What are the best web browsers for Windows?

The Firefox Quantum update (FF57) greatly increases the render speed and general performance of the browser, by taking better advantage of the user's hardware. See More

Top Pro

High performance

Top Con

Crappy license

Mozillas MPL is less permissive than Chromes and Blinks BSD license. See More

Raghu Ranganathan's Experience

Firefox is a browser which has been shaped by experience(over 13 years!) it uses an open source engine, works smoothly, and doesn't exert heavy loads on my system. It is the most reliable browser I have used till date, and probably the most customizable one. Transparent development and an enormous cooperative community make this and excellent browser. See More

Top Pro

Awesome customizability

Top Con

Can not save Websites as apps

You can not save webpages as standalone applications like on Chromium based browsers. See More

PowerfulMercury's Experience

Easy to customize, privacy friend, no bloated installations, no obscure process, quick and powerfull. See More

Top Pro

Syncs between devices

Firefox Sync is an optional feature in Firefox that allows syncing bookmarks, passwords, and add-ons between devices. See More

Top Con

Some built-in advertising

With their "pocket" feature, they offer advertisements built-in. See More

trollworkout's Experience

I swapped to Firefox after Chrome has become incredibly bloated and slow. I been an avid Chrome user since forever. When they updated to the new Quantum version I jumped on the Firefox train. Wow it was blazing fast comparing to Chrome. Yet it was not meant to last. Funny enough same thing happened with Firefox it got slower over time and was just as a memory hog as Chrome used to be. I been slowly experimenting with pretty much every single browser out there. I would have to say Brave is probably the fastest browser and comes with built in shields. Firefox and Chrome are both hogs. Firefox extension market is also pretty broken and they keep breaking compatibility with previous versions way too often to the point where half of the extensions are just junk. Chrome web store is much more OP as most apps are backwards compatible and you can also install games and full fledged apps. I also don't really trust Mozilla's business model. See More

Top Pro

Strong developer tool

The built-in developer tools have been merged with the popular FireBug extension since FF57. See More

Top Con

Doesn't care for its original guidelines/goals

Mozilla originally aimed to be the "good guys" with user choice and privacy in mind. Their current leadership cannot be trusted to hold those goals in high regard: 1) Added Pocket - a privacy data sensitive plugin, made it mandatory. 2) Tried to sneak in advertisement as "drive-by hack", backpedaled unconvincingly once users complained: https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-backpedals-after-mr-robot-firefox-misstep/ 3) Tried to randomly inject a small percentage of Firefox downloads in Germany with a data collecting plugin (Cliqz) that tech-savy Germans consider adware (no opt-out question asked) : https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1406647 See More

Top Pro

Ethical and pragmatic company mission

The Mozilla Manifesto outlines the company's mission and principles. Paraphrasing, they want the Internet to be a free and open resource, and to enable individuals to get the best use of that resource. They do this by creating open source software to which anyone may contribute, so long as such contributions fit with their principles (both ethical and technical). See More

Top Con

Promotes a political agenda

Promotes a political agenda in your browsing experience via Messages and Pocket recommendations. See More

Top Pro

Use Less Resource

Firefox 57 (Quantum) and newer uses less resources than ever. It is proven with benchmark done by AppleInsider. See More

Top Con

Pocket integration

Top Pro

A lot of add-ons

An enormous number of add-ons. See More

Top Con

Very very slow

Not only is it slow to load, but individual tabs take MUCH longer to load than any other browser out there. See More

Top Pro

Good font rasterizing

Font rasterizing on Windows is much better than in competitors. Even smaller text is clear and contrast. See More

Top Con

Only a few people use it.

About ~10% of all PC users worldwide use a Gecko based browser compared to ~80% of Webkit/Blink users. With such a low precentage displaying a website correctly in gecko has far less priority for a web designer. See More

Top Pro

Automatically updated

Firefox is automatically updated on the platforms where it makes sense. See More

Top Con

Installing some extensions still requires restarting the browser

While some of the developers already allow users to install their extensions without the need to restart the browser, not all of the extensions have been updated to support non-restart installation yet, as some developers have yet to add special code to do so. See More

Top Pro

Lower memory fingerprint than competitors

Firefox used to be a trailer in memory usage, but as of 2017 it's less hungry for memory than competitors like Edge, Chrome, Safari and Opera. See More

