
Ask HN: Is Edge any better or worse than Chrome on privacy? - StevePerkins
I primarily use Firefox, but occasionally I have to resort to Chrome for certain poorly-designed websites.<p>Now that Microsoft Edge is Chromium-based, is it any better as an alternative?  Is the privacy any more respectable, or does it simply replace all the Google phone-homing with the same level of Microsoft phone-homing?
======
bad_user
Edge does not (e2e) encrypt your synced browsing history and your bookmarks.
In the help pages Microsoft tries to weasel itself out of it by talking about
TLS or encryption "at rest".

Chrome on the other hand can do end to end encryption by providing your own
password.

Windows 10 has an advertising ID that is passed via Edge to Bing Ads. Chrome
does the same thing with a low entropy ID passed to DoubleClick. In both cases
this is used to track you. The difference is that Microsoft can potentially
track your behavior in other apps as well.

Google is also very transparent about what they collect about you. You can
also opt out of any collection or personalization. Do you know what Microsoft
collects about you? They sure collect a ton of telemetry, with no way to opt
out in some cases. The terms of Windows Insiders for example are ridiculous.

And Bing Ads is generating about $8 billion per year which isn't pocket
change. If you think Microsoft isn't making a shitload of money from ads,
you're wrong.

In other words they are very equivalent, but due to lacking end to end
encryption for synchronized data, I can't touch Edge.

Note that I don't use Chrome either, only for testing like you. Firefox is
better than both if concerned about privacy.

~~~
_bxg1
Is it naive to assume that the advertising ID, etc. are left out of plain
Chromium?

~~~
cosmojg
Indeed, it is. That's why this exists: [https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium](https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium)

~~~
tuananh
for those that care so much about privacy but figure it's still ok to download
ungoogled-chromium

> NOTE: These binaries are provided by anyone who are willing to build and
> submit them. Because these binaries are not necessarily reproducible,
> authenticity cannot be guaranteed; In other words, there is always a non-
> zero probability that these binaries may have been tampered with. In the
> unlikely event that this has happened to you, please report it in a new
> issue.

------
alibert
I believe it's a better alternative to Chrome if you are already using
Windows.

Edge Chromium still has telemetry data sent to MS but it respects the privacy
control and group policy in Windows, so if you have already set Windows
telemetry to low, it sent almost nothing. I recommends usage of "O&O ShutUp10"
to disable all Windows and Edge telemetry.

It doesn't have telemetry data sent to Google (no contact with Google owned
domain).

It also has a third party tracking blocker included and enabled by default
which makes it way better than Chrome on that point. On my installation, it
even blocks Microsoft tracking...

I use Pi-Hole to keep track of the domains reached by Edge and so far, there
are nothing really worrying me (I already use Windows so my expectations are
relative).

~~~
idclip
What a time to br alive. I love it that MS now is the do no evil entity.
Support linux? Own github? Respects privacy settings?

I respectfully carefully celebrate this information and hope to see more!

~~~
searchableguy
No for-profit company is your friend. Only as long as they can extract value.
Not a cynical view. There is plenty of evidence.

~~~
PopeDotNinja
Or... It's easy to altruistic when shareholders are happy with stock
performance. When the stock be a tankin', altruism gets a spankin' (best rhyme
I could come up with).

------
ocdtrekkie
It's significantly better. Basically, Microsoft added the tracking protection
features[1] Firefox and legacy Edge have to Chrome. Yeah, in terms of sending
data to Google vs. Microsoft, that footprint is _similar_ , but third party
tracking differences are _huge_. Edge sends a fraction of the requests to
third party services while web browsing as Chrome does.

Google has decided to implement third party cookie blocking in Chrome
recently... solely in incognito mode[2]. Firefox, Edge, Safari, etc. all do it
all the time in normal mode too. This renders Chrome the least privacy-minded
browser, primarily because Google heavily values ad tracking as a business
practice.

