Forum Discussion

BrandonMaslen's avatar
BrandonMaslen
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
May 12, 2022

Introducing Microsoft Edge Secure Network

Today, we're excited to share that we have kicked off experiments for Microsoft Edge Secure Network in the Canary channel of Microsoft Edge. We are opening this preview to a small audience to get i...
Microsoft Edge
Secure Network
VPN
R_Starzuft's avatar
R_Starzuft
Iron Contributor
For me the feature came, went, and came back again. It took a while to find the 'switch' Edge Settings to turn it on. When it did show up I found that it (sort of) worked like a VPN in hiding your IP address. I ran a program from GRC.com called Shields Up! to verify this and it worked well. I hope that Microsoft will consider that as an option to help secure systems that are targeted when the bad guys use IP to ID users for bad purposes. The feature only appeared in Edge Canary that I am aware of, and it did show up in Edge Settings - I think, under privacy and security. Just check for it when Edge updates and it 'could' be part of a package. You can also search for "How to setup Microsoft Secure network", in case Microsoft changes install process.
LegacyOfherot's avatar
LegacyOfherot
Brass Contributor
Jun 25, 2022

The option just appeared in the latest update for me, I will investigate.

My understanding is that it will hide my IP address from trackers, however the ad agencies / Google / NSA / MI5.5 are a little more sophisticated.

 

Every browser has components / plugins that reduce its anonymity, the Electronic Frontier Foundation have done a lot of good work here. See Cover Your Tracks (eff.org)

 

Stever Gibson's utilities are good, and I check our public attack surface regularly, but all browsers send a stupid amount of information every time you request a web page - see Do Not Track Header Information - BrowserSpy.dk

All that information may be useful to "customise the user experience" but do I really need to tell Farcebook my browser doesn't support Silverlight?

 

Most users of the interweb have no concept of just how fast a browser / web server can be if the site doesn't insert all the advertising / tracking cruft.

 

Consider the html5 video tag: How hard can it be?

 

<video width="320" height="240" controls>
  <source src="movie.mp4" type="video/mp4">
</video>

 

Try loading up a youtub page and view source - damned if I can see a video tag

 

Resources