Vanadium vs other browsers

GrapheneOs, should i stick with the stock vanadium browser or use something like brave.

vanadium is a hardened version of chromium. it has some privacy improvements but focuses mainly on security.

it really depends on the use case of the browser, e.g. for searching the web its not good imo, because it has no ad blocker and extensions arent supported.

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Haven’t used GrapheneOS but like @underrate has said look into a browser which supports ad blocking etc. You could use Vanadium if you set your dns to one which blocks ads.

Try Firefox (Beta or Nightly if you want about:config) or Brave if you want hardening for privacy.

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Chromium leaks information between sites. There’s utility in using more than one browser. One for logged accounts, one for general browsing, for example. Vanadium, Mulch and Brave if you want to stick with Chromium-based browsers. Mull if you’re willing to go with a Firefox-based one.

Mulch and Mull are from the Divest project and have very timely updates. Mulch applies many of the security patches from Vanadium, but there’s basically it. No content blocking. You can do content blocking via Private DNS at the OS level or via your VPN, but that’s not the same thing.
Brave has content blocking, and it is said it also use some stuff from Vanadium, so not a bad choice either.

Mull os Firefox based, so you can use NoScript and uBlock Origin, to block media and scripts besides ads, which brings some security benefits that might offset the disadvantages Firefox has over Chromium in that area.

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No adblocking? No thank you.

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Perhaps stock vanadium is comparable to stock brave but brave with max settings is much better than vanadium.
Remember, brave’s ad blocker does not just block ads, it also blocks malware (depending on what blocklist you use)

I personally prefer brave cuz I have more control over all the settings

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This essentially comes down to whether high security, OR high privacy w/ reasonable security and good adblocking is more important to you.

I don’t think they can be compared this way. These are two different browsers with fundamentally different focuses.

The below is a summary of what I’ve read, not my original thoughts:

Vanadium is primarily security focused, it’s fundamentally more security hardened out of the box than Brave (in either mode I think), but falls short of Brave in either mode with respect to content blocking and privacy protection.

Using a stronger blocklist with Brave can probably reduce the likelihood of encountering malware/malicious domains, but is not a full substitute for the more foundational/fundamental security enhancements made in Vanadium if having higher security is your top priority–especially if your threat model includes being actively targeted (not the case for most of us).

As an aside, GrapheneOS appears to be planning to add content blocking to Vanadium (as of 2 days ago, Daniel Micay stated they are looking to hire someone to work on this). But they have been talking about this for a long time, so I’ll believe it when I see it. :crossed_fingers:

I wouldn’t use it over other browsers because it doesn’t block ads. I’ve been using Kiwi browser, which supports installing extensions like Ublock. There’s Mull as well.

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Im using cromite with mull as a backup for my browsing needs