Looking into privacytests.org, the main developer behind it is someone who contributes to Brave source code. He may not be officially affiliated with the company, but it would be hard to ignore any sort of bias towards Brave.
I’ve been seeing a lot of techy “privacy” blog posts, even here on Lemmy. It’s a little annoying when they muddy up the waters like this. People new to privacy will come across them and head off in the wrong direction.
We need more comments calling them out and linking to proper resources. The site linked in this post even has a confusingly similar name to the actual recommended resource:
(And a quick sidenote: privacyguides is the same team from privacytools. There was a name change after the original owner for the domain came back and fought over the project. PrivacyTools is now a paid advertising site, and it is NOT recommended. https://www.privacyguides.org/en/about/privacytools/ )
Edit: while I’m at it, here’s the official community on Lemmy
The article on privacyguides I linked above touches on some of this as well. I haven’t read through this one, but seems like the less verifiable one in a “x said y said” situation?
PrivacyTests actually started prior to him joining Brave. Brave contacted him, and used that resource as a kind of checklist, to try and improve their browser. Despite the guy now working there, it remains an independent project.
There is no clear indication of bias, from PrivacyTests, just accusations.
If the tools and tests ARE open source (which they are), they can be checked for bias/cheating. Someone could also expand (fork) upon them to give more of a rounded opinion.
A better defense against accusations of bias is a group or persons transparency.
Simply having an open source methodology and code base isn’t transparency either, since it takes a much, much deeper and more developed skill set to audit both software source code and testing methodology than it takes to raise an eyebrow at sus circumstances.
Looking into privacytests.org, the main developer behind it is someone who contributes to Brave source code. He may not be officially affiliated with the company, but it would be hard to ignore any sort of bias towards Brave.
I’ve been seeing a lot of techy “privacy” blog posts, even here on Lemmy. It’s a little annoying when they muddy up the waters like this. People new to privacy will come across them and head off in the wrong direction.
We need more comments calling them out and linking to proper resources. The site linked in this post even has a confusingly similar name to the actual recommended resource:
https://www.privacyguides.org/en/desktop-browsers/
(And a quick sidenote: privacyguides is the same team from privacytools. There was a name change after the original owner for the domain came back and fought over the project. PrivacyTools is now a paid advertising site, and it is NOT recommended. https://www.privacyguides.org/en/about/privacytools/ )
Edit: while I’m at it, here’s the official community on Lemmy
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Isn’t that the same controversy, just worded in favor of privacytools?
I’m trying to judge based on what I’ve read from each party, and I’m still leaning towards the privacyguides account of what went down
The recommendations are probably the biggest factor for me. See the VPN pages on each site
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Less “took over” more the founder left and the community picked up the pieces.
I found this on my privacy journey. Don’t know how relevant it is today though
The article on privacyguides I linked above touches on some of this as well. I haven’t read through this one, but seems like the less verifiable one in a “x said y said” situation?
!privacyguides@lemmy.one
Please use universal links
thanks, fixed!
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PrivacyTests actually started prior to him joining Brave. Brave contacted him, and used that resource as a kind of checklist, to try and improve their browser. Despite the guy now working there, it remains an independent project.
https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=ygvhCa9-0L4
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It’s still unfinished, but he’s working on a tool for you to test your own browser. You can do so here:
https://privacytests.org/me.html
It’s the exact same tests he runs, that are open source. Everything can be found, (if you don’t trust the guy) on his GitHub:
https://github.com/privacytests/privacytests.org/tree/master/scripts
You can have open source software with a bias towards something.
You can but:
A better defense against accusations of bias is a group or persons transparency.
Simply having an open source methodology and code base isn’t transparency either, since it takes a much, much deeper and more developed skill set to audit both software source code and testing methodology than it takes to raise an eyebrow at sus circumstances.
Okay? Where is the proof it’s biased towards one browser