacy-focused browser?

Re:The Mullvad Browser by ramraj07 on Monday April 03, 2023 @07:29AM (#35421720)
Some people just want everything, no compromises.
Re:The Mullvad Browser by _puk on Monday April 03, 2023 @08:00AM (#35422031)
But isn't this what Firefox containers achieve?

My understanding is that cookies etc aren't shared between containers, so I can stay logged in, and not be tracked across websites.

If it's achievable, why compromise?

Re:The Mullvad Browser by noahmasur on Monday April 03, 2023 @08:14AM (#35422186)
Your browser can still be fingerprinted without cookies. The site just needs enough unique information (user agent, timezone, screen size, IP, operating system, country, etc.) to form a trackable identity.
Re:The Mullvad Browser by jwestbury on Monday April 03, 2023 @10:25AM (#35424107)
> IP

This is a surprisingly effective one when combined with other users of your network. A couple of years ago, I started getting Facebook ads for things I'd never looked at, but that I knew my wife had looked at. We don't share any devices, and she doesn't even have a Facebook account.

It's pretty troubling how invasive shadow profiles are.

Re:The Mullvad Browser by hiccuphippo on Monday April 03, 2023 @10:24AM (#35424093)
What I'd like is a Mullvad container in regular Firefox so I can choose what sites to open in it, or rather make it the default and move a site to another container if I want permanent cookies. I use temporary containers now but the extra fingerprinting features appeal to me.
Re:The Mullvad Browser by SadTrombone on Monday April 03, 2023 @04:44PM (#35431001)
You could look into Mozilla's VPN offering, it does what you want and is powered by Mullvad.
Re:The Mullvad Browser by lxgr on Monday April 03, 2023 @06:37PM (#35432315)
It’s a neat feature, but beware: Per-container VPN reveals your real IP if you‘re also using uBlock in the default configuration at the moment due to a limitation in Firefox: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dashboard:-Settings#u...
Re:The Mullvad Browser by overthrow on Monday April 03, 2023 @09:01AM (#35422785)
That's not very charitable.

Some people just want to pick a different point on the tradeoff between convenience and privacy.

Imagine User A uses Fastmail every day, logging in manually every morning. User B uses Fastmail every day, with a saved login cookie. How is User B's privacy any worse? What would User B gain from not having that choice?

Re:The Mullvad Browser by hitekker on Monday April 03, 2023 @02:33PM (#35429047)
The GP said "some people" not everyone. Some people want all the convenience and the illusion of privacy; the benefits minus the cost. It's human nature to want something without paying for it, just as it is human nature to pretend that desire doesn't exist
Re:The Mullvad Browser by teawrecks on Monday April 03, 2023 @02:57PM (#35429439)
It's not a matter of user choice, it's a matter of maintenance and product integrity.

User B's privacy is objectively lessened by allowing tracking cookies, but that is their choice. What is out of the user's control is what mullvad chooses to spend their time supporting.

If mullvad allows users to turn off a privacy feature, now that's a permutation they have to test for. It's also an attack vector they've enabled, either through user carelessness or social engineering. Mullvad wants to be able to say "here's a browser, it's 100% private" and not have to say "as long as you do X, and don't do Y, and...". Every other browser already does that.

Re:The Mullvad Browser by ta1243 on Monday April 03, 2023 @04:23PM (#35430732)
If someone is logging into fastmail every day how does preventing this from being remembered help?
Re:The Mullvad Browser by jchmrt on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @01:57AM (#35435667)
A possible scenadio might be that one day the user wants to log in to their other fastmail account, which they don't want to be linked to their main one in any way.
Re:The Mullvad Browser by wkat4242 on Monday April 03, 2023 @07:57AM (#35421990)
It should be possible to make exceptions for sites you trust IMO.
Re:The Mullvad Browser by heartbreak on Monday April 03, 2023 @08:25AM (#35422342)
It is. You open those sites in Firefox.
Re:The Mullvad Browser by lxgr on Monday April 03, 2023 @06:47PM (#35432424)
What if I don‘t want the memory and disk storage overhead of running two browsers?

