By Dave Moore, CISSP
08/07/2022
Last week, we looked at “browsers,” those programs that let us look at websites. Even though I recommend Mozilla Firefox as the best all-round browser, there are some specialized “security” browsers you may also want to use.
There are two things to keep in mind when looking at these products: security and privacy. Imagine you have a picture window in your house giving a grand view of the outdoors. Now, imagine that picture window with bars on it: that’s security, but people can still see through the window and view what you’re doing. Next, add curtains to the window: that’s privacy. With bars and curtains added, you have both security and privacy. Nobody can get through the window to trouble you, and nobody can see what you’re doing.
In the context of a browser, you want both security and privacy. A properly setup installation of Firefox goes a long way towards these goals, but two security browsers, Epic and Brave, take security and privacy to the next level.
The Epic Browser, found at www.epicbrowser.com, is a free download for Windows and Mac computers. It is also available in the Google Play and Apple App Store for use on phones.
Click the “download Epic Now” button, download and run the Installer, and you will be presented with a message explaining how Epic works, including features and limitations. Epic uses what are called “proxy servers,” which encrypts your data as it travels across the Internet. This scrambles your location, so nobody know where you really are. For examble, Yahoo thought I was in North Bergen, New Jersey. This is similar to what a VPN (Virtual Private Network) service does, but there are some exceptions, most notably how search services work.
Most of the security and privacy settings in Epic are locked down by default, so you may wish to do some tweaking, yourself. One problem I noticed was some of the settings were reset because my test computer also had Google Chrome installed, and and both browsers share a common code base. If you have Google Chrome installed, and want to use Epic, uninstall Google Chrome, first. It’s a lousy browser, anyway, so you should happily bid it adieu.
The Brave browser (www.brave.com), founded in 2015 by two former Mozilla executives, is unique in that it actually has a business model the user can turn on if they wish. While one of the big things that security browsers feature are ad blockers, Brave actually has a collection of pre-approved ads you can chose to see, called Brave Private Ads. If you choose to see Brave Ads, you earn “Brave Tokens,” with Brave taking 30% of the ad revenue, and giving you the rest. I haven’t tried that “feature,” but I guess companies have to pay the bills somehow, and that’s how Brave has chosen to do it.
Brave uses what are called “Shields,” components that block ads, cookies, “fingerprinters,”Internet trackers and other creepy items that businesses, governments and Internet bad guys use to follow our Internet activity and get us in trouble. The Shields enabled by default cover quite a bit, but you can make them even more restrictive, if you choose. It’s interesting to take Brave, and use it side-by-side with another browser, such as Google Chrome, and see the difference in the way certain websites look.
I also like Brave’s built-in Tor (The Onion Router) feature. Similar to Epic’s encrypted proxy servers, connecting to Tor routes your stuff all around the world, giving an extra layer of privacy by hiding your location. Before turning on the “private page in Tor” feature, yahoo.com correctly identified my location as Norman, OK, and showed me the Norman weather. After enabling Tor, Yahoo thought I was in Lelystad, in the Netherlands. While not a true VPN, the Tor feature in Brave gives extra protection ordinary browsers lack.
Next week: secure email.
Dave Moore, CISSP, has been fixing computers in Oklahoma since 1984. Founder of the non-profit Internet Safety Group Ltd, he also teaches Internet safety community training workshops. He can be reached at 405-919-9901 or internetsafetygroup.org