Posted: January 24, 2024
Brave browser blocks websites from accessing the motion sensors in your Mac
I have used different web browsers over the years, and Safari has never been a favorite of mine. For the past year, however, maybe out of laziness or perhaps in an unconscious effort to simplify things, I started using Safari both on my cellphone and on my computer, with some very interesting—even comical—results that I will not get into now to keep this article short.
But the thing is that, now that I’ve started using Brave again, I’ve been noticing strange behaviors in different websites I didn’t have any problems with, while using Safari. Amazon UK, for example, is now asking me to prove I am a human by typing in characters.
Not two hours ago, I was doing some grocery shopping, and Brave notified me it had blocked the supermarket website from accessing the motion sensors on my mac…
Motion sensors in my Mac? Like… accelerometers and stuff?…
It turns out that the good people at Apple have selflessly thought of everything: God forbid, should you accidentally drop your Mac while it is on and at just the time when the hard disk platters are spinning and the recording heads are writing data to them, the motion sensors will determine that your computer has now gone into free-fall and will switch off the spinning platters and recording heads. Thank the gods! Disaster averted! Your data is safe! (even if you computer is ruined). If this sounds to you a little too dramatic and farfetched, it’s because IT IS!
Apple designed and built my laptop, they know what’s inside it; they fully understand that there are no data platters spinning inside, why the hell does my MacBook have motion sensors? Why does a desktop computer need motion sensors? What else is concealed inside my computer that I am not aware of?
I did a quick google search that led me to several interesting articles, one of which was posted by a computer programer who really went down that rabbit hole all the way. His name is Grant Winney and you can read his article here. His article speaks at length about the many sensors you computer has (including the ambient light sensors) and how they may be used by websites even for fingerprinting purposes. “Motion Sensors,” as it turns out, is just a very broad label that encompasses all sorts of stuff. This article is a very technical read, however, the link below is far friendlier and shorter, for us mortals, and also includes some very interesting opinions for your consideration:
It appears, after all, that these motion sensor access might not be as innocent as one might think…