Being able to easily reopen a tab in a different "identity" is also a pretty neat feature.

Re:The Mullvad Browser by BLKNSLVR on Monday April 03, 2023 @08:48AM (#35422606)
You can have more than one browser installed. I have some specific use cases between Brave and Firefox.

Choose the right tool for the job.

Re:The Mullvad Browser by deltree7 on Monday April 03, 2023 @10:28AM (#35424146)
Most of us are self-aware that I'm not that important to be specifically targeted.

At the end of the day, where there is attention, there will be ads. All you are fighting for should they show you relevant ads or irrelevant ads.

People who live a privileged life and have nothing else important going on in their life choose this hill to die on.

Re:The Mullvad Browser by chaxor on Monday April 03, 2023 @10:53AM (#35424629)
You're clearly not thinking enough about this. It's not just about ads. For just one example, think about the data acquired regarding fertility and abortion, and how it can be used with respect to some law alterations. There are many other examples for present and potential futures, so no this isn't just about ads.
Re:The Mullvad Browser by detrites on Monday April 03, 2023 @11:45AM (#35425747)
There are 200 countries on this earth, and not all of them have the luxury of an uncorrupt, actually-democratic set of genuine public servants who wish only to create utmost benefit for the largest number of people.

If you have that, you're a minority. And if you believe you have that, but actually you don't, you'll find out only after it's too late to save it. It's prudent instead to assume and act like you don't have it in either case.

Indeed, some of the greatest democracies have been set up precisely to that end.

For many, online privacy isn't at all about advertising. It's about working to a common good of rights and freedom for all.

Rest on your laurels all you like, but don't deride others who refuse to. It is only through the efforts of such people, and in the past those like them, that any of us have the ability to take any such rest at all.

Re:The Mullvad Browser by beardog on Monday April 03, 2023 @11:51AM (#35425874)
> Most of us are self-aware that I'm not that important to be specifically targeted.

Of course, not in the sense that the FBI, Wagner Group, or the boogy man are going after you today (but you never know what the future holds) - however data brokers and large companies have a financial incentive right now to know as much about everyone as possible and the information they collect is increasingly being used to decide your insurance rates, give you employment, etc.

>People who live a privileged life and have nothing else important going on in their life choose this hill to die on.

I mostly agree, however privacy issues impact the less privileged more, for example women seeking abortions in unfriendly states, teenagers learning about queer issues in a toxic community/family, people fleeing abusive relationships (the effort some stalkers do is truly insanity), minority groups (e.g. undocumented immigrants). Sure these groups can't dedicate lots of mental energy to privacy but plug and play browsers like this one make it easier and even if you are highly privileged protecting your privacy makes it more acceptable for others to do so too.

Re:The Mullvad Browser by neurostimulant on Monday April 03, 2023 @07:27AM (#35421708)
This is inherited from the upstream TOR browser. It's basically designed to evade fingerprinting by making the browser's fingerprint similar across all TOR browser's users. It's indeed very inconvenient so don't use these browsers unless you're seriously care about these stuff.
Re:The Mullvad Browser by naillo on Monday April 03, 2023 @07:35AM (#35421769)
Obviously you're not the target audience for a privacy focused browser
Re:The Mullvad Browser by oefrha on Monday April 03, 2023 @07:45AM (#35421861)
Well, I’d say this is largely privacy theater for hobbyists. Like a lot of other hobbies, unreasonable suffering is often part of the fun and creates a sense of belonging. What sets you apart if you’re just browsing like every other mortal?

Edit: As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, there are still plenty of identifying bits.

Re:The Mullvad Browser by FollowingTheDao on Monday April 03, 2023 @07:54AM (#35421946)
Convenience is the wedge that separates you from your privacy.
Re:The Mullvad Browser by hotpathdev on Monday April 03, 2023 @08:21AM (#35422296)
No one wants that, most websites become broken by taking pro-privacy measures. It's about not consenting to tracking. Right now the majority of users are implicitly giving consent to tracking.

