The Tor Project, the organization behind the anonymous network and browser, is helping launch a privacy-focused browser built to connect to a VPN rather than a decentralized onion network. It’s called the Mullvad Browser, named after the Mullvad VPN company it’s partnered with on the project, and it is available for Windows, Mac or Linux.
The main purpose of the Mullvad browser is to make it more difficult for advertisers and other companies to track you around the web. It does this by working to shrink your browser’s “fingerprint,” a term that describes any metadata that sites can collect to uniquely identify your device. Your fingerprint can consist of simple things like what browser and operating system you are using, to more invasive information like what fonts and extensions you have installed and what input/output devices your browser can access.
Looking at all of these factors can make it easy to uniquely identify you based on your fingerprint, without the need for things like cookies or other tracking technology. There are several tools that can show you how fingerprint-friendly your browser is, but I personally recommend it the EVFs because it explains the results well.
By default, the Mullvad browser makes it more difficult for websites to take your fingerprints by masking that metadata. It also blocks third-party cookies and trackers and comes with some pre-installed plugins to reduce your fingerprint even further. (Other privacy-focused browsers like Brave say they block fingerprints But come with many extensions that can be identified if a website is able to bypass their protections.)
It is possible to configure a browser such as FireFox, on which the Mullvad browser (and the Tor browser) is based, for similar protections. However, doing this requires at least some technical knowledge, as you need to know which switches to flip and have the confidence that you’ve got it all figured out.
The idea at Mullvad is to take care of all that for you; you can just open it up and be pretty sure you’re not particularly easy to track. “Developing this browser with Mullvad is about giving people more privacy options for everyday browsing and challenging the current business model of misusing people’s behavioral data,” said Isabela Fernandes, executive director of The Tor Project, who will be quoted in a press release.
To be clear, these measures are less helpful if you’re trying to hide from government and law enforcement tracking agencies, such as the NSA, the FBI, or parties that work for other governments around the world. For anyone with the resources, there are ways to track internet activity that go far beyond tracking pixels and third-party cookies.
However, most users do not feel the need for that kind of protection, and the truth is that it is not convenient to get it. For all its privacy benefits, the standard Tor browser isn’t necessarily the most user-friendly, with the main drawback being that it’s often as slow as molasses, and sites built for regular web traffic won’t always handle it well . Those are functions of how it protects you – by encrypting your traffic and bouncing it around the world – but that can be completely overkill if you’re just trying to avoid creepy ads.
According to Pavel Zoneff, a spokesperson for The Tor Project, the Mullvad browser is very similar to the Tor browser, it just connects to the internet through a VPN instead of the Tor network. (It also doesn’t have to be Mullvad’s VPN; if you’re using another service you trust, or if you’ve created your own, you can use that.) Mullvad browser also doesn’t offer the Tor browser’s censorship bypassing user experience, access to ui sites or services, or “circuit isolation and the integration with new identity.” Then again, if you don’t know what those things are, it’s probably not a big concern.
The Mullvad browser probably still has some quirks that you wouldn’t find in Chrome or any other mainstream browser. Some websites get grumpy about certain privacy settings and won’t work properly, and using the cookie cleanup feature continuously may require you to log into services more often. But if you’re willing to make those compromises to be more private on the internet, it might be a good place to start. are a crowd. If you’re the only person using the Mullvad browser, taking your fingerprints can be quite easy; having fewer fingerprints can still be quite recognizable when everyone else has one.
Janice has been with businesskinda for 5 years, writing copy for client websites, blog posts, EDMs and other mediums to engage readers and encourage action. By collaborating with clients, our SEO manager and the wider businesskinda team, Janice seeks to understand an audience before creating memorable, persuasive copy.