Downloads open with safe browser

It also includes a powerful suite of built-in and easily customizable privacy and security features. The best browser for private browsing and ad blocking is one that comes with those tools built in, as well as options to customize and manage your privacy settings.

It should come with a built-in ad blocker to put a stop to nasty adware , force websites to encrypt your connection , and detect and stop online tracking with powerful anti-tracking software. AVG Secure Browser is designed to prevent browser tracking and protect your privacy online. Privacy Report vulnerability Contact security License agreements Modern Slavery Statement Cookies Accessibility Statement Do not sell my info All third party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

PC Close-icon. Mac Close-icon. Mobile Close-icon. Business Close-icon. Services Close-icon. Support Close-icon. Free download. Free download Free download Free download Free download Coming soon. It all starts with the right private browser.

See all the features Anti-Fingerprinting Make it harder for websites to identify your digital fingerprint by making your browser look less unique. If you want a privacy-focused version of Firefox for Android, you could try Firefox focus.

For additional customization and privacy settings, check out our Firefox privacy guide. Next up we have the Tor browser. The Tor browser is a hardened version of Firefox that is configured to run on the Tor network.

By default, the Tor Browser is a secure browser that protects you against browser fingerprinting , but it also has some disadvantages. Because it uses the Tor network, which routes traffic over three different hops, download speeds with the Tor browser can be quite slow. The default version may also break some sites due to script blocking. There are also many websites that block IP addresses originating from the Tor network.

See the pros and cons of Tor here. Another option is to use the Tor browser with the Tor network disabled. Additionally, you can simply run a VPN in the background. Ungoogled Chromium is an open source project to provide a Chromium browser, without the Google privacy issues:. It also features some tweaks to enhance privacy, control, and transparency almost all of which require manual activation or enabling.

Unlike other Chromium forks that have their own visions of a web browser, ungoogled-chromium is essentially a drop-in replacement for Chromium. Bromite is a Chromium -based browser for Android only no desktop support. It comes with some great features by default, including ad blocking and various privacy enhancements.

Here are some highlights of this browser from the official Bromite website :. Another cool feature I like with Bromite is that you can use custom ad block filters — learn more here.

Bromite is under active development and remains a great browser for Android users. The DuckDuckGo privacy browser is a new addition to our lineup. This browser is available for mobile devices on iOS and Android and comes with lots of privacy-focused features by default. This browser is now available on both the Google Play and Apple stores.

Below are a few private and secure browsers that are worth mentioning. However, these browsers did not quite make the cut to be recommended, for various reasons listed below. Waterfox is a fork of Firefox that was maintained by just one person for many years.

In February , news blew up on reddit that it had sold out to a pay-per-click ad company called System1. The news was also picked up by others, which resulted in Waterfox and System1 formally announcing the acquisition but only after the news broke. The problem here is the apparent contradiction of an ad company that relies on data collection owning a privacy-focused browser.

As I previously reported, System1 also acquired a stake in Startpage , the private search engine based in The Netherlands. You can be the judge. Pale Moon is another open-source fork of Firefox, which aims for efficiency and customization. In testing out Pale Moon, it does offer different customization options, as well as support for older Firefox add-ons and its own lineup of add-ons.

Pale Moon is currently available on Windows and Linux, with other operating systems in development. Unlike other Firefox forks, Pale Moon runs on its own browser engine , Goanna , which is a fork of Gecko used by Firefox. This is an older engine that was previously used by Firefox, but has long since been replaced.

Many argue that this older codebase is a security vulnerability. Here are the privacy-protection features listed from the IceCat page:. This can expose IceCat users to security vulnerabilities, which is why we are no longer recommending it.

Like Brave, Iridium is a secure browser that is based on Chromium and configured for more privacy by default. Iridium Browser is based on the Chromium code base. All modifications enhance the privacy of the user and make sure that the latest and best secure technologies are used. Automatic transmission of partial queries, keywords and metrics to central services is prevented and only occurs with the approval of the user.

In addition, all our builds are reproducible and modifications are auditable, setting the project ahead of other secure browser providers. While some browsers claim to be secure against vulnerabilities, they might not be the best choice from a privacy perspective. Google Chrome is by far the most popular browser. You can safely assume that everything you do through Google Chrome is collected, saved to your data profile, and used for targeted advertising.

Edge is a Microsoft product. Opera started off as a decent browser, developed in Norway. Opera also claims to offer a free VPN through the browser. Since , Epic has been claiming they would open source the code, but it remains closed source today. How do they manage Chromium and remove invasive code? Who knows. The browser is merely routing traffic through a US proxy server. One person who analyzed Epic found it to be connecting to Google on startup.