Top Con

Heavy and consumes a lot of memory

Mozilla developers should think on this as the new Microsoft Edge browser steals less memory and it just pops up the moment you open it. In the case of Mozilla, you have to wait for after clicking it for opening it. See More

Top Pro

Open Source

Open Source means that you can see the source code. So everybody even if they don't work for Mozilla is able to look what the browser does in the background. So you can be 100% sure that Firefox doesn't have hidden "spy features" unlike Google Chrome. See More

Top Con

Uses GTK on Linux/BSD

Makes the integration on non-GTK Desktop Environments very hard. See More

Top Pro

Multi-account containers

Top Con

Terrible user interface

And you can't even fix it anymore because they removed XUL. See More

Top Pro

Respects your privacy

Mozilla is one of the first browsers that advocates privacy. They believe that internet should be in the user's control and not those who run the websites, and so they give tools inside the browser to make the user be more in control. See More

Top Con

Experiments

per default mozilla can install experiments on your browser. See More

Top Pro

Android version allows installation of addons

Unlike other browsers, Mozilla uses almost the same codebase as with the desktop version so extensions work as-is without code modifications - something other browsers cannot do due to their breaking and sometimes unrelated code branches to the mainline desktop branch. See More

Top Con

SJWs forcing their opinions on the users

Top Pro

Tagging bookmarks

Firefox is one of the few browsers that you can tag your bookmarks. You can view a list of tags and can search your bookmarks in the address bar with tags. See More

Top Con

GTK Themes styles the HTML forms

If you're in Linux and you use a dark GTK theme that uses white text and come to a webpage that forces black text on html-forms buttons you will get black buttons with unreadable black text. See More

Top Pro

Reader View

Reader View in Firefox allows users to read an article without any distractions by removing ads, unrelated elements and other distractive objects (similar to Microsoft Edge's Reading Mode and Safari's reader mode). See More

Top Con

Memory leaks

Several hours of browsing leads to continuous increase of memory usage. Closing tabs will not free up all the reserved memory unlike other browsers like Opera or Chrome. See More

Top Pro

Built-in Privacy Protection

Blocks tracking cookies, finger print scanners and Cryptominers by default. Can be changed to the user's individual needs. See More

Top Con

Unstable add-ons

E10s has already caused many extensions to not work properly. Also, in November, only add-ons with WebExtension API can be installed. See More

Top Pro

Fast

With new integrations focused on security and performance, Firefox is faster and less likely to have problems during use than ever before. See More

Top Con

Poor enterprise support

Does not use standard management tools such as GPO or Profile management. No MSI. See More

Top Pro

Text-to-speech (with adjustable speed) without add-ons

Firefox Reader Mode includes Narrate, a feature that adds text-to-speech functionality to the browser. See More

Top Con

Can't scroll tabs with mouse wheel

It's pretty basic but you can't switch between tabs back and forth using your mouse wheel. Any add-ons supporting this have been deprecated since FF57. See More

Top Pro

Dark theme

Beyond the toolbar and tabs, it darkens UI elements such as the URL-bar, pop-downs, new-tab page and more See More

Top Con

When you search in a website (Ctrl + F) there are no marks appearing in the right scrollbar

All Chromium based browsers have this feature. See More

Top Pro

Easy screenshots without extensions

Within the browser itself, you can easily take screenshots and save them to your computer. See More

Top Con

Poor performance on SSD even without extensions

On a fast SSD such as Corsair Force LE series this browser still performs as if it were installed on a regular hard drive disk, meaning it takes long time to start, even without any extensions. On that matter Google Chrome is light years ahead of Firefox. This applies only for Firefox versions below 60! See More

Top Pro

Strong HTML5 feature support

Firefox scores strongly on HTML5 feature support. See More

Top Con

Sometimes buggy

Top Pro

One of the few browsers not using Chrome's Blink engine

Firefox uses its own rendering engine (called Gecko), instead of Google-controlled Blink like the vast majority of other browsers. See More

Top Con

Google obsession

Lately, Firefox has been partnering with Google, leading to some privacy concerns. See More

Top Pro

Really independent browser

It is really independent browser, unlike many other that are based on Chromium. See More

