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> url shortener ... temporary email addresses Not sure the privacy browser app itself really "includes" those tools as they work outside the browser on some S
by Terretta 2y ago
> url shortener ... temporary email addresses
Not sure the privacy browser app itself really "includes" those tools as they work outside the browser on some SaaS somewhere. The browser sends users' data to a service (to get/handle a short URL) which then knows who else visits that URL; and to a service somewhere that gets in the middle of their email. Both of these introduce new actors who themselves should be evaluated for security, privacy, or other threat.
Note that the venerable iCab for iOS allows setting useragent and effectively anything and everything else one could want to tinker with in a browser, as does Kagi's Orion which also supports Chrome and Firefox extensions.
Finally, there's a difference between privacy, anonymity, and security, just as there's a difference between government surveillance, adtech surveillance, and threat actors exploiting weaknesses in opsec. When advertising privacy-focus, it's important to say what you're doing, and what you're not doing, as Google Chrome learned when having to pay $5B for letting users be confused about "incognito" mode:
https://www.reuters.com/legal/google-settles-5-billion-consumer-privacy-lawsuit-2023-12-28/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/google-settles-5-billion-consu...
PS. The reply paragraph above from "When comparing..." to "and a URL shortener." sounds LLM generated. The second paragraph sounds human written.
- florastarr 2y agoNot to do the devil's advocate, but if you check the official website it shows that the developer actually owns the URL shortener, so it's the same "actor". Some time ago I asked this guy about where the server were hosted and he explained that everything is hosted locally in his bare metal computers (in Italy I guess) Then as I read in the privacy policy I found out that the email provider is a partner he is actively working to substitute with another first party software. Edit: Also as far as I know "what they are doing" about privacy is in his FAQ on the website, and if you need some more clarifications, as the website itself says, you can always send him an email.
- cesp99 2y agoHi, and thank you for the comment! As florastarr said, every service is self-hosted and first party (except the mail service as of today 11/12/2024, but I'm actively working on creating a proprietary temp-mail service.) so there is no "SaaS somewhere" and no "new actors" except me and my products. Also, no the URL Shortener service stores NO data about the users visiting the URLs, nor who created it. Also, yes, privacy, security and anonymity are different from each other, but they work sometimes all together, that's why there are different sections to tweak all three of the "knobs" ;) I want also to add that the first reply paragraph might sound "LLM generated" but it's not, and i hope to not sound as a LLM again, i guess.