Friday Digest #17: The Incognito Myth
Hi, it’s Sam. I'm back after an amazing couple weeks away and now ready to dive back into the murky world of online privacy scandals.
As you probably know by now, Google Chrome's 'Incognito' mode is far from private. However, there was some positive news this week as the company agreed to delete billions of personal records collected from over 136 million Chrome users after being accused of illegal surveillance.
Under the proposed settlement terms, Google must make clearer privacy disclosures about Incognito mode and introduce other data collection limits. But the agreement still requires approval from a California federal judge before it can be finalized.
While it’s definitely a positive step, Google Chrome still represents a risk to your privacy whether your’re using Incognito mode or not. So which browsers are best for protecting your privacy online?
Don't miss out on exclusive updates and insights - join our WhatsApp channel! We’ll be sharing the most important VPN and digital privacy stories there every day.
Web browsers can log and store details about every site you visit, every search you make, and reveal highly sensitive information about you in the process.
Advertisers and third parties can buy access to this browsing data to track your interests for targeted ads. And in more nefarious cases, malicious actors could attempt to steal sensitive information like your passwords or financial details.
For most people, this type of data tracking is undesirable at best and a serious privacy risk at worst. That’s why choosing a browser focused on protecting your privacy is so important. And yet it’s often overlooked.
As our Site Editor, Callum Tennent, has written: "for anyone seeking privacy and anonymity online: your browser is usually the weakest link.”
When it comes to robust privacy protections, a few browsers stand out from the crowd.
Mozilla's Firefox, when properly configured, offers the best combination of performance, ease-of-use, and privacy. It includes powerful anti-tracking features that block trackers from third-party cookies, cryptominers, fingerprinters and trackers embedded in websites.
The Tor browser is also purposely designed for anonymous communication by routing your internet traffic through a worldwide network of relays run by volunteers. This effectively hides your IP address and online activity from snoopers.
While the Tor browser is highly effective at protecting your online privacy, there are important trade-offs, such as slower browsing speeds. Plus, it can leak identifiable information when not used properly.
On the other end of the spectrum, many popular browsers fall woefully short when it comes to safeguarding user privacy.
Google's Chrome collects a significant amount of user data like browsing histories and site interactions for advertising and analytics purposes. This data is also linked to your Google account and can be used for ad targeting across the web.
If you’re set on using Chrome, it’s definitely worth using a VPN extension to help protect yourself from some of the risks.
Meanwhile, Apple's Safari browser blocks some third-party trackers and provides more privacy protections than Chrome, but it still permits cross-site tracking, behavioral profiling, and data collection based to a certain degree.
To read more detailed analysis of the best browsers for maintaining your digital privacy, see our guide: The Best Private and Secure Web Browser
More on This Story
The Verge: Google agrees to destroy browsing data collected in Incognito mode
The New York Times: Google to Delete Billions of Chrome Browser Records in Latest Settlement
Tom’s Guide: Google Incognito mode was never private — and now Google’s being forced to delete all the data
What We’ve Been Reading
WIRED: A Vigilante Hacker Took Down North Korea’s Internet. Now He’s Taking Off His Mask
Alejandro Caceres, under the pseudonym "P4x," retaliated against North Korean hacking attempts by single-handedly causing intermittent outages of the country’s internet for over a week. After his actions attracted the interest of the U.S. government, Caceres attempted to persuade Pentagon and intelligence officials to adopt his approach to cyberattacks, but his proposals were ultimately sidelined.
TechCrunch: Indian government’s cloud spilled citizens’ personal data online for years
The Indian government's cloud service, S3WaaS, was found to be leaking sensitive personal information of its citizens, including Aadhaar numbers, COVID-19 vaccination data, and passport details, due to a misconfiguration. Despite initial reports in 2022 and subsequent alerts, some of this data continued to be exposed until recently, raising concerns about potential identity thefts and scams stemming from this prolonged data leak.
Runa Sandvik: A look at the UK's cybersecurity guidance for high-risk individuals
This analysis of the UK National Cyber Security Centre's (NCSC) cybersecurity guidance for high-risk individuals praises its focus on digital threats to individuals and democratic institutions while highlighting gaps in the recommendations, such as the lack of provisions for disk encryption and more advanced security features found in third-party tools.
TechCrunch: Facebook snooped on users’ Snapchat traffic in secret project, documents reveal
In 2016, Facebook initiated "Project Ghostbusters," a covert operation aimed at intercepting and decrypting Snapchat's encrypted traffic to analyze user behavior and gain a competitive edge. This project, revealed through court documents from a class action lawsuit, involved using Onavo, a VPN-like service, to perform a man-in-the-middle attack, allowing Facebook to access and analyze encrypted app traffic from Snapchat.
Financial Times: US and UK sign landmark agreement on testing safety of AI
The US and UK have entered into the world's first bilateral agreement focused on AI safety, setting a precedent for international cooperation on evaluating and regulating the risks associated with emerging AI technologies. The partnership aims to pool technical expertise and resources to address potential threats, such as cyber attacks or the misuse of AI, without immediately pushing for broad regulatory measures.
Citizen Lab: Citizen Lab submission to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China about the State of Human Rights in China
In a submission to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Emile Dirks discusses the pervasive impact of Chinese government-backed online censorship on freedom of expression, highlighting both Chinese and US firms' complicity in content censoring on Chinese platforms. The report emphasizes online censorship's connection to personal freedom and transnational repression, offering recommendations for the US government to hold responsible parties accountable and support victims of digital abuse.
Top10VPN in The News
The Hindu: Measuring internet freedom in India in the last 10 years
Popular Science: Online porn restrictions are leading to a VPN boom