Digital Self-Defense

Guide tag · 104 matching pages

Switch to Brave Browser Reason #24: Tighten protections for sites that handle sensitive activity

The browser default may be reasonable for most pages but insufficient for a site where the stakes are higher.

Tracking is easy to dismiss when it happens invisibly.

Permanent device permissions can outlive the call or task that justified them.

Occasional news, shopping, and image sites rarely need a permanent browser identity for you.

A site you visited once can retain identifiers and recognize you months later without providing any lasting benefit.

Redirects and URL markers can connect a newsletter click to later browsing, even when the pages themselves seem unrelated.

A product view can follow you for weeks as targeted ads, reminding you how much was collected from a single click.

Researching a political issue, a legal problem, or workplace organizing can reveal beliefs and vulnerabilities.

A job search can affect your livelihood.

Research about debt, insurance, or a major purchase can be commercially valuable to targeting systems.

Looking up a condition, treatment, or clinic is private life, yet pages about health can still contain advertising trackers.

Search-related pages and the sites reached through them can include advertising technology.

An ad slot can bring outside code and trackers onto a page you otherwise trust.

A social network's widget can appear on a site you never intended to share with that network.

Intermediary page formats can give a platform another view of what you read and how you navigate.

A destination may learn which page sent you there, exposing a sensitive topic before you say a word.

A link can carry campaign and identity markers in its URL.

A click can be routed through a tracking intermediary before reaching the destination.

Some tracking vendors hide behind a site's own-looking subdomain, hoping ordinary third-party blocking will miss them.

Trackers can combine details about your device and browser into a recognizable fingerprint even after cookies are blocked.