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Ask HN: Is Edge any better or worse than Chrome on privacy?
I primarily use Firefox, but occasionally I have to resort to Chrome for certain poorly-designed websites.
Now that Microsoft Edge is Chromium-based, is it any better as an alternative? Is the privacy any more respectable, or does it simply replace all the Google phone-homing with the same level of Microsoft phone-homing?
- asutekku 6y agoIt should be better, but you might as well use Vivaldi, if you need a chrome-based browser. It comes with tracker blockers included and has a lot of privacy and power user features.
- chirau 6y agoDid you answer the question?
- samtheprogram 6y agoThe post title: > Is Edge any better or worse than Chrome on privacy? From GP: > It should be better, but [...] Your comment to GP: > Did you answer the question? Did you add any value to the conversation, like GP did?
- readme 6y agoThis isn't a Q&A site
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- samtheprogram 6y agoHow does Vivaldi compare to Brave, which is also Chromium-based and privacy focused? Is there a compelling reason to use one over the other, such as the organizations behind them or power user features?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Kye 6y agoedit: I am tired of this place.
- lawnchair_larry 6y agoThe CEO did not in fact donate to a hate campaign. Please avoid defaming someone with mischaracterizations of their opinion. He is a religious man who believes that marriage is a religious institution between a man and a woman. You don’t agree with that position. Neither do I. And it might be hurtful. But this is not the same thing as a hate campaign. Eich does not hate gay people. Many who opposed Prop 8 (and the majority opposed it, don’t forget - it failed) did so more or less on semantic principles. They supported equal rights but objected to using the word “marriage” specifically, as they felt that it was redefining a religious word. Some undoubtedly did hate gays, but viewpoints of the opposition were nuanced and varied. It’s not accurate to conflate them all with hate. The Thiel boycott seems futile, because I doubt you’re also opposing facebook, paypal, spacex, stripe, spotify, and dozens of other SaaS that is powering services you use.
- julesallen 6y agoOver the past few weeks I've been using both, Brave is a little more polished and the built in blockers are great. However, they've been caught a couple of times doing naughty things: https://decrypt.co/31522/crypto-brave-browser-redirect https://decrypt.co/31522/crypto-brave-browser-redirect Combine that with a CEO who had a my way or die reputation for not admitting something's wrong and you've got a browser I removed from my system. Trust is huge and makes me wonder what else is happening in the background nobody has caught. Vivaldi's got all kinds of tweaks exposed you'd need to dig into flags for. I like that. I think my biggest gripe is dragging and dropping links out doesn't work. Pretty small potatoes. Daily driver is still Firefox + uMatrix + uBlock Origin and hoping for Mozilla email + calendaring at some point soon (take my money!).
- 6y ago
- pbhjpbhj 6y agoI think the same could be said of Brave. Vivaldi reminds me of Opera (which was my main browser for a while); Brave seems more vanilla somehow (to me, coming from FF).
- ameesdotme 6y agoNot based on actual research, but my guess is that with Edge, you'll now have Google phone-homing combined with Microsoft phone-homing. Unless Microsoft actively went out of their way to remove calls to Google, there may still be many present, as found in many reports about Chromium.
- Kipters 6y agohttps://www.theverge.com/2019/4/8/18300772/microsoft-google-services-removed-changed-chromium-edge-browser https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/8/18300772/microsoft-google-...
- kd913 6y agoIf you are concerned about privacy of chromium-based browsers, I don't think anything would beat just straight chromium. However, on my machines I just main firefox with edge as a backup. Mainly because edge is already pre-installed on my Windows machines so there isn't really much point downloading and installing an alternative which does the exact same thing. Especially if it's only for use on chromium specific websites. It's not like you can remove edge from Windows 10. Why would I install Vivaldi, Google Chrome or Brave?
- sk0g 6y agoWouldn't Firefox with all the inbuilt tracking protection, etc be better than Chromium? I seem to remember some bug reports of Chromium sending requests to Google servers too.
- mcny 6y agoSome things like Facebook multi/group (2+) user video chat or google stadia require some form of chromium. I use Firefox for everything else.
- mech422 6y agoDo you actually use Stadia? If so, how do you like it ?
