I am a newcomer to the space and want to know some stuff about the mentioned mobile browsers. Information on them seems a little sparse to me. I am aware of Brave, however on my current device it is very buggy and I do not like the company’s reputation. I am aware of Firefox and it’s derivatives and the benefit they bring against chrome’s monopoly, however I believe that it’s non existing sandboxing is an issue and would therefore like to exclude them for mobile use.

Bromite seems to have been abandoned as it’s owner appears to be in a war zone (My heart goes out to you Carl!). As for this reason, Cromite was forked from Bromite by the main contributor to Bromite. This in itself raises several question for me:

  1. Is Cromite as good as Bromite was in it’s golden age?
  2. Does Cromite have some catching up to do, before it becomes an alternative to other browsers again?
  3. Can the project be trusted under different ownership?
  4. Is it not listed on PrivacyGuides.org as it is “new”, or as it’s got an issue? I know that Bromite was once recommended.
  5. Would you yourself use or recommend Cromite? If yes/no, why so?

Also, how does Vanadium compare privacy wise? I know it’s the bomb for security, however it’s developer(s) did not specifically target privacy if I understood correctly. If I were to get GrapheneOS, I’d be happy to use it’s stock browser.

What about a vm/cloud based browser? I have found very little about them, but could imagine they’d make it hard to track someone.

  • glacier@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    7·
    1 year ago

    1. Cromite is an improvement to Bromite, so yes.

    2. There are some things here or there that could be added, but it seems like a good browser for now.

    3. The current developer has worked on Bromite in the past, so if you trusted Bromite I don’t see a reason not to trust Cromite.

    4. It’s not listed because it was just released and I believe it was mentioned on Privacy Guides forums that the team is looking into it and may consider adding it to the recommended tools at some point.

    5. Yes, I currently use Cromite as a back-up browser and Mull as my main browser.

    Vanadium is built specifically for security. It lacks privacy features such as an ad blocker. It is also only available on GrapheneOS. Cromite seems much easier to recommend from a privacy stand point as the use case for Vanadium is very specific.

  • privacyfalcon9899English
    5·
    1 year ago

    Cromite is a fork, so waiting a bit before using it would be helpful. Vanadium is a good option if you use grapheneos. Even though there are controversies around Brave, it does not affect privacy and security of it. Turn off crypto and other stuff and it’s done.

    Firefox on android does not provide per site isolation. I don’t think it is significant as long as you know what you accept by using it. If you are willing to take this road, then Mull is the browser you are looking for.

    https://divestos.org/pages/browsers

    • Devjavu@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      First of, thank you. Second, could you exoand a little more on why lacking per site isolation is not so significant in your case?

  • Chemical Wonka@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I use Vanadium as my main browser but I use Cromite to save my bookmarks because in Vanadium there is no way to backup my bookmarks.

  • Lengsel@latte.isnot.coffeeEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I am using Graphene abd I disabled Vanadium due to it being Chromium essentially. I use Navi or Download Navi from F-Droid. It does not have as much web functionality as Vanadium, but I don’t use phone for websites, I read websites on computer or laptop, but occassionally something might need a browser momentarily so that’s what Navi for.

    If you want a web browser for privacy, I would suggest use F-Droid and in Settings under Anti-features, turn off every option in there, do a search for browser and see what you think of the options. It’s either cheap development or old. A mobile web browser that protects privacy doesn’t seem to exist with the capabilitied of a Firefox.

    I’m a strong believer that there is no such thing as a privacy respecting browser that is closed source. For that reason, I use IceCat on computer.