Privacy Guard is a new feature of the Vivaldi web browser. It is free at the moment and only available in development builds of the browser.
Broken down to its core, it is protecting user privacy through a technology called Multi-Hop Relay. To better understand it, it is necessary to understand how regular connections work in the browser.
When the browser loads a domain, a direct connection to each resource of a webpage is loaded. This means that the server the site is hosted on as well as any third-party resource loaded communicates directly with the IP address of the user’s device.
Multi-Hop Relay changes this by putting servers in-between. In other words, instead of directly connecting to resources, the browser connects through other servers first. This is done to separate the identity of the user’s device from the requested resource.
Vivaldi’s Privacy Guard technology uses two servers for this. The first is operated by INVISV, the startup that developed the Multi-Hop technology. The second is operated by Fastly.
Vivaldi says that INVISV has been founded by Paul Schmitt, University of Hawaii, and Barath Raghavan, University of Southern California. The startup has advisers, including Bruce Schneier and Jon Callas.
The feature in Vivaldi
You need a development version of Vivaldi to use the feature at this time. Another limitation is that Privacy Guard requires a Vivaldi account. Creating an account is free.
A click on the Privacy Guard toggle enables the feature. A public IP address is assigned to the browser. Vivaldi displays the location of the server as well, so that you know about the country you are connected to.
The fastest server is selected by default, which means that you will connect to a server closest to your location usually. You can switch this to random instead, which may further improve privacy.
Websites may be added to the list of exceptions. Direct connections are used for any of these sites.
Initial tests were promising. All tested websites and services, including YouTube, Twitch, online game websites, blogs, and others worked as before. Some sites may display captchas, but this is also the case when other anonymization services are used.
Privacy Guard vs. Tor Browser vs. Multi-Hop VPNs
How does the privacy feature compare to similar technologies?
- Privacy Guard — uses two hops. Hops are operated by different companies.
- Tor Browser — uses three hops. Hops are (usually) operated by different companies and organizations.
- Multi-Hop VPN — uses another hop. Operated by the VPN provider.
Closing Words
The technology is free to try at the moment and Vivaldi says that it uses the current implementation for testing and to find out if this is something that Vivaldi users are interested in. A release in Vivaldi Stable would require a subscription. Details have not been revealed at this point.
Some Vivaldi users will certainly find the option appealing. The main appeal it has over VPNs is that its servers are not operated by the same company. It is also easier to use, but it lacks advanced features that VPN services do offer.
Would you use Privacy Guard? How much would you pay for it?