> only runs when a device is connected to Wi-Fi or Ethernet. Cellular bandwidth is never used.
That's interesting. How does the website possibly detect that I'm on a cellular network when I'm a) use Firefox (which doesn't implement the NetworkInformation API) and b) use a VPN to either a data center or my home server? What about iOS devices using Apple's pseudo-Tor (because Safari doesn't expose NetworkInformation either), or devices using tethered WiFi?
I don't believe this claim at all. This makes me take all their other claims they make with a massive grain of salt as well.
There's also the massive privacy issue: other people will know what websites you visit by simply using the P2P system, and the entire thing seems to be opt-in unless you use an adblocker. That last part shows that the devs know of the privacy issue but have decided to take the practical approach of not fixing the issue and only doing the bare minimum to remove their website from blocklists.
It's only a matter of time before someone will make a tool that enumerates all IPs in the Arc network together with the content they've been served. This one is going onto my Pihole's blocklist...
> How does the website possibly detect that I'm on a cellular network when I'm a) use Firefox (which doesn't implement the NetworkInformation API) and b) use a VPN to either a data center or my home server?
Yep. An IP lookup is also done to see which AS the user is on. Eg an AWS IP vs a T-Mobile IP.
We also do this to detect when people tether, as when tethering Chrome will report a Wi-Fi connection via the NetworkInforamtion API but it's Wi-Fi on top of an underlying cellular connection.
> There's also the massive privacy issue: other people will know what websites you visit by simply using the P2P system
All cached data is both fragmented and encrypted. When a node sends data to another peer, it's an encrypted fragment of a file and the sender doesn't know 1) what data it's sending nor 2) which website that data is being sent for.
That's interesting. How does the website possibly detect that I'm on a cellular network when I'm a) use Firefox (which doesn't implement the NetworkInformation API) and b) use a VPN to either a data center or my home server? What about iOS devices using Apple's pseudo-Tor (because Safari doesn't expose NetworkInformation either), or devices using tethered WiFi?
I don't believe this claim at all. This makes me take all their other claims they make with a massive grain of salt as well.
There's also the massive privacy issue: other people will know what websites you visit by simply using the P2P system, and the entire thing seems to be opt-in unless you use an adblocker. That last part shows that the devs know of the privacy issue but have decided to take the practical approach of not fixing the issue and only doing the bare minimum to remove their website from blocklists.
It's only a matter of time before someone will make a tool that enumerates all IPs in the Arc network together with the content they've been served. This one is going onto my Pihole's blocklist...