How is a multi-accounting browser different from a regular one:
an explainer
The Octo Browser Team explains the browser engine, why most multi-accounting antidetect browsers are built on the same source code, and what must be removed from Chromium to create a secure multi-accounting browser.
Table of contents
What is a browser?
A browser is an application for accessing web pages. A browser works like this: once the user provides a specific site they would like to visit, the browser looks for its hosting server and establishes a connection with it. Then, the browser sends an HTTP request to the server and receives the response with website contents, cookie file data, and caching methods. After receiving the data, the browser processes it and renders the downloaded page.
The browser user interface helps control the browser. It consists of navigation buttons, the search field, bookmarks, settings, windows, etc. — everything except website content. The central part of a browser is its engine. It renders the code containing website contents and formatting information into a user-friendly, readable web page. The browser and its engine are connected like a car’s pedals and engine: the browser allows you to control the machine that does all the necessary calculations and rendering, downloads files, etc. “under the hood.” You see the result of its work as web pages.
The browser user interface helps control the browser. It consists of navigation buttons, the search field, bookmarks, settings, windows, etc. — everything except website content. The central part of a browser is its engine. It renders the code containing website contents and formatting information into a user-friendly, readable web page. The browser and its engine are connected like a car’s pedals and engine: the browser allows you to control the machine that does all the necessary calculations and rendering, downloads files, etc. “under the hood.” You see the result of its work as web pages.
Here are some popular browsers and their engines:
- Google Chrome, Opera - Blink
- Mozilla Firefox - Gecko
- Safari - WebKit
Browsers also have a network subsystem that processes network requests, and a storage subsystem that keeps bookmarks, cookie files, and settings.
What is Chromium? How is it different from Google Chrome?
Chromium is an open-source browser that works on the Blink engine. Chromium is the base on which Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, and more than 30 other browsers are developed. For such projects, Chromium is the foundation responsible for the browser’s primary function of rendering web pages. On top of this foundation, different browsers implement different settings of privacy and security, ad blockers, flexible interface settings, web page loading accelerators, torrent clients, etc.
Chromium and browsers built on it can differ in many ways, ranging from interface to media formats browsers can render out of the box. For example, Google Chrome natively supports popular MP3 and AAC audio formats, while Chromium itself doesn’t do so by default. Moreover, Chromium is less connected to Google: it does not send error reports, statistics, and the RLZ identifier to the corporation, and it also does not work with Google Updater, a service for automatic browser updates.
Chromium and browsers built on it can differ in many ways, ranging from interface to media formats browsers can render out of the box. For example, Google Chrome natively supports popular MP3 and AAC audio formats, while Chromium itself doesn’t do so by default. Moreover, Chromium is less connected to Google: it does not send error reports, statistics, and the RLZ identifier to the corporation, and it also does not work with Google Updater, a service for automatic browser updates.
Why is Chromium so commonly used as the base for specialized browsers?
The main reason is its open-source code. This allows changing, adding, deleting, or tweaking any browser's elements. Some Chromium parts are present not only in browsers built on it but also in services like Spotify. Thanks to the community's and large companies' active support and development, its source code is constantly updated: errors are fixed, and valuable features are added; this immensely helps developers.
That being said, Chromium performs its tasks perfectly as a browser. Thanks to its multi-process architecture, it is stable, immediately clears RAM when applications are closed, and minimizes its consumption of OS resources.
Chromium boasts good performance indicators, achieved by using open components and reducing the source code size. Additionally, the Crankshaft technology increases the performance of resource-heavy JavaScript applications.
The Blink engine, on which Chromium is running, supports up to 95% of primary standards and specifications, including HTML 4.01, XML 1.0 (4th edition), xHTML 1.0 (2nd edition), and many others. Currently, support for HTML5 and CSS3 is also being actively developed.
Chromium supports extensions, which use native API to interact with tabs, bookmarks, context menus, and other APIs.