[1] [https://www.zdnet.com/article/with-its-new-edge-browser-
micr...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/with-its-new-edge-browser-microsoft-
takes-dead-aim-at-google/) [2] [https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/19/google-
chrome-83/](https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/19/google-chrome-83/)

~~~
moneywoes
Is it different than using ublock origin

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Generally ad blockers end up blocking ads whether they track or not: There are
people out there who believe they are entitled to not see advertising or
something. Tracking protection is generally close to an add blocker, but won't
do anything to prevent display of first party ads or ads that do not attempt
to track you.

Generally, I'd argue the latter is better than the former, as it encourages
websites and the ad industry to behave better: Stop invading my privacy and
your ads stop getting blocked.

~~~
Shared404
I would agree. I use Privacy Badger (always) and NoScript (most of the time).
If an add happens to not get blocked by these, great!

I'm perfectly fine with viewing an add that is not doing bad things.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Indeed. I'm a big fan of Firefox + Privacy Badger. It predated most browser
tracking prevention features, and I've found more and more is getting caught
by the browser before it even makes it to Privacy Badger. I suspect eventually
Firefox will be good enough at it to render the extension mostly obsolete.

------
usrlocal1023
From a study conducted by Douglas J Leith from the School of Computer Science
& Statistics at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, they found that the new
chromium based Edge is sending hardware UUID's back to Microsoft and there
isn't an option to turn it off.

"From a privacy perspective Microsoft Edge and Yandex are much more worrisome
than the other browsers studied. Both send identifiers that are linked to the
device hardware and so persist across fresh browser installs and can also be
used to link different apps running on the same device. Edge sends the
hardware UUID of the device to Microsoft, a strong and enduring identifier
than cannot be easily changed or deleted. Similarly, Yandex transmits a hash
of the hardware serial number and MAC address to back end servers. As far as
we can tell this behaviour cannot be disabled by users. In addition to the
search autocomplete functionality (which can be disabled by users) that shares
details of web pages visited, both transmit web page information to servers
that appear unrelated to search autocomplete."

[https://bgr.com/2020/03/11/microsoft-edge-browser-privacy-
is...](https://bgr.com/2020/03/11/microsoft-edge-browser-privacy-issues-
performance/)

------
Sephr
It's currently worse due to the lack of E2EE history/password sync and
increased metrics collection (even the new tab page tracks you).

Chrome has E2EE history/password sync, which allows you to specify a sync
encryption password that is different from your Google password.

~~~
patmorgan23
You can use a 3rd party service like dashlane or bitwarden

------
asutekku
It should be better, but you might as well use Vivaldi, if you need a chrome-
based browser. It comes with tracker blockers included and has a lot of
privacy and power user features.

~~~
samtheprogram
How does Vivaldi compare to Brave, which is also Chromium-based and privacy
focused?

Is there a compelling reason to use one over the other, such as the
organizations behind them or power user features?

~~~
julesallen
Over the past few weeks I've been using both, Brave is a little more polished
and the built in blockers are great.

However, they've been caught a couple of times doing naughty things:

[https://decrypt.co/31522/crypto-brave-browser-
redirect](https://decrypt.co/31522/crypto-brave-browser-redirect)

Combine that with a CEO who had a _my way or die_ reputation for not admitting
something's wrong and you've got a browser I removed from my system. Trust is
huge and makes me wonder what else is happening in the background nobody has
caught.

Vivaldi's got all kinds of tweaks exposed you'd need to dig into flags for. I
like that. I think my biggest gripe is dragging and dropping links out doesn't
work. Pretty small potatoes.

Daily driver is still Firefox + uMatrix + uBlock Origin and hoping for Mozilla
email + calendaring at some point soon (take my money!).

~~~
paulryanrogers
> Mozilla email + calendaring

So Thunderbird with Lightning?

~~~
julesallen
Great for the last mile. Thinking more of storage and server management.

------
Egoist
The full readme is worth the read about chromium/chrome. But this highlights
edge differences. No browser is perfect, but you can always be able to
restrict things or use GPo baselines to limit browser use.

[https://github.com/CHEF-KOCH/Chromium-hardening#chrome-vs-
ms...](https://github.com/CHEF-KOCH/Chromium-hardening#chrome-vs-ms-edge-
chromium)

------
AsyncAwait
Might be _very slightly_ better in itself, but combine this with all the other
telemetry Windows 10 collects and overall I'd say the amount of telemetry
collected on you by MS is about the same.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I was thinking: of your already using MS Windows then Edge at least send to
reduce the companies you're sending the data to. The reverse might be true if
you use Google Search/Mail/other apps.

