Brave browser on mobile allows tracking of user data by facebook

Hello Brave team

Does anyone from the @brave team know the reason why @facebook , @meta keeps tracking Android cell phone users @SamsungBrasil even though the application is uninstalled and deactivated? Thanks for the security provided @DuckDuckGo !

Fone: A3(2016) Samsung

@fanboynz could you provide any help. Thanks so much!

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We can’t prevent facebook tracking within the facebook application (so everytime you open the app). However opening facebook within Brave, you’re safe from the tracking.

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Oh. I didn’t notice that they were referring to facebook app rather than Brave. Thanks!

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Only going by the first screenshot tbh. Though its not uncommon for Brave to be mislabeled as a tracker

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Hey guys

Thank you for the informations

Does anyone know if there is any real application that can remove any and all traces of facebook from the cell phone without the need to root?

Hello @fanboynz

Is the FB app disabled and uninstalled and still tracking occurs on top of the Brave browser?

I don’t use duckduckgo at all. Not sure if disabling Facebook would be enough in the scanning tools. Removing the app would help. If you don’t want facebook tracking (or other apps) just remove them. open within the Brave browser.

The duckduckcrap app doesn’t have access to every Network request like an extension/native adblocker would do, it is using a DNS filtering just like Blokada does for example, so duckduckcrap app will not be able to tell the difference between anything, trackers or non trackers in the same domain.

So if two connections are made by the browser in the same domain, one is a tracker tracker and the other one a non-tracker script, Duckduckcrap will either say both are trackers or none, depending if the scripts are essential for the website to work.

An Adblocker like the one Brave has, will see and blocks individual requests, modifies HTML elements, inject CSS, inject scriptlets, it has 1000 million ways of dealing with trackers in webpages, while any DNS filtering is tied to domains and subdomains only.

Also, we have to understand Brave is a browser, therefore, it will have access to billions of websites and many websites will will connect to Facebook, google and others, that will appear as ‘trackers’ by limited DNS filtering, not all Facebook connections are trackers, and many websites use it like Google ads and all that, so it is not Brave allowing tracking, it is just websites that have different elements and Brave with specific lists is able to carefully block the necessary elements not just everything or nothing as Duckduckcrap and any DNS filtering would do.

Also, It’s not recommended to use DNS filtering with browsers that have an adblocker as Brave, why?, because it might interfere with features like $redirect or $redirect-rule which are features that make the adblocker replace scripts, and make a website think it is getting the real one, but it’s either a modified version of a script with no tracker, empty or just a useless script, that way the website will not be able to display an anti-adblocker message, because it thinks it got the real script.
Many DNS filtering will just block the connection and then force the website to know the script was blocking and tell it was just an adblocker doing it.

DNS filtering is good for apps, not for Brave, so if you want to keep using DuckDuckCrap products, you need to ignore messages about Brave, exclude it from the app if you can or use the Secured DNS feature with a non-filtered DNS server like Cloudflare, that way, maybe see if request inside Brave should be bypassed and don’t use the DDG for the resolving of addresses.

You can read about ‘How it works’ in https://spreadprivacy.com/introducing-app-tracking-protection/ you can see it is the VPN connection in your smartphone like any other DNS ‘adblocker’.

But some more little information about it, running the DNS locally, in your phone, should consume more battery and resources than using a normal external DNS server, how much?I don’t know, but I have seen reports of battery drain for years with other DNS based adblockers.
I guess if you want to do it more effectively, you can run Adguard public DNS server, which is simple and easy but no customization, then you can use Adgaurd home/Pihole in your router or the paid NextDNS, which allows a lot customization in the lists and all that and many features for security, privacy and even some web3 resolving and all that, you can even create multiple profiles, one filtered and the other one unfiltered to use globally and then the non-filtered for Brave only. But yeah, running DNS based adblockers locally in the phone, have always been a terrible idea in my opinion, but of course, it’s people’s phone so they can do whatever they want with it, if they want Blokada or DDG or whatever else, then, so be it.

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