- mcny 6y agoThumper is unplayable on my flex 14 and Comcast WiFi but it is very YMMV. Thumper is a simple game but it requires you to basically turn left, turn right, or shields up very quickly. It is basically a reaction time test so very susceptible to latency. I had earlier played assassin's creed in the private beta thing on an older laptop on Verizon FiOS. I did reach for the Ethernet cable most of the time but iirc it was serviceable even on WiFi because assassin's creed is less affected by the occasional latency spike. That or maybe Verizon FiOS where I was before in the city area has fewer connection problems than Comcast further out of a town.
- ocdtrekkie 6y agoIt's significantly better. Basically, Microsoft added the tracking protection features[1] Firefox and legacy Edge have to Chrome. Yeah, in terms of sending data to Google vs. Microsoft, that footprint is similar, but third party tracking differences are huge. Edge sends a fraction of the requests to third party services while web browsing as Chrome does. Google has decided to implement third party cookie blocking in Chrome recently... solely in incognito mode[2]. Firefox, Edge, Safari, etc. all do it all the time in normal mode too. This renders Chrome the least privacy-minded browser, primarily because Google heavily values ad tracking as a business practice. [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/with-its-new-edge-browser-microsoft-takes-dead-aim-at-google/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/with-its-new-edge-browser-micr... [2] https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/19/google-chrome-83/ https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/19/google-chrome-83/
- dicknuckle 6y agoWhat about Opera? it's also based on chromium these days.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- lawnchair_larry 6y agoThe whole reason that Microsoft creates this product is for tracking.
- readme 6y agoThe real reason why Microsoft has a browser is that they tried to monopolize the web in the 90s and failed. The browser never went away, though!
- sam_goody 6y agoEven if that was true, it doesn't mean that their browser does more tracking than Chrome. Sad, that that is the situation. Though the OP's question is a little odd to me - if you know enough to ask, why would you use either?
- kkm 6y agoI have been testing Edge on iOS for Privacy practices. I think there are lot of things to improve. Also, it would be great for Edge to make it easier way to report and have discussions. Currently it’s a black box. - https://twitter.com/konarkmodi/status/1258163915319640071 https://twitter.com/konarkmodi/status/1258163915319640071 - https://twitter.com/konarkmodi/status/1258185278168223746 https://twitter.com/konarkmodi/status/1258185278168223746 - https://twitter.com/konarkmodi/status/1262019416914644994 https://twitter.com/konarkmodi/status/1262019416914644994 - https://twitter.com/konarkmodi/status/1258338835722887171 https://twitter.com/konarkmodi/status/1258338835722887171
- tmikaeld 6y agoDoesn't edge on iOS just use an UI only top of Safari Webview?
- flowerlad 6y agoI use Edge when using Google services such as Gmail and Chrome when using Microsoft services such as Office 365. That way they can't log me into the browser when I log into the service.
- BiteCode_dev 6y agoI use Firefox for the same reason, especially that, thanks to tab containers, I can be logged in in one tab and out in another. Linking your browser login to online services is incredibly invasive.
- jhanschoo 6y agoRegarding tab containers: last I tried them there was no way to clear cookies in a container. Is this still the case?
- abhigyan-bhusal 6y agoThis is a messy workaround, but I just delete the container and create a new one with the same name.
- BiteCode_dev 6y agoStill the case. The features is no used enought, people don't know about it, and because of that, there is no pressure to improve it. E.G: the "forget this site" button will remove all cookies, local storage, cache, etc. for one site. Very handy, because I don't want to bust my entire cache every time. But it will remove them for all containers, which sometimes is not what you need.
- jhanschoo 6y agoThanks. Ironically, this also means that chrome has more visible support for tab-containering, with its clear support for simultaneous windows with different profiles. Can I do the same in Firefox?
- SquareWheel 6y agoYou can read their respective privacy policies to understand what data they collect and how it is used. If you're skeptical of their legal terms, then you're better off with Chromium as it remains open-source. Edge unfortunately is a closed-source product.
- enumjorge 6y agoNot sure what your point is. The new Edge is also based on Chromium, and Chrome has parts which aren’t open source.
- SquareWheel 6y agoI never mentioned Chrome at all. I said if you don't trust the privacy policy, then you should use Chromium which is open-source.
- enumjorge 6y agoOh I misread your comment. That makes sense. My bad!
