Paste a URL into the address bar, press Enter, and record the user activity.

Start the browser from a fresh install/new user profile.

The test design was repeated multiple times for each browser. To inspect encrypted data, mitmdump was used and since leftovers can be an issue, extra care was used to delete all traces of previous installations from the systems. Chrome connections using QUIC/UDP had to be blocked so that the browser would fall back to TCP.

The researcher logged all network connectivity on the devices the browsers ran on. Both also appear to send web page information to servers that 'appear unrelated to search autocomplete'. Edge sends the hardware UUID to Microsoft, and Yandex transmits a 'hash of the hardware serial number and Mac address'. Both send identifiers linked to the device hardware which means that the identifier persists even across installations. The study found the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge web browser and Yandex to do worse than the other browsers of the test.

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