Epic Browser: a privacy-focused web browser based on Chromium
Epic Browser is not the first nor will it be the last Chromium-based web browser that aims to improve user privacy. When Google Chrome was released years ago, third party Chromium-based browsers appeared shortly thereafter that offered most of what Chrome had to offer, but without several of the tracking or privacy-invading features that Google's browser shipped with.
The majority of those browsers are still around, and Epic Browser will have to compete against them and Chrome, and probably other web browsers as well.
The homepage of Epic Browser focuses on privacy, first explaining how you are being tracked on the Internet, and then how Epic Browser helps you protect yourself when you are browsing the Internet.
Epic Browser review
According to that page, it fixes 11 potential leaks that may reveal information about you and your browsing habits to Internet companies such as Google.
- No address bar suggest
- No URL checks
- Auto-translate has been removed.
- No URL Tracker
- Installation ID removed
- RLZ-Tracking number removed
- Default Updater removed.
- Installation time stamp removed.
- No alternate error pages.
- No navigation error suggestions
- No error reporting
In addition to that, it more or less defaults to private browsing mode by preventing the recording of history, caches, passwords, pre-fetching and other features that may reveal information about the user.
That is however still not enough. It clears all browsing data on exit by default, making sure that any information that were needed during the session are removed from the system in the process.
As you may have noticed, this may impact how you work with the browser as you cannot make use of features that you may have come to rely on.
The developers of Epic Browser have added features to the browser that neither Chrome nor Chromium ship with. This includes a one-click US proxy server (powered by Spotflux) that users can make use of to hide their original IP address when they are browsing on the Internet (yes, this includes access to US-only services such as Hulu), integrated ad blocking and tracker blocking, automatic blocking of third party cookies, and automatic use of https versions of websites if provided.
It is interesting to note that Epic will enable the proxy by default on Google to prevent the tracking of your IP address on the site. What more? It blocks the sending of the referral header when you use the search engine so that third party websites do not know what your search term was that led you to their website.
Another interesting feature is the umbrella icon that you can use for quick access to several core features such as ad and third party cookie blocking.
Downsides
You are probably wondering about downsides of using the browser. The first thing that comes to mind are the features that you cannot use, like spell checking, auto-translation or session restore. Some features are left for the user to decide, like the saving of passwords in the browser, while others cannot be altered in any form or way.
The address bar search provider is set to epicsearch.in. According to the developers, revenue generated here is used to support the browser and services it provides. They furthermore state that the ads displayed here are only based on a user's search query and a rough location check.
Closing Words
It is too early to tell if Epic Browser will make a big splash or remain a niche browser that appeals to a privacy-focused audience.
I wish it would provide users with choice in regards to some of the features as it would improve the browser's usability. It would then be the user's decision to sacrifice some privacy for convenience.
The developers have promised to release the source code of the browser soon. For now though, it is not available.
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Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.
When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?
Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.
I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.
I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.