This suggests that Epic is not, in fact, de-googled as it claims. Overall, Safari is not a horrible choice in terms of privacy and tracking protection — but it also cannot be recommended for a few reasons:. Configurable options per exam in the user interface: Size and positioning of browser windows main window with the quiz and additional browser windows can be preset. The SEB main browser window can be displayed full screen or as a sizable and movable window.

Permitted third party applications are easy to start and to switch to autostart together with SEB and by clicking on its icon in the SEB task bar. Prohibited processes and applications can be defined which are closed when SEB starts up. SEB contains a list of default prohibited processes too. PrintScreen can be blocked, the clipboard is cleared when SEB is started and stopped.

Security feature which monitors processes and hinders all non-permitted applications to open, become active and display windows while SEB is running. Individual proxy settings, URL filters and server certificates can be used per exam.

SEB config files saved for configuring a client can contain embedded cryptographic identities X. Screen saver and idle sleep are paused while SEB is running to prevent having to enter an screen unlock password before the exam starts.

Can save. Configuration files can configure a SEB exam client to show for example a portal page with the current exams. Configuration files can be used to start an exam with individual configuration like specific security and user interface options, permitted third party applications and additional resources, Browser Exam Key for authenticating these settings and the SEB application to an exam server, Quit Link to close SEB automatically when an exam is submitted etc. For debugging purposes.

Clicking any item in the list will attempt to open it if it still exists. You can also click the "Show in folder" link to open the folder with that particular file selected. Open your Downloads folder. Click the "Open downloads folder" link in the upper-right to open the folder that Chrome downloads your files to.

By default, this is the Downloads folder in your user directory. Change your Chrome Download folder. Scroll down and click the "Show advanced settings" link. In the "Downloads" section, you can set a new folder for your Chrome downloads to be placed by clicking Change You can also choose whether Chrome should prompt you to save a file when downloading. Method 4. Open your Recent Downloads list. Click the down arrow button in the top-right corner of the Firefox window.

This will display your recent downloads. Clicking on a file in the list will open it if it still exists. Clicking on the folder icon next to the file will open the folder with that particular file selected. Open the Downloads Library. This will open the Firefox Library, with the Downloads tab selected.

All of your stored downloads will be shown here. You can use the search bar to find something specific. Change your Firefox Download folder. Click the "General" tab. You can change the folder that your downloads are saved to by clicking Browse You can also choose whether Firefox should prompt you to save a file when downloading.

You can right click and delete. The user can then choose any folder from the local file system Choose file to upload… Mac only : SEB can let the user choose the file to upload manually as usual or automatically choose the same file which was downloaded before. There are three possible policies to choose the file to upload: manually with file requester by attempting to upload same file downloaded before : If the file is not found, a file requester is presented and the user can choose some other file manually.

This setting might bring additional security, because only files which have been downloaded before in the same browser session, means since SEB was started can be uploaded. If several files have been downloaded, pressing the choose file or similarly named button in the browser window will first choose the file most recently downloaded, pressing the button several times will cycle through all the files downloaded in this session.

This option is useful when you allow to switch to third party applications and e. Mac only : The Adobe Acrobat Reader browser plugin should only be used on secured managed Mac computers, as it allows to access the file system and cloud services.

These have a built-in SEB support. Important: First save your final exam settings in a. Please note that if you want to use the same. The keys for the Mac and the Windows version will in any case be different, so you have to load the final. Mac an Windows are used, or your exam settings should be tolerant to a future update of SEB to e certain extend. Session Handling Use the following parameter to control whether a browser session shall be persited on disk, e.

Ask user to confirm quitting : If not selected, then SEB quits immediately after a Quit Link is detected, without users having to confirm. The browser session is not restarted using this feature session cookies are not cleared; a logged in user isn't logged out. Leave empty for a standard text which is localized to the SEB user interface languages. If not activated, any query parameter with the seb-Link are ignored. Setting options: Monitor processes while SEB is running: If enabled, SEB prevents non-permitted processes to display any windows including alerts, message boxes etc.

You can only deactivate this feature when using the "None for debugging only " Kiosk mode. The only way to switch off process monitoring in the other kiosk modes is to select "Ignore SEB Service" on tab "Security" see Security pane. Permitted Processes Section Third party applications and processes which are permitted to run during an exam.

Allow switching to third party applications Mac only : If this option is activated, the kiosk mode induced by SEB will be reduced one level. The process switcher Cmd-Tab will work, so it's possible to switch to other running applications.

