Browsers for Privacy, OPSEC, and OSINT

When doing an OSINT or OPSEC/Privacy investigation, not all browsers are created equal. Despite our best efforts at anonymity, they can have unfiltered access to what we are viewing. Depending on the browser, it could be used for recommendations, sometimes ads. As with all software, there are always possibilities of vulnerabilities, including zero-days.

The purpose of this article is more than just “patch your browser and use a VPN.” Both concepts are important to the cause, but they are not infinite. In theory, both a Lamborghini and a Pinto can get you from point A to point B. The difference is within the experience, bells and whistles, and reliability. Modern browsers can get us to almost any website reliably, so that is a given. Whether anyone else has access to seeing us reliably get to a website is a different story — that is the intent behind Tor browser.

I will be honest, I am not a fan of Safari and even less of a fan of IE/Edge. I like Mozilla’s Privacy Promise, but Chrome (to me) feels more sleek, streamlined, and efficient. That being said, Chrome is a Google product, so it is a reasonable assumption to deduce that some usage data is sent back to the mothership. Firefox is open-source, Chrome is not. There are some plugins/extensions only available for one or the other (i.e. Hunch.ly) that warrants using Chrome.