Top Con

Partial dark mode

Bookmarks, context menu, etc. are not themed. See More

Top Pro

Fast bookmark management

In order to add an open page to the bookmark bar, the tab can be dragged down and is added immediately. See More

Top Con

Cannot directly translate page

Unlike Google Chrome, if you visit a website with a different language, you cannot translate it, which is a bad user experience for some. See More

Top Pro

Integration with Pocket

Firefox comes with build-in Pocket integration that can allow users to quickly save the article for a read it later function to easily find any articles saved in Pocket from various sources and devices. See More

Top Con

Uses Google as its default search engine

Which is pretty ironic for a browser that's focused on "privacy". See More

Top Con

Updates not in sync with updates of (key) extensions

A key extension can suddenly becomes useless because extension updates tend to fall behind the updates of Firefox. See More

Top Con

Many Addons are not updated/adapted for the new Quantum version (version >=57)

Top Con

It's a memory hog even though Mozilla they claim it is not

Mozilla claims it's using 30% less RAM than chrome but in real life tests it uses much more. See More

Top Con

Slow performance in OS X

Uses a lot of resources and feels slower than the Linux and Windows versions. See More

Top Con

Switches from HTTP version of a page to its HTTPS version wtihout notification

Even though the HTTPS page might have different content (yes bad website design, but if your browser does something automatically you don't expect, it should tell you). See More

Top Con

No support for ALSA since version 52

You must use PulseAudio if you need sound in Firefox. See More

Top Con

No status bar

There's no status bar. Granted, there is a status tool-tip. But what if you want an actual toolbar, you're out of luck. See More

Top Con

Devtools for WebExtensions are buggy

Top Con

Lack of keyboard shortcuts customization

Keyboard shortcuts can not be changed in a user-friendly way. It is also difficult to manipulate addons with hotkeys. See More

You can do almost anything with the code. Which is the reason why it's been forked so many times. See More

Chromium

Top Pro

BSD license

Top Con

No official builds

There are no official builds available so you have to rely on a third party distributor. See More

Specs

License:OpenSource (BSD)

Based On:N/A

Browser Engine:Blink, Webkit on iOS(since Apple does not allow third party web engines)

Default Search Engine:Google

It does not have any extensions preinstalled and focuses to be a web browser. See More

Top Pro

Bare

Top Con

Lacks support for certain common media formats

As Chromium avoids bundling any proprietary software, media that requires proprietary codecs or formats such as AAC, H.264, MP3 and Flash will not play by default on Chromium. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Chrome and Chromium are available on almost every device nowadays. See More

Top Con

High RAM usage

Due the sandboxing, Chromium also eats a lot of RAM , which can be a problem for machines with smaller RAM. See More

Top Pro

Sandboxing

Every tab and plugin runs in its own subprocess so they will never affect the whole browser, however, that consumes more memory than other browsers. See More

Top Con

Under BSD License

Top Pro

Completely Open Source

Both Chromium and and its rendering engine Blink are licensed under the BSD-license which includes no copyleft unlike the GNU or Mozilla Licenses. There is also no trademark issue like on the Mozilla products. See More

Top Con

Lacks privacy options

Top Pro

Latest Blink

This is the browser Blink is made for and developed alongside. See More

Top Con

Fat, slow, and another piece of Google spyware

Top Pro

Access to Chrome's extensions

Chromium can access the Chrome Web Store and all the extensions hosted there can be installed and used on Chromium. See More

Top Con

Can be dangerous / only available as Source

There are plenty of unofficial Chromium distributors and every one of them can disable specific features (like sandboxing) for their build, so you will never know what you get. See More

Top Pro

Supports all of Google Chrome features

As Chrome is based on Chromium they overlap in supported features. Chromium syncs between devices, automatically updates, has great built-in developer tools, installs extensions without a restart, includes a combined text bar for entering URLs and searching and has excellent HTML5 compatibility just like Chrome. See More

Top Pro

Does not come with Google

Unlike Chrome it does come without any Google account requirement. See More

It is an really old fork of Gecko that misses many of the newer web features. See More

Pale Moon

Top Con

Outdated rendering engine

Top Pro

Respects your privacy

Specs

License:OpenSource (MPL-2.0)

Based On:Firefox ESR 38

Browser Engine:Goanna (Gecko-fork)

