pibeh

  • Jun 24, 2024
  • Joined May 26, 2024
  • 2 discussions
  • 10 posts
  • 0 best answers
  • 20 points
  • In Export data to use in other browsers

    My Feature™️ entails the ability to export history and other data from Orion into other browsers. It can be alternatively viewed as an "import from Orion" in other (major) browsers.

    I cannot use Orion on a daily basis before there's a way to export the data it has collected into other browsers. I always keep my history which is tens of thousands of items spanning over the years, and importing/exporting them is possible in major browsers, for example I can import Firefox history from Safari and vice versa, so I can always continue using the other browser seamlessly without losing that data. As far as I understand at the moment if you choose to use Orion it's a one-way street, with no way to switch back to Firefox or Safari without losing your data and starting over. It should be provided to prevent the lock-in described above.

    • Vlad replied to this.
    • In Ability to clear all cookies except for specified domains on exit and fully block some domains from adding cookies

      I've been using this feature in Firefox extensively. Basically I would like to delete everything site-related on browser exit except for several specific websites that I truly care about keeping my session settings on browser restarts. And an in a similar way, block specific domains from adding cookies (and use storage too, maybe?) completely. Attached is a screenshot of how it looks like in Firefox at the moment.

      It's useful because I don't have to second-guess any block lists and know that I start fresh every time for every website except the ones I specifically need for work.
      And on the other hand there are some websites that I don't want interacting with my cookies/storage database at all.

      • In Close window with last tab

        Scenario: You have a window open with 1 tab loaded to a website. You press cmd + W to close it.
        Orion: Closes the tab but leaves the window open with Start Page selected
        Safari: Closes both tab & window
        Ask: Add setting to make Orion behave like Safari e.g. Orion > Settings > Browsing > Tabs > Close window when closing last tab

        • In Anti Fingerprinting

          Well today I learned there's this fun site: https://www.amiunique.org/fp that'll show you how "unique" you are in terms of finger printing.
          Turns out even with Orion you're pretty unique 😃

          So some sort of anti finger printing stuff would be nice (good one to start would probably be finding out the most common user agent and keeping that up to date).
          But yeah not sure what can be done to prevent fingerpringting but I'm sure there's something

            • Vlad

            • Best Answerset by Vlad

            Websites that test fingerprinting are useless. Not only they use test methods that are out dated 20 years ago, but the whole point of good fingerprint protection is to not allow a malicious ad/tracking javascript to run in the first place. So when such site reports Orion is "unique" it is only because Orion let its .js tu run (because it did not qualify it as malicious).

            The main point with fingerprinting to understand is that is you can not outsmart a sophisticated fingerprinter if one is allowed to run. (we are talking about audio driver or GPU fingerprinting here, not screen width nonsense popularized in marketing by browsers and fingerprinting 'testers' that are not serious about this)

            Your best bet is blocking the .js that runs fingerprinting which is the whole point of built in total ad/tracker protection and this is exactly what Orion is doing.

            What some browsers do is ship a product that checks the non-sensical "screen.width" anti-fingerprinting test , but do nothing to protect you against real fingerprinting out there in the open today.

            Screen resolution fingerprinting was a thing in 2005. Here is what we are up against these days:

            GPU fingerprinting
            https://arxiv.org/pdf/2201.09956.pdf
            https://www.techpowerup.com/291518/researchers-exploit-gpu-fingerprinting-to-track-users-online

            Audio fingerprinting:
            https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~arvindn/publications/OpenWPM_1_million_site_tracking_measurement.pdf
            https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/19/audio-fingerprinting-being-used-to-track-web-users-study-finds/

            Your browser does not protect you from that UNLESS the .js with the fingerprinter was blocked in the first place.

            If you are serious about fingerprinting, you need to mercilessly block everything you can and that is what we are doing. Orion blocks all ads and all trackers by default with a combination of both block lists and machine learning driven ITP avaialble only in WebKit.

            We are already throwing everything we have at the problem, the right way. Again, the reason you may see you are 'unique' in a fingerprinting 'test' is only because Orion allowed the js to run on that site, because it did not qualify it as malicious (which it isn't). Frankly, any browser that employs so called 'anti-fingerprinting' for something that was a thing 20 years is contributing to false sense of security of its users.

            Note also, that privacytests.org is ran by a Brave employee, and does not test for what is the biggest threat to user privacy in browsers - telemetry. Orion is zero-telemetry by default, unlike Brave and other mainstream browsers.