It seems like a harmless thing to be tracked, but once the likes of haveibeenpwned.com came out and the databases that fuel it, and services that provide search utility to those databases, it should become clear that being tracked across every single website on the internet is probably not what you want.

Scenario: You apply for a job, they look up your totally-clean email address, see the email linked to an ip address on some database from a leaky website you applied for a job on, the ip address is linked to a service where you used a certain password which you used on 6 other services, one of which had a database leak of your system fonts, now you can see all the accounts to services to which your system fonts were identically matched. Oh look, you were 13 years old when you joined stack overflow on an abandoned account and you posted some humorous, incorrect solutions that were down-voted to oblivion. But that's ok, they invite you to the job interview and they make a funny remark about your stack overflow answers and then offer you a job. Do you want to work there now that you know they completely invaded your privacy ?

And yes, performing such searches is trivial.

Re:The Mullvad Browser by nearbuy on Monday April 03, 2023 @08:26PM (#35433377)
So in this scenario, if only you had used the Mullvad browser then... you wouldn't have have found out this employer snoops on their employees and might have accepted their job offer? You've concocted a scenario where a privacy-focused browser ends up causing you problems.
Re:The Mullvad Browser by hotpathdev on Monday April 03, 2023 @08:36PM (#35433442)
I'm not advocating for this browser specifically, only encouraging more people to take pro-privacy and online safety measures.

It's pointless to say the problem is the employer, or the hacker who released the data, or the programmer who relied on bad algorithms, or the admin who didn't secure the data. One way or another, this data will get leaked, the old hashing and encryption techniques will be broken and there will be people searching through it all. Forget about the government, at least they are beholden to law and maintaining the appearance of adhering to it. Substitute employer for neighbor, girlfriend or internet stalker and you have equally valid scenarios which are even more disturbing in my mind.

Re:The Mullvad Browser by weberer on Monday April 03, 2023 @09:58AM (#35423654)
Then standard Firefox with "Enhanced Tracking Protection" set to "Strict" would probably be enough for you.
Re:The Mullvad Browser by mongol on Monday April 03, 2023 @12:09PM (#35426294)
I like the Duck Duck Go browser. It has a "burn" buttton that destroys all cookies except those you opt in to keep.
Re:The Mullvad Browser by DrewADesign on Monday April 03, 2023 @02:54PM (#35429384)
Have you considered becoming a non-user?
Re:The Mullvad Browser by bubersson on Monday April 03, 2023 @05:17PM (#35431425)
Unfortunately from now on, the Mullvad Browser is the only browser you can use, ever. So you will be annoyed by this inconvenience a lot.
Re:The Mullvad Browser by illiarian on Monday April 03, 2023 @07:03AM (#35421505)
So it's Tor Browser, but for clearnet
Re:The Mullvad Browser by npteljes on Monday April 03, 2023 @08:24AM (#35422329)
Yes, and I like it that they explicitly say so on the page. This kind of transparency and down to earth marketing inspires confidence.
Re:The Mullvad Browser by illiarian on Monday April 03, 2023 @08:28AM (#35422364)
Ah, completely missed it on the page. So I'm just re-iterating :)
Re:The Mullvad Browser by bmacho on Monday April 03, 2023 @10:32AM (#35424233)
Why not just disable javascript?
Re:The Mullvad Browser by shp0ngle on Monday April 03, 2023 @11:20AM (#35425190)
What is more satisfying than needing to enter OTP every time I go to check email.

I already do this for work (for security theatre) so I will skip this

Re:The Mullvad Browser by dokem on Monday April 03, 2023 @02:20PM (#35428843)
Why can't this be (an open source) firefox extension? Seems like that would be much more user friendly and easily auditable.
Re:The Mullvad Browser by sundarurfriend on Monday April 03, 2023 @06:17PM (#35432085)
> > Why is the time is wrong?

> > The timezone is spoofed, to combat fingerprinting.

The annoying thing about this (assuming it's the same as in Firefox) is that the times displayed in your own local History page are also "wrong" i.e. shown in UTC.