Default Search Engine:DuckDuckGo

Top Con

Unsecure

Pale Moon lacks the sandboxing and other privacy protecting features included in latest Firefox releases. See More

Top Pro

Has its own library of legacy extensions

Since the most firefox extensions have drooped support for older firefox versions. See More

Top Con

Uses Goanna

It an old Gecko-fork that is developed mainly by one man. See More

Top Pro

Optimized for modern processors

Top Con

Lacks popular extensions and adblockers

Though it used to support Firefox extensions, it no longer does. The best supported ad-blocking extension, uBlock Origin, is mediocre at best, falling short of AdBlock Plus. See More

Top Pro

Stable

Based on stable old firefox code. See More

Top Con

Licensed under MPL

If they ever abandon Goanna a possible new fork has to deal with the MPL license. See More

Top Pro

Uses Goanna layout engine

Unlike most other browsers, Pale Moon uses its custom engine. See More

Top Con

Not many Firefox extension work with it

Pale Moon is based off of an old version of Firefox, which means many of Firefox's extensions now do not work for such an old version, making the selection of extensions quite limited. See More

Top Pro

Designed for usability, not the shiny new things

Top Con

Still contains some spyware

Default homepage is spyware and search suggestions and automatic updates are enabled by default. See More

Top Pro

Support for GTK 2 themes

Pale Moon supports GTK 2 theme while Firefox does support GTk3. See More

Top Con

Slow

It is a very slow browser compared to others. See More

Top Pro

Good community support

Top Pro

Customizable

You can fully customize the UI. See More

Top Pro

Has its own add-on ecosystem, built on time-tested technologies such as XUL (plus JS and CSS) and XPCOM

"Classic" Firefox add-ons can work, but they are not supported and should be updated or forked to become a Pale Moon add-on. See More

Top Pro

Open source

So we can verify that the browser is not spyware. See More

Top Pro

Firefox add-on support

It even supports some add-ons that are not available on Firefox anymore. See More

Top Pro

Independent from Google and Mozilla

Pale Moon is based on some old Firefox code, but it's a completely different browser. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight on RAM

Since there is no sandboxing it eats less RAM than modern browsers. See More

Top Pro

Supports complete themes

Pale Moon supports complete themes, something which Firefox used to have before version 57. See More

Top Pro

Support for existing web standards

Top Pro

Light on resources, although it's not its main focus

License:OpenSource (MPL-2.0)

Tor Browser

Top Con

You will hang on every recaptcha

Top Pro

Access hidden .onion sites

Specs

Based On:Firefox ESR

Browser Engine:Gecko

Default Search Engine:DuckDuckGo

It does not support many modern features due to security and is pretty slow. See More

Top Con

Not made as your daily browser

Top Pro

Uses the Tor network

Top Con

Does not guarantee perfect anonymity unlike what most users would expect

Top Con

Extremely slow

Caused by the tor network the browser depends on. See More

Top Con

Must adapt new browsing habits

It is not recommended to do several things TOR browser that users would want to do in a normal browser, such as visiting social networks and banking. See More

Brave is advertised as a browser that respects your privacy and blocks ads while still supporting content creators. However, at the same time the company is making deals with Facebook, Twitter and others to whitelist their trackers and ads. See More

Brave

Top Con

Hypocritical/deceptive stance on privacy and advertisement

Top Pro

Built in Adblock

Contains an optional "Allow Brave Acceptable Ads" So you can support the site you truly enjoy. See More

Lokman Afandy's Experience

No cloud sync is dealbreaker for me, at least make it possible to sync to cloud storage such as dropbox or else instead of claiming that it is for privacy reasons or they just lazy to make the feature. See More

Specs

License:OpenSource (MPL 2.0)

Browser Engine:Blink, Webkit on iOS(since Apple does not allow third party web engines)

Default Search Engine:Qwant

Can be accessed with an extension though. See More

Top Con

No reader view

Top Pro

Tor is available right in the browser

Top Con

Power hungry, uses much more battery power than other browsers

Per default Brave enables hardware acceleration which results in a much higher energy (battery) consumption than the most other web browsers. See More

Top Pro

Safety and privacy well taken care of

Things like https everywhere and no tracking are standard with Brave. In most other browsers, things like these are optional at best. See More

Top Con

Download package is very large considering it as a browser

Brave take on a lot of rolls besides just browsing so it is understandably a larger file. See More

