On Thursday 20 August 2020 12:30:58 Janek Stolarek wrote:
> > No, certain browsers typically make lots of connections like this:
> > Chromium, for example, but Vivaldi is worse.
>
> Yes, but the key question is *why* are they makling these connections. If
> they are sending your private data somewhere that of course is be bad. But
> if they are fetching data actually used to improve privacy? Modern pbrowser
> provide tracking protection, dangerous site protection, ad blocking - they
> need to get the data required to get this right from somewhere. So, to me
> the fact that a browser is making connections to various web servers
> doesn't really tell me anything about its security or privacy practices.
>
> I did try out Icecat. This one is truly for the masochists. If I want a
> browser where nothing works because of privacy concerns I go with Tor. It
> was however interesting to try out something new, if only for 10 minutes.
>
> Janek
>

Huh. Well, everybody is different. Myself, I like to know who is doing what, 
and why. 

For example, just yesterday after you mentioned Vivaldi, I took it upon myself 
to use it (actually, Vivaldi-Snapshot) again, as it is getting to be that 
time of the month when I do use it. When I started up Vivaldi, I just 
happened to be watching my firewall, and wget made an outbound request on its 
own from my computer; the IP address was 142.250.68.14; and when I did a 
whois query, I find that it belongs to Google. Now why, I ask, should Google 
get something via wget from my machine when Vivaldi starts up? 

For myself, I would sort of like to know the reason before I allow my machine 
to act on my behalf. And while I do not for a moment doubt that the good and 
kind folks at Google are only doing this for my own good, and I probably 
ought not worry my pretty head about such details ... still, I am a stubborn 
kind of fella, and I would really like to know their reasons. 

So, if using Icecat makes me a masochist, well, I don't mind a little pain. It 
does take some patience with configuration, to get it to do what I want, but 
my point is, I CAN MAKE IT DO WHAT I WANT -- and nothing else. Vivaldi, so 
far, doesn't allow this. 

But no pressure: you decide. ;-)

Bill