Brave browser integrated with Tor
While Firefox is only planning on integrating with Tor, Brave has already done so at the Private Tabs level. The feature is implemented in the latest version of Brave 0.23.
Integration with Tor is still in beta status. As stated in the description, it allows you to maintain privacy not only at the level of an individual device, but at the network level. Private tabs with Tor protect the user from eavesdropping on the part of their ISP, third-party provider on guest Wi-Fi hotspots, as well as from the visited sites themselves, which can set tracking cookies, run analytics scripts and register visitors' IP addresses.
Private tabs can be easily launched from the
File menu, where the
New Private Tab item is located... At any given time, a user can have one or more tabs of different types running: a regular tab, a private tab without Tor, and a private tab with Tor. They all work at the same time.
Thus, users now get the convenience of the Brave browser along with the standard security features on the Tor network.
The Brave browser has had advanced privacy features in the past. It blocks ads, tracking trackers, cryptominers and other threats on the Internet by default. Standard private tabs do not save browsing history or cookies. But if you activate Tor mode, then the protection is even stronger. As mentioned above, this method makes it difficult for someone along the route between your browser and the final site to penetrate the communication channel or find out which site the request is going to. And the site itself also does not see from which address the visitor came.
The default search engine for private tabs with Tor is DuckDuckGo, but you can easily switch to any of the 19 other search engines. DuckDuckGo encourages anonymous use of the search engine and does not collect any information about visitors.
In addition to the regular Tor client, the Brave browser also contributes to the functionality of the Tor network by supporting Tor relays. All Brave relays for Tor are listed on
this page.
The browser integration with Tor is commendable, but keep in mind that it is still in beta status. Developers warn about some open bugs and known leaks, which we intend to eliminate in future versions. Help from all developers in troubleshooting these issues is greatly appreciated: the code is available on GitHub. The next version with some bug fixes is planned for the next few weeks.
The developers also plan to implement the function of choosing a geolocation for the Tor exit node, so that you can impersonate a user of a particular country.
But if you need guaranteed privacy protection, then it is better to install Tor Browser with proven protection.
In parallel with Brave, the Tor developers are running the FUSION projecton the integration of Tor Browser functions into the Firefox browser. There is no clear plan yet as to what specific Tor Browser features will be implemented in Firefox. As you know, Tor Browser is built on top of Firefox ESR with a bunch of Tor-specific patches. Anonymous browser developers are not comfortable with wasting time rebasing these patches from one repository to another. Therefore, a few years ago, together with Mozilla, the Uplift project was organized, which provided for the automatic inclusion of Tor Browser patches in the Firefox codebase. Over the past year and a half, new security features have been simultaneously implemented in Tor Browser and Firefox. This is element isolation (First-Party Isolation, privacy.firstparty.isolate setting in Firefox 52+, it is also part of the key systemCross-Origin Identifier Unlinkable, which ensures anonymity in the Tor Browser), anti-fingerprinting system including installed fonts fingerprinting, anti- fingerprinting on HTML5 canvas, new privacy.resistFingerprinting setting in Firefox 59+, etc.
Ultimately perfect it would be a complete merger of the Firefox and Tor Browser codebases. But it starts small. As with Brave, Tor will only be integrated into Firefox's private tabs in the first phase.