Top Pro

Option to disable additional privacy concerns

Like fingerprint tracking. See More

Top Con

Sync issues

Unable to sync extensions, no cloud sync (only device sync). See More

Top Pro

Option to pay supported sites based on view time percentage

Set up automatic micro-donations. Brave will automatically divide a monthly donation among the top sites you visit. And/or, you can decide which sites get what percentage of your donation. It’s called pinning. See More

Top Con

Same security-holes as Chrome

On the desktop: Brave uses the same browser engine as Chrome, meaning it has the same security-holes as Chrome. Chrome is a big target for hackers (being the most popular browser in the world), and a webpage that will hack Chrome may also hack Brave. However, Brave has security features that Chrome doesn't (such as a built-in adblocker). Those features will stop many hacking attempts. See More

Top Pro

Faster than Chrome and Firefox

Top Con

Still dependent on Google

Since it's based on Chrome. See More

Top Pro

Faster than Google Chrome

Brave consistently beats Chrome in speed, might have to do with less tracking being run in the background See More

Top Con

Uses Google as its default search engine

Quite ironic for the "privacy" browser. See More

Top Pro

Now supports Chrome Webstore

It's now a faster, less intrusive Chrome. See More

Top Con

You can't edit the included adblocker

You can not add custom sites or lists to the adblocker. See More

Top Pro

Free/libre software

Released to the community under the Mozilla Public License (MPL), this software respect the FSF's four freedoms, including the freedom to use, modify, and redistribute with or without modification freely. See More

Top Pro

Planned optional feature for you to get reimbursed for viewing ads

Basic Attention Token; you will be able to opt into a new blockchain-based digital advertising system, giving publishers a better deal and users a share of the ad revenue for their attention. See More

It is built on Chromium and the worlds most open rendering engine Blink which is licensed under BSD. See More

Microsoft Edge (Chromium)

Top Pro

Built on Chromium

Top Con

Unlike the legacy version, it doesn't have the option to set aside tabs, which was a very useful feature

It does give you the option to give feedback for people who want setting tabs aside back, but it doesn't seem likely they're going to add it. See More

RobustMarzyana's Experience

Probably the best browser for Windows since its great integration into the system See More

Specs

License:Proprietary

Default Search Engine:Bing

Browser Engine:Blink

It uses the BSD-licensed Blink engine instead of Microsoft's Trident fork EdgeHTML. See More

Top Pro

Better web compatibility than the old Edge

Top Con

Synchronization between PC and phone is weak

Although synchronization between computers is similar to Chrome, synchronization between PCs - phone is weak. See More

Top Pro

Integrated in Windows 10

It will be updated with your Windows updates. See More

Top Con

Microsoft still tracking you by default

Microsoft Edge collects less information than Chrome, but still collecting data about you and your interests. However, you can disable all tracking into the settings. See More

Top Pro

Allows to delete browser data on exit

You can remove the browser data on exit. See More

Top Pro

Allows to change the search provider

Top Pro

Can add websites as Apps

You can save any site as application. See More

Top Pro

Has built-in ad blocking features

If you select the "strict" option in the Microsoft Edge settings, it practically becomes an ad blocker. See More

Top Pro

Available for Android and iOS

So you can synchronize your data between devices. See More

Top Pro

Supports Chrome extensions

As it is built on Chromium. See More

Top Pro

More private

During the launch of Chromium-based Microsoft Edge, the company claimed to have removed more than 50 services intended to collect user data. The improvement in this aspect does not come only from the hand of privacy, but also from optimization. The privacy settings are also a lot simpler to understand, more robust, and better than Chrome. There are three modes, basic, balanced and strict. See More

Top Pro

Great integration into Windows

It's nicely integrated into Windows. For example, saved apps will be available in the start menu and uninstall menu. See More

Top Pro

Sandboxing

Top Pro

Faster than Chrome

It uses less RAM, has tracking prevention and accelerates the hardware when possible. See More

Top Pro

It isn't Google's.