~~~
AsyncAwait
Interesting point; that could be both good and bad; good in the sense of
reducing the number of parties collecting telemetry. Bad in that it makes it
conveniently centralized for any malicious actor.

------
SquareWheel
You can read their respective privacy policies to understand what data they
collect and how it is used.

If you're skeptical of their legal terms, then you're better off with Chromium
as it remains open-source. Edge unfortunately is a closed-source product.

~~~
enumjorge
Not sure what your point is. The new Edge is also based on Chromium, and
Chrome has parts which aren’t open source.

~~~
SquareWheel
I never mentioned Chrome at all. I said if you don't trust the privacy policy,
then you should use Chromium which is open-source.

~~~
enumjorge
Oh I misread your comment. That makes sense. My bad!

------
kd913
If you are concerned about privacy of chromium-based browsers, I don't think
anything would beat just straight chromium.

However, on my machines I just main firefox with edge as a backup. Mainly
because edge is already pre-installed on my Windows machines so there isn't
really much point downloading and installing an alternative which does the
exact same thing. Especially if it's only for use on chromium specific
websites.

It's not like you can remove edge from Windows 10. Why would I install
Vivaldi, Google Chrome or Brave?

~~~
sk0g
Wouldn't Firefox with all the inbuilt tracking protection, etc be better than
Chromium? I seem to remember some bug reports of Chromium sending requests to
Google servers too.

~~~
mcny
Some things like Facebook multi/group (2+) user video chat or google stadia
require some form of chromium. I use Firefox for everything else.

~~~
mech422
Do you actually use Stadia? If so, how do you like it ?

~~~
mcny
Thumper is unplayable on my flex 14 and Comcast WiFi but it is very YMMV.

Thumper is a simple game but it requires you to basically turn left, turn
right, or shields up very quickly. It is basically a reaction time test so
very susceptible to latency.

I had earlier played assassin's creed in the private beta thing on an older
laptop on Verizon FiOS. I did reach for the Ethernet cable most of the time
but iirc it was serviceable even on WiFi because assassin's creed is less
affected by the occasional latency spike. That or maybe Verizon FiOS where I
was before in the city area has fewer connection problems than Comcast further
out of a town.

~~~
mech422
I tend not to play shooters, so latency (hopefully) wouldn't be that critical
for me...

I do worry about how fast it would eat up bandwidth though...

------
ta17711771
You're looking for Ungoogled-Chromium. Or honestly. Just mitigated Chromium.

Privacy is not as important as security, because without security you
potentially lose both.

------
badrabbit
It's worse,plus it does shady crap like sniff browsing history on other
browsers.

------
flowerlad
I use Edge when using Google services such as Gmail and Chrome when using
Microsoft services such as Office 365. That way they can't log me into the
browser when I log into the service.

~~~
dabbernaught420
Why not just use Firefox?

