We really appreciate the interest in privacy of our users and are always open for suggestions and feedback. Some questions have come up lately that I would like to address in this post.
Why does SnowHaze not emit a “Do Not Track” request?
We chose not to include a “Do Not Track” notice as it sends additional information about the browser. It is important to minimize the amount of information that the browser sends to a site to best avoid browser fingerprinting. Besides, it is up to the site to respect this request and sites wanting to track their visitors will simply ignore it. It should rather be that the sites don’t have the possibility to track in the first place, instead of asking them not to. We think that the harm towards the privacy is bigger than the benefits of a “Do Not Track” request.
How can I open a link in a new SnowHaze tab?
It is possible to open a link in a new tab with devices supporting 3D Touch. For the other devices, it would be possible to display the “Open in New Tab” option, but the link would open in a new Safari tab, which is usually not wanted. From a technical point of view we could easily include this feature for all devices like Firefox does, but this violates Apple’s policies.
Is it possible to apply the site settings only temporarily?
With the SnowHaze version 2.0 coming in September, the page settings can be applied permanently or only temporarily. As some users may know from NoScript, this feature is very convenient for one-time visits of a site.
Will Apple’s new “Anti Adblocker” App Store policy affect SnowHaze?
As Apple says, applications that are interfering with the performance of other apps have never been tolerated on the App Store. The Ad blocker in SnowHaze blocks ads on the internet and cannot act within other applications of your device. SnowHaze will therefore not be affected and will continue to have an ad blocker to block internet ads.
Why does SnowHaze have a Canvas Fingerprint when testing on amiunique.org, panopticlick.eff.org and browserleaks.com?
There are two ways to protect oneself from Fingerprinting. The first is to ensure that the fingerprint is not unique and the second is to have a fingerprint that change in an unpredictable way. For Canvas Fingerprinting SnowHaze uses a changing fingerprint. SnowHaze uses both methods depending on what is more appropriate for the given fingerprinting method. Some sites are also only able to recognize the first method mentioned above.
We would like to thank all the privacy-devoted users and encourage everybody to help us find flaws and improve SnowHaze. Do not hesitate to contact us for questions, feedback or bug reports.
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