That being said, Chromium performs its tasks perfectly as a browser. Thanks to its multi-process architecture, it is stable, immediately clears RAM when applications are closed, and minimizes its consumption of OS resources.
Chromium boasts good performance indicators, achieved by using open components and reducing the source code size. Additionally, the Crankshaft technology increases the performance of resource-heavy JavaScript applications.
The Blink engine, on which Chromium is running, supports up to 95% of primary standards and specifications, including HTML 4.01, XML 1.0 (4th edition), xHTML 1.0 (2nd edition), and many others. Currently, support for HTML5 and CSS3 is also being actively developed.
Chromium supports extensions, which use native API to interact with tabs, bookmarks, context menus, and other APIs.
What is Octo Browser made of?
When developing the Octo Browser, we decided to use Chromium for its foundation: it largely dominates the market, which means that a multi-accounting browser based on it will have an easier time mingling with the crowd.
According to SimilarWeb data, Google Chrome accounts for 61% of the browser market. Safari follows it with 25.8%, but it is unsuitable for developing a multi-accounting browser due to its proprietary nature. Other browsers significantly lag behind these two.
According to SimilarWeb data, Google Chrome accounts for 61% of the browser market. Safari follows it with 25.8%, but it is unsuitable for developing a multi-accounting browser due to its proprietary nature. Other browsers significantly lag behind these two.
Browser Market Share in July 2023 by SimilarWeb
Octium is a browser that maximally mimics Google Chrome with the goal of websites and security systems being unable to distinguish Octo Browser and Google Chrome users. The Octo Team updates its browser within a couple of days after each Chrome update is released so that the digital fingerprint of Octo Browser users stays indistinguishable from Chrome users, who receive their updates automatically.
At the same time, Octium does not use Google’s tracking tools, such as RLZ, histograms, UMA metrics, etc. All Chrome features connecting the browser to Google services (such as synchronization, managing passwords in the cloud, etc.) have also been cut. In other words, the Octo Browser is based on a Chromium version that has been cleansed of all Google Chrome tracking mechanisms but is maximally identical to it from the point of view of websites.
At the same time, Octium does not use Google’s tracking tools, such as RLZ, histograms, UMA metrics, etc. All Chrome features connecting the browser to Google services (such as synchronization, managing passwords in the cloud, etc.) have also been cut. In other words, the Octo Browser is based on a Chromium version that has been cleansed of all Google Chrome tracking mechanisms but is maximally identical to it from the point of view of websites.
Taking this “purified” Chrome version as the foundation, the Octo Browser developers added all the functionality necessary for a multi-accounting antidetect browser. First and foremost, this is the ability to configure browser fingerprints, ranging from fine-tuning more than 50 parameters to creating quick profiles in one click that will have their fingerprints generated automatically. Another essential must-have is the ability to connect proxies to each profile. In general, Octo Browser is optimized to run large numbers of profiles, and it comes with API automation tools, teamwork options, tools for working with cookies, video stream spoofing functionality, and much more. This allows the creation of separate profiles for different services and websites, and no tracking scripts can cross-identify or link various visits or actions performed by individual Octo Browser profiles.
To summarize, most multi-accounting antidetect browsers today are built on Chromium. There are various reasons for this: First, it is an open-source code project that delivers good performance and security indicators. Secondly, the most popular browser today, Google Chrome, is also built on Chromium, which helps multi-accounting browsers disappear in the crowd of Google Chrome users.
Octo Browser uses Chromium as its foundation, cuts all its connections to Google services, ensures its fast operation when running multiple profiles, and adds all the necessary professional functionality such as proxy connection options, teamwork tools, the Cookie Robot, video stream spoofing, etc.
Octo Browser uses Chromium as its foundation, cuts all its connections to Google services, ensures its fast operation when running multiple profiles, and adds all the necessary professional functionality such as proxy connection options, teamwork tools, the Cookie Robot, video stream spoofing, etc.
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