N.E.P.T.R

I have no experience with this project. I will check it out.

Fingerprinting is a complex beast and nearly impossible protect against. RFP (created and upstreamed by Tor Browser) protects and normalizes most fingerprintable metrics (timezone, display viewport dimensions, user agent, audio devices, installed system languages/fonts, etc) to a stable value for each Firefox version. Canvas is the only metric which is randomized. The purpose of this is to create a shared stable browser fingerprint for all RFP users, creating a crowd for people to blend in with each other.

While RFP is strong, its anti-fingerprinting strategy was created for Tor Browser, which users are not supposed to customize. The same can not be expected of all other Firefox users, resulting in most users being much easier to distinguish from each other. RFP also can cause some site breakage and doesnt offer a granular way to toggle specific features per website (eg. Canvas protections breaks your webcam in conference calls).

There is no good solution. Best options are use Firefox (or a fork like Librewolf) for casual use, and Mullvad/Tor Browser for more critical situations. Always use uBlock Origin (except with Tor).

On the Chromium-side, Cromite and Brave randomize some fingerprintable metrics, but they aren’t as exhaustive and aren’t upstreamed to Chromium (for obvious reasons).

Online tests of uniqueness are skewed by the population who uses them, aka privacy-conscious aren’t the typical user even if a dataset overrepresents.

My point was introducing Canvas noise isnt going to make you less fingerprintable, actually quite the opposite. Firefox’s RFP is much better at normalizing fingerprintable metrics and is native. Canvas is one of many many other fingerprinting vectors.

If you go the route of trying to protect against fingerprinting through randomization, use the extension JShelter which seems to do much more noise than Canvas blocker does. I am still very skeptical of it (and other anti-fingerprinting extensions) because of how complex fingerprinting is.

Not an exhaustive solution which results in easier unique fingerprinting. Plus Firefox already randomizes Canvas noise with both FPP or RFP modes (FPP is default).

Both Firefox and Chromium support native Wayland.

Also, this might lead you in the right direction for remote Wayland apps: https://github.com/wayland-transpositor/wprs

You could set up Wayland probably. Just make sure you use GNOME (Mutter) since it is the only Wayland DE that protects the screencopy API.

Docker guest still shares a kernel with host. Use a custom OCI runtimes like kata-containers (VM) or gVisor/sydbox-oci (unprivileged application kernel) to reduce the kernel attack surface and protect against privelege escalation.

Yes

No, it is not a proxy for another search index/engine.

Yes, you can add Brave search to your other browsers.

I wouldn’t stress much. It would take a targeted attack to have actually compromised your phone. It is alright.

Docker is good when combined with gVisor runtime for better isolation.

Sydbox OCI runtime is also cool and faster than gVisor (both are quick)

In that case it is a ToS violation, not piracy. You aren’t paying anything, nor does google lose any money since they have been already paid. We would have to stretch the definition of piracy to include other ToS violations since it is not a financial lose.

Let’s extend the scenario. If YouTube ToS required you to click every ad to use their service, would it be piracy if someone doesnt follow those instructions? I think it would be a ToS violation, but what damages could Google even seek?

I hear people sometimes mention that “Google needs to pay somehow to keep YouTube running.” I have no sympathy for Google since they conspired to intentionally push out other video hosting platforms to create monopoly on the market. It is their own fault that videos aren’t more spread out among providers.

How would you even pirate YouTube anyways?

I recommend Mull. It is security/privacy hardened Firefox and built by using Fennec as a base. Always use Fennec over Firefox because it removes telemetry, proprietary code, and strongly protects against browser fingerprinting. Comes with support for most (if not all) desktop Firefox extensions. I highly recommend using uBlock Origin, ask anyone and they’ll tell you it is the best content blocker available.

Another good browser is Cromite. It is security hardened Chromium with built-in ad/content blocking, decent fingerprinting protection, and strong site isolation. It doesn’t have support for extensions because upstream Chromium on Android doesn’t either and it is hugely complex to port.

Did you enter into a contract saying you must watch ads to use the service? Is ad blocking against ToS? I don’t think either are true, and a “click to consent” isn’t legally binding. Either way, I will never not block ads as it is important from a privacy and cyber security perspective.

It removes more proprietary binary blobs and I dont care about gapps.

I heard that he was a scammer or pseudo privacy expert from other comments. I wouldn’t recommend that phone. If you care about the privacy or security of your device, use DivestOS with a supported Pixel/OnePlus, or GrapheneOS with a Pixel. Only buy the phone new if you are super paranoid of some zero-day vulnerability being used on you. I recommend swappa.com because they have quality control, returns, and good prices for used devices (you can even get mint quality devices).

Comparison of Android ROMs: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

iodeOS has been behind on security updates often (still better security against unsophisticated attacks than Ubuntu but not a good ROM): https://divestos.org/pages/patch_history

No VoIP, spaces, or threads support yet. Promising because it is written in rust and works well with Desktop portals.

My recommendation is GOS if you care about out of box experience and using gapps, DivestOS if you care about degoogling and removal of proprietary code. Both are hardened.