Unlike most modern browsers, Vivaldi doesn't have the option to update silently in the background. It gives you a dialog box when an update comes out. Worse, the box doesn't warn you that not updating the browser could lead to security risks. That could be pretty bad for your average joe, who doesn't know computers that well. See More

Vivaldi

Top Con

No silent background updates

Top Pro

Tabs can be stacked

Tabs can be grouped under a single tab to easily keep track of all open webpages. See More

PioneeringBirrahgnooloo's Experience

customization is fantastic See More

Specs

License:Proprietary

Browser Engine:Blink, Webkit on iOS(since Apple does not allow third party web engines)

Default Search Engine:Bing

Vivaldi is not available on iOS See More

Top Con

Not available on your Phone/Tablet. You can now use Vivaldo on an android device.

Top Pro

Custom search engines

You can add as many search engines as you like. For example you can set up one for YouTube, one for Wikipedia, or whatever you want: you need only the URL of the search and it can be used from the URL bar (by prefixing it's nickname, yt for YouTube for example). See More

RealisticLoviatar's Experience

Cleaner version of Firefox See More

Top Con

Telemetry

According to its privacy policy, Vivaldi sends an approximate location, randomized ID, version, cpu architecture, screen resolution and time since last message every 24 hours. See More

Top Pro

Compatible with most Chrome extensions

Since Vivaldi is built on WebKit, the same engine Chrome (among other browsers) is built on, it was possible for Vivaldi developers to allow Chrome extensions to run in their browser. See More

WorthyEreshkigal's Experience

I have used Vivaldi for over a year now. See More

Top Con

No option to force links to open in new tabs

Similar to other browsers, there's no option for forcing all links to open in new tabs. See More

Top Pro

Ability to search through settings, history, open tabs, bookmarks in one place

A feature called Quick Commands (accessed via Ctrl + Q) allows quickly getting to settings, history, open tabs, bookmarks with incremental search. See More

EnchantingNereus's Experience

I really like the fact that I can use it on my Macbook, Windows Desktop and on my Android phone. All the setting and bookmarks sync with each other and everything is encrypted on the Vivaldi server and can only be synced with your PIN. I also like the fact that you can use add-ons from the Google Play store and that Google isn't in charge of as much data as they are with Chrome. The tab stacks are great and you can even bookmark a complete tab stack which when you use as many tabs as I do, you can open up a bunch of memory by bookmarking a tab stack and closing the tab stack down. See More

Top Con

Can't protect pinned tabs from changing to another URL

Clicking on a page link, then another, easy to wind up far from the original pinned tab site. There is no chrome addon or native vivaldi function to stop this. See More

Top Pro

Tab behaviour can be customised

The order you toggle, open, close or clone tabs can be modified to match a workflow that best works for you. For example you can choose tabs to toggle in recent order so you can go back and forth between the last most useful tabs without needing to change their position on the tab bar. See More

Lokman Afandy's Experience

This browser is feature packed, but at the same time it runs very slow compared to other chromium based browser. See More

Top Con

No automatic page translation

Unlike Chrome, it doesn't automatically translate pages that are not in your language. See More

Top Pro

Customizable UI

Since Vivaldi uses JavaScript, React, Node.js, Browserify and multiple npm packages to build the browser, it can be customized with ease by anyone who knows HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Vivaldi can change the colors across the browser and has the option to change the color automatically depending on the page. Also, page loading animations are available in the address bar. See More

PerseveringHymenaios's Experience

love the new features and customization team behind vivaldi is clearly committed to creating a great browser See More

Top Con

Feature creep

Top Pro

Built for power users

Vivaldi includes lots of niche functionality such as the ability to move tabs to any side of the screen, turn images on and off, or render pages with monospace fonts. See More

NeighborlyMalingee's Experience

I have used Firefox and Chrome. I didn't like the changes Firefox was going through and never was a fan of chrome. When I tried Vivaldi I found, after testing, that it loaded pages faster than either Firefox or Chrome. and had features that I liked. See More

Top Con

Comes with many Ads

After installation the first thing you have to do is to remove all the default bookmarks and quickdial links which is really annoying. There is more minor stuff like the default search provider or your start page things that could be easily managed with a wizard at the first startup. See More

Top Pro

Notes

A notes panel allows leaving notes on webpages and can include screenshots for reference and have tags and organized in folders to help manage them. See More

MeticulousTalos's Experience

Major browsers are drifting towards allowing less user flexibility and customization -- often in the name of "enhanced security". Vivaldi is going in the opposite direction in its development. It is super fast and incredibly stable even with 20 or 30 tabs open at once. See More

