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WHAT IS PRIVACYTESTS.ORG?

Most web browsers leak your identity and your browsing history, but some
browsers are more leaky than others.

The goal of PrivacyTests.org is to understand in detail: what data is each web
browser leaking? Which web browsers offer the best privacy protections?

PrivacyTests.org is an open-source initiative that subjects popular web browsers
to a suite of automated tests. These tests are designed to audit web browsers'
privacy properties in an unbiased manner. The results of the tests are made
public to help users make an informed choice about which browser to use, and to
encourage browser makers to fix leaks of private user data.


WHY PRIVACY ON THE WEB MATTERS

The web has rapidly developed into one of the primary mediums used by billions
of people to interact with the world. Reading the news, communicating with
friends and colleagues, watching movies, participating in political discourse,
and searching for information all take place through the web.

Despite the crucial importance of the web, it has been designed in a fashion
that historically has not respected users' privacy. Advertising companies have
taken advantage of this design to collect tremendous amounts of private data,
using it to show ads targeted to specific groups of consumers. Governments have
also seized the opportunity to surveill people en masse without their knowledge.

Why are these privacy violations a problem? Privacy is a fundamental human right
because it is necessary for preserving the autonomy, safety, and dignity of
human beings. Individuals whose privacy is violated are vulnerable to
discrimination and manipulation. Examples from history show that mass
surveillance can facilitate enormous harm.


WHY WEB BROWSERS ARE CRITICAL TO ONLINE PRIVACY

Once private data has leaked from your computer, phone or tablet, there is not
much you can do to control it. But how does data leave your device in the first
place?

Your web browser is a likely route: browsers commonly leak data to third
parties, revealing what web pages you have visited. This information lets
tracking companies know what you read, what you write, where you are located,
what you search for, and what you buy. And this highly personal information is
assembled by those companies into detailed individual profiles of every person
on the internet, containing data on your ethnicity, religious views, political
views, sexual orientation, gender, family, friends, colleagues, health history,
habits, relationships, educational records, income, and so on. These companies
often retain your data for years or decades, and sometimes share it with third
parties, including other companies or governments.

Fortunately, most browser makers have acknowledged their responsibility to stop
users' private information from leaking out. But the default behavior for
browsers used by billions of people remains highly leaky.


HOW THE TESTS WORK

To understand and compare the privacy characteristics of popular web browsers,
each browser is subjected to the same suite of rigorous automated tests. Each
privacy test examines whether the browser, on default settings, protects against
a specific kind of data leak.

The results for all browsers and tests are presented in a unified table. If a
browser is found to protect users from a given data leak, it receives a green ,
but if it leaks user data, it receives a red .

These tests are run on a regular basis, to monitor the privacy improvements of
each browser. As browser developers fix a privacy vulnerability, the fix will be
reflected in the latest results.


WORK IN PROGRESS

This project is a work in progress and is under active development! I plan to
cover more browsers and more tracking vulnerabilities in the future.

I want to hear from you! All kinds of feedback: comments, suggestions, critiques
and questions are welcome. You can contact me via email
(contact@privacytests.org), Twitter, or github.


FULL DISCLOSURE AND TRANSPARENCY

(Updated June 2022)

This website and the browser privacy tests are an independent project by me,
Arthur Edelstein. I have developed this project on my own time and on my own
initiative. Several months after first publishing the website, I became an
employee of Brave, where I contribute to Brave's browser privacy engineering
efforts. I continue to run this website independently of my employer, however.
There is no connection with Brave marketing efforts whatsoever.

I am committed to maintaining this website's accuracy and impartiality. It is my
goal not to promote any browser here, but rather to offer objective test results
for all browsers that encourages a general improvement in privacy across the
industry.

By keeping this project fully open source, I endeavor to provide the maximum
possible transparency and verifiability of the tests and results. Anyone who
wishes to check the results can clone the git repository and run the browser
tests independently. Ideas for additional tests, or code (pull requests) for
additional tests that provide further insight into browser privacy, will be
gratefully accepted.


THANKS

Many thanks to the people who have offered suggestions, critiques, bug reports
and code contributions, including: Peter Dolanjski, Steven Englehardt, Aleksey
Khoroshilov, Simon Mainey, Jasper Rebane, Pete Snyder, and John Wilander.