Use this option only when running SEB in a user account managed by parental controls, with only SEB and the desired applications allowed. Also you should switch on Simple Finder and don't give users access to other accounts with administrator rights on that computer see SEB for macOS manual: Secure Environment.

Allow Flash to switch to full screen mode Mac only : Playing videos with Flash in full screen mode is a security problem. That's why it is strongly recommended to use HTML5 video there full screen mode is no problem instead of Flash whenever possible. Depending on the Flash video player and the Mac used, it can be difficult to switch back from full screen mode best is to use the Esc key , so if you don't need full screen mode, don't enable it here. When switching to third party applications is disabled, Flash fullscreen mode isn't possible at all.

In general you should use this button to choose a permitted application from your drive. SEB will automatically fill in title , executable and path of the application.

You can change the title if you want which is displayed in the SEB taskbar. Path will usually be empty, as for applications which have been installed and properly registered in Windows App Paths you don't need to and should not, as it can be different on another client system specify the path. Selected Process details: Active : Indicates if this permitted process item is active can be used while testing.

Title : Application title which is displayed in the application chooser. Description : Optional, should explain what kind of process this is, because this might not be obvious only from the executable's name. OS : Indicates on which operating system the permitted process runs currently only the option Win works.

Executable : File name of the executable, which should not contain any parts of a file system path , only the filename of the exe file like calc. Original Name : Original file name of the executable.

Some files don't have this metadata information. If it is available, SEB will prioritize this string over the Executable file name string. Window Handling Process : Process executable which is actually handling the main window, this is necessary to indicate for Java and some other applications for example OpenOffice, Eclipse, Adobe Acrobat. Path : Optional filesystem path formatted system specific to the process executable's directory excluding the filename, see field executable. If the path is not given or relative, then SEB searches the system provided paths for applications.

For applications which have been installed and properly registered in Windows App Paths you don't need to specify the path. If the executable for an application is placed in a subdirectory of the path registered in Windows App Paths, then you usually can indicate just the relative path.

SEB also is able to expand environment variables in path of permitted processes. Arguments to append to the executable of the application when starting it.

You can select if an argument is active or not for testing. Icon in taskbar : Disabling this option is mainly useful for background processes not requiring user interaction which you want to autostart when SEB is run. Autostart : Start the process automatically together with SEB. Identifier: String of the process identifier in reverse domain notation Mac or the string or substring of the main window title of a process which doesn't have a MainWindow handle Win , this is usually the case with Java applications use for example "OpenOffice" for OpenOffice Calc.

Allow running in background : Permitted processes with this option set are allowed to already be running when starting SEB. Processes with the option "Allow running in background" don't have an icon in the SEB taskbar. They can nevertheless have the option "Autostart" set, in this case SEB attempts to start the permitted process regardless if it was already running or not and the option "Icon in taskbar" is considered in this case.

Allow user to select location of application : The user is presented a file dialog window allowing to locate the third party application's executable if it cannot be found at the path specified and paths provided by the system instead of just displaying an error message.

Only applications matching the executable string specified are accepted. Disabling this setting does not mean that processes are not killed: Depending on the platform's capabilities, SEB first tries to terminate prohibited processes and applications nicely or asking the user to do it themselves, if this doesn't work then it terminates them anyways as long as monitor processes is enabled. But enabling Force quit will speed up this process. This flag should not be set for macOS applications which allow to be terminated nicely they are anyways automatically terminated, without asking the user.

Prohibited Processes Section List of processes which are prohibited to run during an exam. Selected Process details: Active : Indicates if this prohibited process item is active. Executable : Process name, usually the filename of the executable. Disabling this setting does not mean that processes are not killed: Depending on the platform's capabilities, SEB first tries to terminate prohibited processes nicely or asking the user to do it themselves, if this doesn't work then it terminates them anyways as long as monitor processes is enabled.

Filter also embedded content : If selected, also all embedded resources will be filtered using the filter set. Note that there can be hundreds of resources such as images and other media per page, so filtering all content may slow down page loading. Rules Active : Indicates if the rule is active. Regex : Indicates if the rule is a regular expression. Action to process if the corresponding expression matches.

Possible actions: block If the URL matches the expression, then it is rejected and processing of the remaining rules is stopped. If the URL filter reaches the last rule means there was no matching block or allow expression found , then the URL is discarded. The host field is required besides when filtering against a protocol like about:blank or data: , and is either a partial or full hostname or an IP address. The URL filter doesn't resolve hostnames itself, so if you allow everything and only block 'hostname.

You should therefore mainly use whitelisting to allow accessing only specific sites during an exam.