update: Add Vanadium guide #1978
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I don't know if this is relevant to the section you're planning to write, but I thought I would mention this here. Since fairly recently, Vanadium only on GrapheneOS can be updated without requiring an OS update via the "Apps" app that comes with GrapheneOS, which should result in people getting new Vanadium updates very quickly, especially if they opt into the alpha release channel for Vanadium (within the "Apps" app). If someone outside of GrapheneOS install "Apps", they won't see Vanadium listed, so it might not be immediately obvious that people on GrapheneOS have that available to them.
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Vanadium is exclusive to GrapheneOS anyways, no? Also does anyone know if Vanadium supports password managers yet? I think it does not judging by issue 276 on their repo (which I won't link to here for obvious reasons). |
Yes. What I meant to imply there is that people won't be able to get it by Downloading "Apps" on another OS at this time.
Vanadium used to have the app id "org.chromium.chrome" but uses original-package to change that to "app.vanadium.browser" for new installations (it is also changed if you factory reset your existing installation). My understanding is that Bitwarden can be made to work with Vanadium for people with the new app id. Unsure about KeePassDX as my installation has the old app ID, not the new one. |
only does via keyboard support so not really, also no adblocking. |
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bitwarden/mobile#2199 (comment) @ph00lt0 The comment above suggests that you're able to get it working with the new app ID. |
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Right seems to be resolved I wasn't aware. Yet adblocking still not existing. |
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So just to be clear: i do believe grapheneOS users should be using Brave. Using an adblocker creates more security benefits for ordinary people. |
DNS blocking can be used, which can even be set in Vanadium specifically. |
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There are more things to add to this, such as: Noting that JIT is disabled by default with a per-site toggle to enable it. We should make people aware of that in case they stumble upon a website that doesn't play well without JIT. etc. |
sure but this doesn't work nearly as well as default adblocking in Brave, and haven't we concluded that when using a VPN it is not wise to use different DNS providers? |
Sure but most VPN providers provide adblocking functionality on their end |
Good point, I forgot about that. |
Right but I think we can agree it doesn't work as well. Many ads won't be blocked this way. F.x. displaying of certain search ads, this is also the reason the CISA and the FBI recommend using an adblocker. |
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It does seem there was some interest in an adblocker GrapheneOS/Vanadium#10 but not sure if it's stalled. |
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https://github.com/GrapheneOS/Vanadium/releases/tag/110.0.5481.154.1 Autofill support. |
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Are you accepting suggestions/contributions for this PR? If so, I'm happy to help draft/write this guide as I have some time on my hands. As @kimg45 noted, Vanadium has had built-in content blocking since mid-February 2024, so it currently meets all the minimum requirements for recommendation. Privacy Guides also recommends GrapheneOS as a recommended Android OS, so it seems sensible to recommend the browser that comes with it. |
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I think we should otherwise it sort of says that Vanadium isn't good enough you're on GrapheneOS which simply isn't true. Also Vanadium now has a content blocker so there is that. |
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@all-contributors add @redoomed1 for review |
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I've put up a pull request to add @redoomed1! 🎉 |
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I think that Vanadium should be placed above Brave not because this implies an order, but because the Mobile Browsers page would flow better.
Here's my vision of how this page reads:
Android
For people using [GrapheneOS] (android.md#grapheneos) on a [Google Pixel] (android.md#google-pixel), we recommend using Vanadium as it makes use of the security hardening already present in GrapheneOS, such as [hardware memory tagging] (https://security.googleblog.com/2019/08/adopting-arm-memory-tagging-extension.html) on the Pixel 8 series.
Vanadium
...
Here are the web browsers we recommend for other Android operating systems.
Brave
...
Mull
...
I'm not okay with telling GrapheneOS users they must use Vanadium at this time, and I'm not okay with the first mobile browser we list only being available on a niche custom ROM and not all of Android. In fact, I would prefer these headers in this order unless we are also going to add Mulch (https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/mulch-android-browser/14461) which is more widely available:
This is consistent with how we handle ordering based on platform availability and popularity across the site. |
Fair point, given it only works on GOS. Lets just keep it alphabetical and have the random table at the top maybe. |
Co-authored-by: redoomed1 <[email protected]>
Makes sense, I appreciate all the reasoning you gave.
I like this idea and see high value in adding it, considering that there have been posts on the forum like Chromite vs Vanadium (gOS) for which a randomized comparison table would have been useful. |
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Maybe the comparison table could work. I wasn't intending to use that outside of providers though. The main difference is that the providers we recommend are largely interchangeable, whereas the software we recommend is either more often intended for a specific use-case, or more likely to be chosen based on personalized factors, or both. With a random table we'll have, for example, iOS browsers interspersed with Android browsers (OS is not the only factor but it's most obvious) which just makes it difficult to read at a glance. So, when writing about software (like browsers), it makes more sense to me to have a narrative flow going from more broad to more specific. There are a couple factors as far as why I prefer this order, but I'll give the most obvious narrative here as an example:
So the order would not be interpreted as Mull > Vanadium, because as you see we are not comparing those two directly in our narrative at all. The order of those two is not related to their features, but to factors like flow and relevance to the reader. What I want to avoid is thinking about the order strictly linearly, when it would be considered more like this: flowchart
n2{{"Hexagon"}}
n2{{"Brave"}} --- n5{{"Mull"}}
n2 --- n1{{"Vanadium"}}
And after mapping it out, then we would present it from top to bottom, left to right in writing.* And again to be perfectly clear this diagram isn't a mapping of what we think is "best" feature-wise either, but what we think is the most relevant recommendation. I don't think it's controversial to say that if a random Android user on the street asked me to recommend a browser, Brave is the obvious go-to. Everything else requires additional considerations like what device do you have, etc. * For the sake of completeness (in case this comment is useful for future reference), you could expand this tree concept out to the whole page to get a broader idea of how the tree translates to linear header order when writing: flowchart
n1[/"1. Mobile Browsers"\]
n1 --- n2["2. Android"]
n1 --- n3["7. iOS"]
n2 --- n4["3. Brave"]
n4 --- n5["4. Mull"]
n4 --- n6["5. Vanadium"]
n3 --- n7["8. Safari"]
n7 --- n8["9. Theoretical\n second iOS browser"]
n7 --- n9["10. Theoretical\n third iOS browser"]
n6 --- n10["6. Mulch?\nJust for example"]
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In this case I guess Brave/Mull/Vanadium is already alphabetical, so now that I think about it my comment will really have no impact on this PR... but I wanted to share why the order makes sense for reasons other than that they're merely alphabetically ordered, and give us something to think about when deciding the order of other pages. |
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Thank you for taking the time to map out and elaborate your rationale for how the recommendations on the Mobile Browsers page are presented!
I agree with your assessment for the most part.
This is also a good point that I overlooked. I initially thought that the idea of a table that dngray brought up would be helpful since there are two pending additions to the Mobile Browsers page (Vanadium and Cromite), and a table would help point out the differences between them. On second thought, however, I think that it would simply reinvent the wheel, the wheel being the DivestOS Browser Comparison Table. |
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This pull request has been mentioned on Privacy Guides. There might be relevant details there: |
Going to add this, as we don't want GrapheneOS users to think they should be using Brave instead.
https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/vanadium-grapheneos-web-browser/12828