- Egoist 6y agoThe full readme is worth the read about chromium/chrome. But this highlights edge differences. No browser is perfect, but you can always be able to restrict things or use GPo baselines to limit browser use. https://github.com/CHEF-KOCH/Chromium-hardening#chrome-vs-ms-edge-chromium https://github.com/CHEF-KOCH/Chromium-hardening#chrome-vs-ms...
- alibert 6y agoI believe it's a better alternative to Chrome if you are already using Windows. Edge Chromium still has telemetry data sent to MS but it respects the privacy control and group policy in Windows, so if you have already set Windows telemetry to low, it sent almost nothing. I recommends usage of "O&O ShutUp10" to disable all Windows and Edge telemetry. It doesn't have telemetry data sent to Google (no contact with Google owned domain). It also has a third party tracking blocker included and enabled by default which makes it way better than Chrome on that point. On my installation, it even blocks Microsoft tracking... I use Pi-Hole to keep track of the domains reached by Edge and so far, there are nothing really worrying me (I already use Windows so my expectations are relative).
- fierarul 6y agoWhat about running on Windows Home which sends much more telemetry? Also, "almost nothing" is not nothing and I don't believe Microsoft getting all the data is a much better situation compared to Microsoft and Google getting some of the data.
- untog 6y ago> Also, "almost nothing" is not nothing True, but OPs question was “better or worse”.
- alibert 6y agoYou are right, this was tested on Windows Pro so I can't tell about Home version. Might worth trying ShutUp10 on Home. It might be able to disable some or all tracking...
- noisem4ker 6y agoAs far as I know, Home and Pro editions of Windows 10 don't differ in regards to telemetry. They both offer two settings: "basic" and "full". Enterprise and Education editions can go one level below with the "security" setting. (Edit) The settings are now called "off", "required" and "optional": https://www.computerworld.com/article/3532008/microsoft-eliminates-a-windows-10-telemetry-setting-renames-others.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3532008/microsoft-elim...
- znpy 6y agoas a rule of thumb no proprietary browser is good on privacy.
- Sephr 6y agoIt's currently worse due to the lack of E2EE history/password sync and increased metrics collection (even the new tab page tracks you). Chrome has E2EE history/password sync, which allows you to specify a sync encryption password that is different from your Google password.
- patmorgan23 6y agoYou can use a 3rd party service like dashlane or bitwarden
- AsyncAwait 6y agoMight be very slightly better in itself, but combine this with all the other telemetry Windows 10 collects and overall I'd say the amount of telemetry collected on you by MS is about the same.
- pbhjpbhj 6y agoI was thinking: of your already using MS Windows then Edge at least send to reduce the companies you're sending the data to. The reverse might be true if you use Google Search/Mail/other apps.
- AsyncAwait 6y agoInteresting point; that could be both good and bad; good in the sense of reducing the number of parties collecting telemetry. Bad in that it makes it conveniently centralized for any malicious actor.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y agoOn MacOS, I was rather surprised to find the truly extraordinary amount of locations Edge installs stuff, which aren't removed when deleting the app. My impression was they we're trying to survive all uninstall attempts by using two dozen different methods to autostart various services and updaters?
- wiiiii 6y agoin terms of privacy, Edge has the edge (badum-tss) over Chrome because of the built-in tracking prevention, and telemetry disabled by default. That's it. your privacy really depends on how many "sweeties" do you use. If you let all those "helper services" enabled by default, your privacy is more compromised that if you take 3 minutes to go through the settings and enable only what you want. If you're concerned about your privacy, just read their privacy policy. In general terms, it comes down to Google wanting to get as much information about you as possible, and Microsoft is rather interested in how you interact with their services. In either case, you have access in your account dashboard to what information has been collected, and check how in Google's case it's up to the minimum detail, whereas in Microsoft is like "yesterday you used Outlook, Edge and OneDrive...". Also, in either case, which is something many people fail to understand, the collected information is actually anonymous. They don't care if you are John Doe or Alice, Bob's wife... they care that UUID likes this and that, and do this and that.
- natch 6y agoWith Google’s practices of gathering your personal data, why is Chrome even in the running in any of the discussions about browsers? I mean, Firefox and Safari exist, people. But maybe it’s me. What am I missing here?
- natch 6y agoThanks for the downvote but really, what am I missing?
