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Privacy issues in webbrowsers on Android

Overview

BrowserVersionDateAuto restart1)(Initial) Connections2)Remark
Brave1.46.146 Y3)Amazon, Google, Adobe (Cloudfront)
Chrome YGoogle
DuckDuckGo5.145.4 N52.142.125.222 (Microsoft Corporation)Annoying user approach
Firefox108.1.1 YAmazon, Google and Adobe (Cloudfront)
Firefox Focus120.1.1 Adjust-Anycast, Amazon, GoogleDoes not save the history, a bit faster then stock Firefox, no apps so no uMatrix so loads all third party objects like css and scripts which can be a privacy concern
Ghostery 221004YAmazon, Google and Adobe (Cloudfront), Bunnyinfra.net, Wikimedia
Iron102.0.5005.79 NGoogle, Github (Microsoft), Cloudflare, Linode.com4)
Opera Touch72.5.3767.69342 Opera, Amazon, Google and Adobe (Cloudfront), Cloudflare and Facebook
Privacy Browser N Euro 1,19 via Google play store
SmartCookieWeb16.3220216YGithub.com, Cloudflare, Speedtest.cookiejarapps.com, Google5)
Via4.4.6221122NYahoo.comChoice of search engine or custom
Vivaldi5.6.2868.29 NGoogle, Hringdu6), Fastly

Brave remarks

Cookies

Close Brave with tapping on and then scroll all the way down and tap on Exit. In this way all cookies are removed

Connection issues

When we start Brave with only one tab open, which is set to the homepage which is set to a blank page (about:blank), Brave immediately connects to

DomainOwnerCountryRemark
151.101.0.0/16FastlyUSA
1e100.netGoogleUSA
Amazonaws.comAmazonUSA

This means that these companies get privacy sensitive information (The combination of: Time, IP address, browserprofile (and more?) at least every time you start Brave and are thus able to track and profile you and maybe more

Firefox remarks

Connection issues

  • The homepage in Firefox is set to a blank page (about:blank)
  • Firefox is running with all tabs but one closed. In this tab the home page is shown
  • Firefox is closed via the Quit option in the menu
  • Firefox is started. Now one tab is open and it shows a blank page (about:blank)
  • Now Firefox connects to
DomainOwnerCountryRemark
13.224.0.0/14Amazon Technologies Incorporated(AT-88-Z)USA
Cloudfront.netAmazonUSAWe see this most of the time

This means that these companies get privacy sensitive information (The combination of: Time, IP address, browserprofile (and more?) at least every time you start Firefox and are thus able to track and profile you and maybe more
When closed, with Quit in the menu, Firefox will sometimes restart itself!

cloudfront.net

When you get, without visiting a page, cloudfront.net connectionrequests then the couldfront.net virus has sneaked into your android device. You can use the NoRoot Firewall to detect this

Removal

We searched the Internet and clould so far not find a page with instructions on how the remove the software that is connecting to cloudfront.net in Firefox
We tried, and removed on no succes:

AppResultRemaks
Clean Master - AntivirusNo succesConnects to AmazonAWS.com, Zayo.com (Zayo provides mission-critical bandwidth to the world’s most impactful companies), Some IP nummbers we did not investigate so far
Kaspersky Mobile AntivirusNo succes
Panda Antivirus and VPN installs as Panda DomeNo succesConnects to AmazonAWS.com, Cloudapp.net (seems to be something from Microsoft), Facebook, Google, Akamai, Cloudfront.net, ccmp.eu (Cheetah Digital is an enterprise, cross-channel marketing solutions provider), Some IP nummbers we did not investigate so far

Privacy Browser remarks

Clear and Exit

> Settings > Scroll down to the “Clear and Exit” section

Clear everything
Clears cookies, DOM storage, form data, the logcat, and WebView's cache\\
Then manually deletes the entire "app_webview" and "cache" directories

Turn this on to clear all those items on exit

Issues

  • Check if previous visited websites, of which the tab is closed, after a restart of the app still try to make contact
  • Check if content-autofill.googleapis.com wants to make contact initiated by Privacy Browser or by a visited website. This seems only to be the case when used on a LineageOS device

Main subjects on this wiki: Linux, Debian, HTML, Microcontrollers, Privacy

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Changes reserved.

1)
After a force stop via settings
2)
Not initiated by the user
3)
Once every 48 hours or so, does not make an external connection
4)
Cloud service provider
5)
Google can be turned off in the settings
6)
Islandic Internet service provider
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webbrowsers_on_android.txt · Last modified: 21-12-2023 14:06 by wim