Author: Soren Stoutner

Some people might be interested to know what the requirements are to be included as a search engine in Privacy Browser. The search engine must work with JavaScript disabled. The search engine must produce usable results. If a search engine has one URL that works with JavaScript disabled and a second URL that works with… Continue reading Requirements for a Search Engine to Be Included

The referer header is an optional header that informs the website you are visiting of the URL of the previous website (assuming you clicked a link to get to the current site instead of typing the URL into the address bar). It has no good reason to exist, but those who want to track you… Continue reading The Referer Header

A user recently pointed out to me that there is a bug in WebView’s handling of nested scrolling which causes the long-press menu to appear when the user’s finger is on a link, the app bar is being scrolled on or off the screen, and the scroll moves at a slow pace. This is caused… Continue reading Bug in WebView’s Handling of Nested Scrolling

Privacy Browser 3.6.1 was released with fix for a bug that caused View Source to crash on release builds. Because most of my devices are running debug builds it took a while before I was able to reproduce the bug. The root cause was that ProGuard, which removed unneeded methods in release builds to make… Continue reading Privacy Browser 3.6.1

This release fixes a bug that allowed buffered audio to continue to play when a tab was closed. There is a similar bug that I have a hard time reproducing that has similar symptoms, but includes the favorite icon for the closed tab being displayed on a remaining tab. If anyone is able to reproduce… Continue reading Privacy Browser 3.6

I received an email from a user pointing out a scrolling bug that sometimes manifests in the Domain Settings activity. After looking into it, it appears that Android’s touch parsing isn’t very smart about touches and swipes when they are over spinners (the drop down boxes). Usually, a finger must touch and then lift off… Continue reading Bug in Android’s Spinner Touch Parser

23 December 2020 Update: Let’s Encrypt decided this wasn’t a smart idea, and extended the expiration date until 2024. So, for this immediate scenario, these instructions are no longer necessary. However, I will leave them up for people who are interested in the details of how to add a certificate authority to Android. On January… Continue reading Let’s Encrypt ISRG Root X1 and Privacy Browser

Beginning with Privacy Browser 3.5, the app now saves and restores the instance state if killed in the background by the OS. For those who might not be aware of the abomination that is memory management on Android, I would point you to the picture below, which was taken from the official Android Lifecycle documentation.… Continue reading Saved Instance State