Epic: A Privacy-Focused Web Browser 223
Rob @CmdrTaco Malda writes
"I've been advising Epic Browser, a startup building a privacy-focused, Chrome-based browser that starts where incognito mode ends. Epic employs a host of tactics designed to make what happens inside your browser stay there, to the tune of a thousand blocks in a typical hour of browsing. They also provide a built-in proxy service. If the corporations and governments are going to watch us, there's no reason to make it any easier for them. Epic has Mac and Windows builds for now. Their site goes into far greater detail about how they block tracking methods most browsers don't."
Chrome? (Score:4, Insightful)
You're basing this on a browser made by one of the companies known to have been cooperating with the NSA every step of the way, including the latest revelations [theguardian.com] about said companies inserting backdoors into their products?
Sounds like a good idea to me.
Who would have thought... (Score:4, Insightful)
that computing in the 21st century would become so exciting?
Re:Chrome? (Score:1, Insightful)
And you've audited every line of Chromium code and every line of every library it uses?
"Poster child of privacy invasion" hyperbole (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is very upfront about what is collected and what they do with it and who they do and do not share what data with. As someone who actually follows this stuff closely and READS agreements and doesn't just rely on Slashdot hype, I am 100% comfortable with everything Google does and what they do with the data, and also with how hard they fight back against governments who want that data. Google doesn't sell your data to ANY third parties, they use it INTERNALLY for their own stuff. As such it is actually VERY private. The data you share with Google is a lot more private than the data you share with your telco or cable company or bank in this respect.
Compare this to Facebook or LinkedIn or even Twitter, who are NOT upfront about what is collected and shared, and who not only share data with governments, but ALSO 3rd party companies at will as part of their business models. As well as your bank, your telco, etc again - all of whom routinely sell client lists including names, addresses, and phone numbers.
Who is the poster child again?
Re:Proxies (Score:3, Insightful)
If slashdice cared about, well, anything, they would also run a {slashdot}.onion site as well.
This is *not* EPIC (Score:4, Insightful)
https://epic.org/ [epic.org] is EPIC, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a stalwart defender of online privacy. EPIC does not appear to have any connection to this browser. This so-called "epic browser" doesn't look like much more than Iron [wikipedia.org], which was merely a ploy [wikipedia.org] to make money off of ads on the download page. I'm not saying Epic Browser is that same ploy, but the browser doesn't really do anything that Chromium doesn't already do in Incognito mode (most of those 11 potential privacy leaks that epic blocks [epicbrowser.com] are Google features not available in Chromium or else can be disabled trivially).
This introduces a potential lag time in security updates (and updates to trackers pulled in from e.g. adblock or noscript) and rides on EPIC's good name. Shame on the developers for naming it so similarly.