- Shared404 6y agoLike the sibling comment said, Chrome has a massive market share. This leads companies to only test their sites on Chrome, leading to the sites not working properly elsewhere, leading to the gamerbros and many powerusers to refuse to use something else. Sadly, tracking doesn't seem to worry most people as much as it does me and you.
- gtirloni 6y agoChrome's market share is too high to ignore it.
- gentleman11 6y agoEdge isn’t great. Why not look at de googled chromium or brave instead? I have maybe one website that I like to use brave for and the rest all work with Firefox 100%
- bad_user 6y agoEdge does not (e2e) encrypt your synced browsing history and your bookmarks. In the help pages Microsoft tries to weasel itself out of it by talking about TLS or encryption "at rest". Chrome on the other hand can do end to end encryption by providing your own password. Windows 10 has an advertising ID that is passed via Edge to Bing Ads. Chrome does the same thing with a low entropy ID passed to DoubleClick. In both cases this is used to track you. The difference is that Microsoft can potentially track your behavior in other apps as well. Google is also very transparent about what they collect about you. You can also opt out of any collection or personalization. Do you know what Microsoft collects about you? They sure collect a ton of telemetry, with no way to opt out in some cases. The terms of Windows Insiders for example are ridiculous. And Bing Ads is generating about $8 billion per year which isn't pocket change. If you think Microsoft isn't making a shitload of money from ads, you're wrong. In other words they are very equivalent, but due to lacking end to end encryption for synchronized data, I can't touch Edge. Note that I don't use Chrome either, only for testing like you. Firefox is better than both if concerned about privacy.
- _bxg1 6y agoIs it naive to assume that the advertising ID, etc. are left out of plain Chromium?
- cosmojg 6y agoIndeed, it is. That's why this exists: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium
- tuananh 6y agofor those that care so much about privacy but figure it's still ok to download ungoogled-chromium > NOTE: These binaries are provided by anyone who are willing to build and submit them. Because these binaries are not necessarily reproducible, authenticity cannot be guaranteed; In other words, there is always a non-zero probability that these binaries may have been tampered with. In the unlikely event that this has happened to you, please report it in a new issue.
- drivebycomment 6y agoPrivacy is such a vague and useless term nowadays that it is very difficult to say what is better unequivocally. So it would be useful if you define what you consider to be 'privacy' and what matters more vs less.
- usrlocal1023 6y agoFrom a study conducted by Douglas J Leith from the School of Computer Science & Statistics at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, they found that the new chromium based Edge is sending hardware UUID's back to Microsoft and there isn't an option to turn it off. "From a privacy perspective Microsoft Edge and Yandex are much more worrisome than the other browsers studied. Both send identifiers that are linked to the device hardware and so persist across fresh browser installs and can also be used to link different apps running on the same device. Edge sends the hardware UUID of the device to Microsoft, a strong and enduring identifier than cannot be easily changed or deleted. Similarly, Yandex transmits a hash of the hardware serial number and MAC address to back end servers. As far as we can tell this behaviour cannot be disabled by users. In addition to the search autocomplete functionality (which can be disabled by users) that shares details of web pages visited, both transmit web page information to servers that appear unrelated to search autocomplete." https://bgr.com/2020/03/11/microsoft-edge-browser-privacy-issues-performance/ https://bgr.com/2020/03/11/microsoft-edge-browser-privacy-is...
- ta17711771 6y agoYou're looking for Ungoogled-Chromium. Or honestly. Just mitigated Chromium. Privacy is not as important as security, because without security you potentially lose both.
- badrabbit 6y agoIt's worse,plus it does shady crap like sniff browsing history on other browsers.
- kyriakos 6y agoNot privacy related but on Windows 10 I find Edge to be performing a little better compared to Chrome under the same tabs / workload / extensions. Its anecdotal though so I can't be certain, anyone else has similar experience?
- coronadisaster 6y agoSomewhat unrelated, but I started having many websites that don't work properly in Firefox in the last couple of weeks...
- buttholesurfer 6y agoMicrosoft buying users here too? Like typescript?
- ragnese 6y agoIf you care at all about privacy, I don't see how you could stomach either. Firefox is the only reasonable choice when it comes to privacy, and even that isn't perfect.
- Shared404 6y agoI mean, there is Tor. If you don't care that much about latency, that could be a reasonable option as long as you aren't streaming something.