Web Browser
Your web browser is your primary means to access and interact with the McKinley Park News website at https://mckinleypark.news. Because we code and serve our website using contemporary and legacy-tolerant standards, the McKinley Park News is still accessible and operable on web browsers not included in our recommendations.
However, use of closed-source, proprietary web browsers can impact your privacy and security when visiting websites that use or integrate services designed to secretively harvest your personal information for profit. Also, some web browsers — including many of the most popular — will "phone home" and ship your personal browsing information into their growing databases about you that they then monetize for profit without disclosure or regulation.
Unfortunately, users of Apple and iOS devices do not have the option for an open-source web browser, since Apple forces all browsers to use its WebKit browser engine: Third-party browsers on iOS are just rebranded versions of Apple's Safari web browser. For that reason, iOS versions of our recommended web browsers are not included in this list, even though the McKinley Park News should work fine on iOS devices.
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is one of our top recommended web browsers because its code is fully open-sourced and audited. It is available for all major operating systems, and it includes many privacy-enhancing features and default settings. It has a huge ecosystem of third-party add-ons to extend its capabilities, and it offers options to securely sync bookmarks, tabs and browsing history across devices.
Chromium
Chromium is an open-source version of Google Chrome that supports Chrome browser extensions, but Chromium has all of Google's proprietary code removed from it ... in theory. Users should note that Chromium is still a Google-delivered product, and because of its codebase's size and complexity, some undesirable Google code might remain undetected. Google's also denuded Chromium's capabilities as compared to its proprietary Chrome browser.
Other Open-Source Browsers
- The Brave web browser — built from Chromium code — offers strong privacy protections, but is laden with unfortunate tie-ins to cryptocurrency and NFTs: environmentally devastating practices that are primarily of use to support grift and cyber-crime.
- The Tor web browser — built on Firefox code — has a primary focus on privacy, including its integration with the Tor anonymity network. However, it may lag behind Firefox in features and is very slow when visiting websites through the Tor network.
- The LibreWolf web browser — a community-led project based on Firefox code — has deep protections for privacy, but it's currently only available on desktop, and it's a newer browser with open source's innate risks to longevity.
