xenial. wrote:Is vivaldi browser ok to use.?.Any issues with it seeing as it is a closed source browser.
Which Web-browser you use depends on (a) your level of ignorance; (b) your desire for 'bells, whistles, and convenience' and (c) who do you trust.
If you never ask (c) you're at the highest level of (a).
Links anyone? Anyone think Links is convenient? Netsurf: nice GUI but if you want the utility of mainstream browsers you'll need java. Anyone really trust Java?
I know Microsoft has replaced Explorer with something. Don't remember its name. Do you trust Microsoft to handle the information you provide by using its web-browser? Well, you're saved that decision. It's not available for Linux.
As a practical matter there are currently only two 'manufacturers' of 'convenient' web-browsers: mozilla & Google. Mozilla publishes firefox, firefox-esr and seamonkey. (firefox-)LIght, Palemoon and some others whose names currently escape me (as I understand it) strip firefox of some of its 'utility'/bloat --depending on your viewpoint-- with Palemoon rebuilding it with some lighter components. Palemoon is a good all purpose web-browser. But in the last year or so firefox has made (or at least published* that it's made) a concerted effort to create a web-browser reasonably secure against intrusion which doesn't 'call home to mozilla' reporting on everything you do. It's my web-browser of choice for any on-line financial activity primarily because it will honor Spot's restrictions. Look for my posts about them.
Tor is firefox configured to run thru a randomized series of intermediaries so that the originator of the input is difficult to identify. If your bank provides access to someone concealing his/her identity, time to change banks.
Google-Chrome provides the most 'bells & whistles'. Hence, it is the most convenient web-browser for many activities. But Google-Chrome makes its living selling the information you provide it about yourself every time you 'search', 'click' or otherwise respond. George Orwell's prediction was wrong. Big-Brother government may be collecting data. But mostly it isn't watching. Uncle-Google is watching. And whatever data it collects it can be compelled to disclose. Being a 'for profit' company, Google will subordinate principle for profit as it's done in China.
Google-Chrome's test-bed using the blink engine is Chromium. When it's satisfied with one of the zillion tests of potential changes it runs daily, it adds its branding and 'call home' devices and publishes Google-Chrome.
Various other web-browser publishers take Chromium, modify it --often stripping out much of Google's questionable modules-- and publish their brand. Among those are Brave, Cliqz, Opera, Iron and Vivaldi.
Want your web-conduct limited to those website favored by the publishers of Brave or Cliqz? Well, use them.
Opera used to be my favorite 'Chromium-clone'. Although Opera is a private company based in Norway, and Norway's privacy laws are 'user-rather than corporate desires' oriented, a Chinese company now owns a substantial interest in Opera. Ignore the fact that Mainland China refers to itself as the People Republic and spouts Communist slogans. It now operates under the Confucius' 'tried and true' principles of government: One leader supported and to varying extents influenced by his hand-picked advisors who receive information thru and direct the activities of a Central Bureaucracy. Political influence and nepotism go 'hand-in-hand'. Private enterprise depends on 'How private'. Small & Local -- who cares. Large and capable of furthering the objectives of the Government --the Government cares. If you can find a more definitive formula for determining to what extent the Chinese Government controls or ignores the so-called private activities of High Ranking Party Members and their relatives you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.
Iron: Based in Germany with the EU's strong user protection laws. Strips Chromium of its 'call home to google features'; seeks --claims-- to apply high privacy standards. But, it's slow to update.
https://www.howtogeek.com/108384/6-alte ... le-chrome/
Vivaldi: Also based in Norway. Founded by an Opera dissident even before the Chinese involvement. Created to recapture the utility for which the 'old' opera (pre-blink) was known. Regarding privacy: "We don’t track or profile you. We don’t do data collection. We don’t sell your data to third parties. We don’t get to see the sites you visit, what you type in the browser, or your downloads. This type of data is either stored locally on your machine, or encrypted."
https://vivaldi.com/privacy/browser/. Vivaldi had little to do in order to comply with the EUs passage of laws in 2018.
Who do you trust?
Of course, you can probably install any Google-Chrome Extension into any Chromium based browser. I'll let you guess what that does to your privacy. But, you can also choose not to. Or use Mike Walsh's last Google-Chrome SFS (update-able) which does respect the Spot Restrictions: what you're doing this minute is open to Google; what you've stored on your computer is not.
So, currently, I run three web-browsers. Palemoon for accessing this website and most other 'who cares what I'm doing' activity. Firefox for conducting online financial activity. And Vivaldi for running searches which may take me to 'who knows where.' I have Google-Chrome SFS. Don't remember the last time I used it; or why?
* The US is ambiguous about privacy. But, when push-comes-to-shove, it does provide remedies for misrepresentation and some-what grudgingly allows class-action Law suites which can result in damage award sufficiently large to bother even the stockholders of public companies.
Anyways, you're most welcome. Have fun.