Securing your web browser

Best Browsers for Security

Not all browsers are equal. If you don’t want to change browsers, at least secure the one you’re using as best as you can.

The best browsers from a security standpoint:

• Brave contains built-in ad/tracker blocking that can be customized and comes configured to preserve privacy to a reasonable degree
• Safari: supports what Apple calls Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP)
• Firefox: Firefox can no longer be trusted with data privacy. They have finally given in and changed their policy around data privacy. One day they just deleted the part of their FAQ that used to say they never sell your data.

Important Settings

Regardless of what browser you use, you can make it more secure by changing some settings and adding a few extensions.

• Disable third-party cookies
  • Reduces behavior profiling and ad targeting: Third-party cookies are a big way for ad tech companies to do this
  • Improves security, especially against some forms of session hijacking
  • Supported by default in privacy-oriented browsers (Brave, Safari, Firefox, etc.)

Privacy-Friendly Search Engines

Change your default search engine to one that protects privacy. Then you'll tend to use that most of the time.

• DuckDuckGo
• StartPage
• Kagi: A paid search ($5/mo) that indexes using Google and Yandex, includes customizable features. Being user supported, they can avoid advertising/tracking.

Browser Extensions

Install uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger browser extensions.

• ⭐Privacy Badger : is a browser extension that prevents advertisers and other third-party trackers from secretly tracking where you go and what pages you look at on the web. If an advertiser seems to be tracking you across multiple websites without your permission, Privacy Badger automatically blocks that advertiser from loading any more content in your browser. To the advertiser, it’s like you suddenly disappeared.
• ⭐Some sort of AD and TRACKER blocking extension like uBlock Origin,
• Canvas Fingerprint Defender: Your browser fingerprint is an ID reported by the browser. This will report a fake value, making it more difficult to infer your identity by advertisers/data brokers
• Clear URLs: This extension will automatically remove tracking elements from URLs to help protect your privacy when browse through the Internet.
• Location Guard: reports a false geographic location to websites.
• LocalCDN (optional): Protects you against tracking through "free", centralized, content delivery. LocalCDN is a web browser extension that emulates Content Delivery Networks to improve your online privacy. It intercepts traffic, finds supported resources locally, and injects them into the environment. All of this happens automatically, so no prior configuration is required.
• Cookie-AutoDelete (optional, advanced) Firefox and Chrome WebExtension that deletes cookies and other browsing site data as soon as the tab closes, domain changes, browser restarts, or a combination of those events. One can "whitelist" certain sites to allow persistent cookies as needed.
• Terms of Service; Didn’t Read (optional): Get information instantly about websites' terms of service and privacy policies, with ratings and summaries.