Brave Move Good For Tor And Privacy

In its latest version, Brave, a privacy focused desktop browser, has introduced the ability to enable Tor in private tabs, an important move both for private browsing and for Tor itself.

A recent research paper (pdf) showed that many people don't have a good idea of what private browser mode really means: they tend to think that it hides their geographical location from the website they are visiting and their Internet activity from their ISP or employer.

Though accssing the Internet via Tor doesn't protect one's privacy in all cases, it does in general do a pretty good job of living up to expectations of privacy, such as hiding one's location and making the browsing activity invsible to anyone listening in on the network. This makes this a rather important move and one that would hopefully be followed by other browsers: it simply makes "private browsing" live up to the promises it makes in the eyes of many user.

But making Tor available inside a regular browser may also help Tor itself.

Tor is designed to protect against the most advanced adversaries, such as government agencies, and its users include opposition activists living under oppressive regimes for whom the protection of their privacy may literally be a matter of life and death. But it is also commonly used for various malicious activities, from dealing in illicit goods to commiting online crimes.

As a consequence of the prevalence of this latter group of users, various barriers are put in place to make it harder to browse the Internet over Tor: from outright blocking those accessing a service via the Tor network, to the requirement to solve one or more CAPTCHAs.

By design, Tor can't prevent 'bad actors' from using its network, even if it wanted to. But it can increase the number of 'ordinary' users, thus making it less attractive for services to put those barriers in place. Making Tor available in private mode in a regular browser, rather than in the dedicated Tor Browser, is one way to increase the user base.

Of course, most people don't need the extreme protections Tor offers, not even in private mode; for them, a simple VPN would be good enough. But Tor is also that and could thus serve as a quick, easy and free way to anonymously do a search on a competitor's website, or to check if a web store doesn't charge you a higher price.

Of course, Brave's market share is really small and it is likely that most of those using the browser are already using Tor in some way. But other browser makers may follow suit, to make private browser mode live up to its promise, and see Tor benefit as a consequence.