The two recent developments/updates from the Brave Browser team I think go to show how big tech (Apple and Google) are not your friend. Both companies are known to most of us to be problematic but they try and paint themselves as doing it on behalf of us. Alas here are the developments

Brave Brings HTTPS by Default to iOS

I won't lie when I read this I was dumbfounded. How on God's Green Earth did Brave a much younger entrant to the web browsing space become THE FIRST iOS Web browser to try to upgrade all sites to HTTPS by default! It never dawned on me that when I was surfing the web on my phone my phone wouldn't default to the most secure connection. While there is nothing wrong with HTTP sites (the default for all other web browsers on iOS) HTTPS, with the S standing for Secure, has been around for years and years now so it was pretty surprising to read this privacy upgrade from Brave. 

Brave already does this for desktop and Android users but because iOS is iOS Brave had to pave the way to get it used as default. Only sites that are on the exception list or if the upgrade fails will the connection remain HTTP and not default to HTTPS.

Brave Browser Research Release on Google's Privacy Harms and Risks

It only seems like yesterday Google announced that they were going to implement a "feature" that will bring an end to third-party cookies. They were the latest browser to do so and while on its face this sounds great because cookies have well-documented privacy and security harms Google is exactly telling the truth.

Google's Related Website Sets (RWS) feature announcement claims it reenables third-party-cookie-like behavior where it benefits users but without reintroducing privacy harms the cookies are known to cause. In reality, though RWS will allow Google to link the videos you watch on YouTube to your profile even when you are not logged in and even after third-party cookies are gone. It is pretty easy to see how this is not privacy enhancing like the end of cookies was made out to be and fust lets Google further monopolize your data. 

The Brave Study reaches the three following conclusions about RWS being harmful to Web privacy.

1) RWS assumes users can anticipate which sites are related to each other but in practice, users cannot

2) RWS introduces privacy harm before users have the opportunity to decide if two sites are operated by the same organization. This allows the pravicy harm to already occur as the sites have been able to track the user across site boundaries. 

3) RWS entrenches a privacy-harmful assumption in the Web platform instead of working to excise it by allowing the organizations to take your access to the sites they control. What we need is to stop tracking not embed it as RWS will do. 

Final Thoughts

Once again Brave has not only pushed forward in an effort to protect users but has also exposed how Big Tech (Google) is pretending to help you when they are doing the polar opposite. For all the crap people give the browser for its BAT token the team of developers behind Brave are so much more than that. They have successfully continued to protect more and more users and expose the misdirection of Google so that people can see how it is just a further data grab. 

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