In the 1990s, web browsers like Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer competed bitterly to offer the snazziest new features and attract users. Today, the browser landscape looks totally different. For one thing, Chrome now dominates, controlling around two-thirds of the market on both desktop and mobile. Even more radical, though, is the recent competitive focus on privacy, a welcome change for anyone who's gotten sick of creepy ad tracking and data mismanagement. But as browsers increasingly diverge in their approaches, it's clear that not all privacy protections are created equal.
At the USENIX Enigma security conference in San Francisco this week, developers, security researchers, and privacy advocates presented differing views of how browsers should protect their users against data abuses. In a panel discussion that included representatives from Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Brave, all participants agreed that collaboration across the industry has driven innovation and helped make privacy a priority. But some browsers are taking a hardline approach, while others prefer to increase protections within the status quo.
"I think competition pushes everyone toward being more private by default," Yan Zhu, chief information security officer of the Brave browser, said during the panel. "For instance, when Brave sees Safari rolling out a ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
