Privacy and Security of Vivaldi browser and vivaldi.net free email

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figueroa
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Privacy and Security of Vivaldi browser and vivaldi.net free email

#1 Post by figueroa »

I don't find a particular forum for network security and privacy, so here goes in "General." (Also posted in the Gentoo Networking & Security Forum.)

What does this community think about the relative security and privacy of the Vivaldi web browser and the free email accounts from the Vivaldi community at vivaldi.net, especially compared to the Chrome browser and Gmail?

Vivaldi.net is registered in Iceland (high regard for privacy) that uses the CDN Cloudfare that supposedly enhances security and privacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudflare

I registered for an account, nice and clean webmail interface, no advertising, 5 GB free (you cannot buy more). The Thunderbird email client automatically configured itself for both IMAP and SMTP using STARTTLS (stupid). But, I reconfigured the settings to use full SSL/TLS which work flawlessly. Test messages in and out and through Gmail and my own web hosting company show in the message header a high degree of compliance and a flawless reputation, with SpamAssassin scores on my own server and the web hosting company in the range of -0.2 (minus zero point two).

It seems too good to be true and I almost want to keep it a secret.
Andy Figueroa
Using Unix from 1984; GNU/Linux from 1993

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thomasl
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Re: Privacy and Security of Vivaldi browser and vivaldi.net free email

#2 Post by thomasl »

I use Vivaldi as a 2nd browser for those rare cases when a Chromium compatible browser is required. (My main browser is a strictly firejail'ed/sandboxie'd Pale Moon w/ uMatrix.)

I've for a long time used Iridium for that but their update cycle is too slow; after much googling around I have decided that Vivaldi is the "least bad" option. They talk very loudly about the importance of their users' privacy and I've so far not heard anything that would contradict that. Practically the whole browser is open source and while that is no guarantee it certainly helps. One important reason why I went with them is that they apparently encrypt everything that's synced already on the user's machine with the password never leaving the premises... having said that, I have not yet created an account with them though I may do so in the future. I also use the CloudFlare DNS servers with DNSSEC.

Can't say anything about their email as I use my own email domain.
Frugal installs on Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Ryzen 5 4650U/24GB * HP Pavilion Ryzen 3 3300U/16GB * Toshiba R950 i5-3340M/12GB
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skidoo
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Re: Privacy and Security of Vivaldi browser and vivaldi.net free email

#3 Post by skidoo »

forum for network security and privacy
http://www.dslreports.com/

also, several reddit.com subreddits

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handy
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Re: Privacy and Security of Vivaldi browser and vivaldi.net free email

#4 Post by handy »

The attitude on this site is unfortunate for them:

https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/vivaldi.html

That doesn't mean that they tell lies though. Sending feedback to the Piwik analytics platform, (a known spy) was enough to cause me to go to the Iridium Browser, & use Waterfox as a backup.
1_MSI: MAG B560 TORP', i5, RAM 16GB, GTX 1070 Ti 12GB, M2 238GB + USB, MX-23 Fb to Openbox
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cyrilus31
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Re: Privacy and Security of Vivaldi browser and vivaldi.net free email

#5 Post by cyrilus31 »

Following your link iridium doesn't seem to be the best private web browser. And updates are not so frequent.
Otter browser is a no go for me because of unstability so for now I will keep using Palemoon.

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thomasl
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Re: Privacy and Security of Vivaldi browser and vivaldi.net free email

#6 Post by thomasl »

I've read through all the browser-related pages on that site... and I am not sure about the technical merits of the writer. I don't say there may be reasons against the browsers he criticises (practically all of them :cool: ) but at least some of the criticism is IMHO misguided. YMMV.
Frugal installs on Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Ryzen 5 4650U/24GB * HP Pavilion Ryzen 3 3300U/16GB * Toshiba R950 i5-3340M/12GB
I have a reservation... What do you mean it's not in the COMPUTER!

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handy
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Re: Privacy and Security of Vivaldi browser and vivaldi.net free email

#7 Post by handy »

Piwik, was enough for me & Vivaldi. Iridium satisfies me, from my research & in my setup. :)
1_MSI: MAG B560 TORP', i5, RAM 16GB, GTX 1070 Ti 12GB, M2 238GB + USB, MX-23 Fb to Openbox
2_Lenovo: Ideapad 520S, i5, RAM 8GB, GPU i620, HDD 1TB, MX-21 - Openbox
3_Clevo: P150SM-A, i7, RAM 16GB, nVidia 8600, 2x 1TB HDD & M.2 256 GB, MX-21 - Openbox

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thomasl
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Re: Privacy and Security of Vivaldi browser and vivaldi.net free email

#8 Post by thomasl »

@handy: I do get your point. These things are (alas?) mostly a matter of personal assessment.

("Alas?" because there's such an incredible amount of FUD, paranoia and fake news around (then again, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you."). Acquiring reliable, trustworthy information is not easy even for those with a technical background and know-how.)

Like you, I've followed the Vivaldi/Piwik brouhaha (though for a short while only) but was ultimately satisfied that this is a red herring (see https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/24029/r ... di-spyware and https://www.ghacks.net/2018/01/30/vival ... r-privacy/ among others).

I may be utterly wrong of course and that's why it's so important that everybody builds their own picture.
Frugal installs on Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Ryzen 5 4650U/24GB * HP Pavilion Ryzen 3 3300U/16GB * Toshiba R950 i5-3340M/12GB
I have a reservation... What do you mean it's not in the COMPUTER!

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handy
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Re: Privacy and Security of Vivaldi browser and vivaldi.net free email

#9 Post by handy »

@thomasl You may very well be right on all counts. Either way, Iridium satisfies me as a browser, so I'm not fretting over the loss of Vivaldi. ;)

Cheers
1_MSI: MAG B560 TORP', i5, RAM 16GB, GTX 1070 Ti 12GB, M2 238GB + USB, MX-23 Fb to Openbox
2_Lenovo: Ideapad 520S, i5, RAM 8GB, GPU i620, HDD 1TB, MX-21 - Openbox
3_Clevo: P150SM-A, i7, RAM 16GB, nVidia 8600, 2x 1TB HDD & M.2 256 GB, MX-21 - Openbox

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figueroa
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Re: Privacy and Security of Vivaldi browser and vivaldi.net free email

#10 Post by figueroa »

handy wrote: Tue Mar 19, 2019 11:34 pm @thomasl You may very well be right on all counts. Either way, Iridium satisfies me as a browser, so I'm not fretting over the loss of Vivaldi. ;)
What is dissatisfying about Iridium is they don't reveal who THEY are, their small target of user operating systems, i.e. the Debian version indicates that it requires Ubuntu 16.04+ (x86_64) which is not confidence building, the long length of time between updated versions, and the lack of an update path (just manually install the new one), and no instructions to build from source, so the connection between source and binary is a bit uncertain. Cool manifesto, but they don't seem to take this very seriously, i.e. the Red Hat version is very old.
Andy Figueroa
Using Unix from 1984; GNU/Linux from 1993

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