2026-06-18 · Riley Park · 695 words
Browser as a service holds your cookies
If the browser runs on someone else's disk, they hold the jar. This risk page is about BaaS custody, not a feature matrix for rented Chrome.
If the pixels render on a machine you do not own, the cookies are a file on that machine. That is the risk, and it is older than this year’s cloud Chrome tabs. Support can copy it. A backup job can copy it. A warrant, a billing freeze, or a contractor with disk access can copy it. Feature lists hide that sentence.
I am not scoring streaming quality or seat prices. What an antidetect browser is can be local. The moment the same idea is sold as a service, the session has a landlord.
Custody is the product, whether they say so or not
Browser as a service (BaaS) means a remote Chromium, a screenshot or H.264 pipe to your laptop, and a cookie store that never sat in your %LOCALAPPDATA%. Isolation between their tabs can still be real. Isolation from the vendor is not. They operate the process. They can snapshot it.
Agencies like the demo: open a client from a cafe, hand a seat to a contractor, reclaim it on Friday. Antidetect for agencies is a real job. Platform roles (Facebook Page roles, Google users, Shopify staff) are how I would rather grant access. A rented browser copies the session instead of inviting a person.
Media buying and SEO desks hit the same pitch: “run 50 browsers in the cloud.” Media buying and SEO on this site are about authorized properties and local folders, not about a farm in someone else’s rack.
What a local profile changes, and what it does not
A MaskWright profile is a folder under maskwright-data. You can copy it, delete it, and keep it offline for CRUD. We do not upload it. Encryption on profiles.json is AES-256-GCM. The Chromium user-data dir is not encrypted by our code. Local is not a magic vault. It is one fewer custodian.
A proxy browser that only changes IP is also not BaaS, and also not isolation. Ghost-style session products sit in between: still a browser you run, still not a remote disk. Ghost Browser versus antidetect is that comparison.
Mobile antidetect and cloud phones are a different rental. Mobile antidetect is not a desktop profile. A mobile UA on desktop Chromium is not an Android. A cloud phone is an Android you do not hold.
Custom core versus rented Chrome
People ask whether a custom Chromium versus system Chrome matters more than where it runs. For fingerprint work, the core matters. For custody, the disk matters more. A perfect spoof on a vendor VM is still a cookie file the vendor can tar.
MaskWright’s target is Chromium 131 when the core is present, with a fallback to system Chrome or Edge. That fallback is less pretty for deep tells. It is still local. I would rather a slightly messier local fingerprint than a polished remote cookie store I cannot wipe without a ticket.
A short risk table
| Event | Local profile | Browser as a service |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor breach | They do not hold your cookie files | They likely do |
| You forget a password | No vendor restore | They can restore the session |
| Contractor needs access | Platform role, or you sit with them | Often “share the browser” |
| You stop paying | Files stay on your disk | Session may freeze on their disk |
| Offline edit of the store | Works | Needs their API |
FAQ
Is every cloud tab BaaS?
If the browser process is not on your machine, yes for this page’s purposes. A remote desktop into a PC you own is a different custody story. A vendor’s Chromium in their region is BaaS.
Can I use BaaS for throwaway research?
You can. I still would not put payouts, tax tabs, or a live ads account in it. Research that never logs in is the only use I find easy to defend.
Does MaskWright offer a hosted browser?
No. Windows 10/11 x64 local app. Download MaskWright or compare local versus cloud if you are still choosing.
The Antidetect browsers hub is isolation on a PC you hold. This page is only the landlord sentence. If the runtime is rented, they hold the cookies. Plan around that, or do not rent the runtime.
Related notes
- What an antidetect browser isAntidetect browsers
- Custom Chromium versus system ChromeAntidetect browsers
- Ghost Browser versus an antidetect browserAntidetect browsers
- A mobile antidetect is not a desktop profileAntidetect browsers
- Antidetect browsers for SEO researchAntidetect browsers
- Antidetect browsers for agencies without team seatsAntidetect browsers
- Antidetect browsers for media buyingAntidetect browsers
- Proxy browser versus antidetect browserAntidetect browsers