~~~
esperent
I've recently switched from Chrome to FF on Android. It's better in many ways,
but it's noticeably and frustratingly slower on nearly all websites. For
example, trying to minimize a comment on HN is now very frustrating as there's
a >1 second delay which frequently results in me tap the target multiple times
causing all kinds of weirdness.

~~~
cosmojg
Are you running Firefox Preview/Nightly? I've found them to be even faster
than Chrome on my device.

------
wiiiii
in terms of privacy, Edge has the edge (badum-tss) over Chrome because of the
built-in tracking prevention, and telemetry disabled by default. That's it.

your privacy really depends on how many "sweeties" do you use. If you let all
those "helper services" enabled by default, your privacy is more compromised
that if you take 3 minutes to go through the settings and enable only what you
want.

If you're concerned about your privacy, just read their privacy policy. In
general terms, it comes down to Google wanting to get as much information
about you as possible, and Microsoft is rather interested in how you interact
with their services. In either case, you have access in your account dashboard
to what information has been collected, and check how in Google's case it's up
to the minimum detail, whereas in Microsoft is like "yesterday you used
Outlook, Edge and OneDrive...". Also, in either case, which is something many
people fail to understand, the collected information is actually anonymous.
They don't care if you are John Doe or Alice, Bob's wife... they care that
UUID likes this and that, and do this and that.

------
kkm
I have been testing Edge on iOS for Privacy practices. I think there are lot
of things to improve. Also, it would be great for Edge to make it easier way
to report and have discussions. Currently it’s a black box.

\-
[https://twitter.com/konarkmodi/status/1258163915319640071](https://twitter.com/konarkmodi/status/1258163915319640071)

\-
[https://twitter.com/konarkmodi/status/1258185278168223746](https://twitter.com/konarkmodi/status/1258185278168223746)

\-
[https://twitter.com/konarkmodi/status/1262019416914644994](https://twitter.com/konarkmodi/status/1262019416914644994)

\-
[https://twitter.com/konarkmodi/status/1258338835722887171](https://twitter.com/konarkmodi/status/1258338835722887171)

~~~
tmikaeld
Doesn't edge on iOS just use an UI only top of Safari Webview?

~~~
encom
Yes, Apple doesn't allow 3rd party browsers on IOS.

~~~
gitgud
So iOS Chrome/Firefox is just Safari wrapped in a GUI?

~~~
SahAssar
Yes.

------
kyriakos
Not privacy related but on Windows 10 I find Edge to be performing a little
better compared to Chrome under the same tabs / workload / extensions. Its
anecdotal though so I can't be certain, anyone else has similar experience?

------
drivebycomment
Privacy is such a vague and useless term nowadays that it is very difficult to
say what is better unequivocally. So it would be useful if you define what you
consider to be 'privacy' and what matters more vs less.

------
ragnese
If you care at all about privacy, I don't see how you could stomach either.
Firefox is the only reasonable choice when it comes to privacy, and even that
isn't perfect.

~~~
Shared404
I mean, there is Tor. If you don't care that much about latency, that could be
a reasonable option as long as you aren't streaming something.

------
znpy
as a rule of thumb no proprietary browser is good on privacy.

------
gentleman11
Edge isn’t great. Why not look at de googled chromium or brave instead?

I have maybe one website that I like to use brave for and the rest all work
with Firefox 100%

------
IfOnlyYouKnew
On MacOS, I was rather surprised to find the truly extraordinary amount of
locations Edge installs stuff, which aren't removed when deleting the app.

My impression was they we're trying to survive all uninstall attempts by using
two dozen different methods to autostart various services and updaters?

------
natch
With Google’s practices of gathering your personal data, why is Chrome even in
the running in any of the discussions about browsers? I mean, Firefox and
Safari exist, people. But maybe it’s me. What am I missing here?

~~~
natch
Thanks for the downvote but really, what am I missing?

~~~
Shared404
Like the sibling comment said, Chrome has a massive market share. This leads
companies to only test their sites on Chrome, leading to the sites not working
properly elsewhere, leading to the gamerbros and many powerusers to refuse to
use something else.

Sadly, tracking doesn't seem to worry most people as much as it does me and
you.

------
coronadisaster
Somewhat unrelated, but I started having many websites that don't work
properly in Firefox in the last couple of weeks...

------
lawnchair_larry
The whole reason that Microsoft creates this product is for tracking.

~~~
sam_goody
Even if that was true, it doesn't mean that their browser does more tracking
than Chrome.

Sad, that that is the situation.

Though the OP's question is a little odd to me - if you know enough to ask,
why would you use either?

------
ameesdotme
Not based on actual research, but my guess is that with Edge, you'll now have
Google phone-homing combined with Microsoft phone-homing. Unless Microsoft
actively went out of their way to remove calls to Google, there may still be
many present, as found in many reports about Chromium.

~~~
Kipters
[https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/8/18300772/microsoft-
google-...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/8/18300772/microsoft-google-
services-removed-changed-chromium-edge-browser)