Top Con

Can't disable all spyware features

Top Pro

Reader mode

Vivaldi has a built-in reader mode so you can remove all the clutter in news pages and read only the content, you can also customise the reader mode, like font size, style and colours. See More

Top Con

Developers do not care for your privacy

Top Pro

Tab bar position can be changed

Users can change tab bar position to top, bottom left or right See More

Top Con

No touch bar support

Top Pro

Faster than Firefox or Chrome

Top Con

Same security-holes as Chrome

Vivaldi uses the same browser engine as Chrome, meaning it has the same security-holes as Chrome. Chrome is a big target for hackers (being the most popular browser in the world), and a webpage that will hack Chrome will also hack Vivaldi. See More

Top Pro

Built-in page capture

Vivaldi can grab a picture of the whole webpage or part of it and saves it automatically inside a note or as a file in your disk. See More

Top Con

Extensions miss hotkeys

You can set your shortcuts at vivaldi://extensions, but they do not work. See More

Top Pro

Manages bookmarks very well

Vivaldi has an excellent bookmarks system. Bookmarks can be easily accessible via Speed Dial, side-bar, bookmarks bar, quick commands. No more messy bookmarks bar is needed and location bar suggestion is improved thus! See More

Top Con

No option to open saved tab stack as... tab stack!

You may save stack, but you can open it as separate tabs. Interesting that when you save session with stacks, you'll be able to open the stacks with inner settings of page tiling (size and zoom) as well. Contradiction worth of shame. See More

Top Pro

WebRTC IP leaking can be disabled

A built-in setting called "Broadcast IP" will stop the IP leaking with WebRTC when disabled. See More

Top Con

buggy on MacOS

Top Pro

Mouse gestures

Integrated mouse gestures. Fully configurable as of Vivaldi 1.2 (snapshot available now). Allows for navigating the web, switching tabs, closing windows, opening settings etc. with a flick of the mouse. See More

Top Con

Advertisements in the bookmarks

By default: Vivaldi has a number of websites (such as Amazon) already bookmarked. New bookmarks may be added to the speed-dial when the browser updates. These bookmarks can be deleted, same as any other bookmark, but that will not stop new bookmarks form being added. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Vivaldi is available on Windows, Linux and OSX. See More

Top Con

No VPN

Top Pro

Non-closable fixed tabs

A setting lets you prevent closing fixed tabs so you don't close anything important by accident. See More

Top Con

not completly opensource, Proprietary UI

While Vivaldi is currently available gratis (without monetary charge), it is currently not fully libre (meaning that it does not allow users to view the source code used to create, to modify that code, or to redistribute modifications) and is therefore neither free nor open-source software. The C++ source code however is open-source under a BSD license and can be downloaded and browsed from here. The UI code though is not open-source, but it's easily readable as it's HTML, CSS & JS. Modifications can be shared as their forum even has a dedicated section. See More

Top Pro

Full of customizable keyboard shortcuts (can be completely keyboard-driven)

It's possible to change and add keyboard shortcuts for basically all commands. It also has single key shortcuts to execute actions with one click. See More

Top Con

Not available on the iPhone

There is an Android version Vivaldi, but no iOS version. iPhone and iPad users are out of luck. See More

Top Pro

Cross-browser extensions with Opera and Chrome, Firefox web-ext's too

All Vivaldi, Opera and Chrome users can get extensions from all extension/addon sites, especially from Opera Addons and Chrome Store. See More

Top Con

Not the fastest

Slower than Chrome and Firefox. See More

Top Pro

Allows navigating to the next page without searching for the link

A feature called fast forward puts a dedicated button before the address bar that is designed to help you navigate to the next page of a multi-page article, forum thread or search results without having to hunt for the link. See More

Top Pro

VPN is available by extension- also routing through Tor network

VPN and Tor encryption is possible through extensions. Tor is a free choice if one doesn't want to subscribe to a VPN service. See More

Top Pro

Synchronisation

Everything can be synced with a Vivaldi account. Though there's still no mobile version you can sync between computers and OSes. See More

Top Pro

Updates via dialog box

Unlike most modern browsers (but like most browsers of yesteryear), Vivaldi gives you a dialog box when an new version comes out; it doesn't just update silently in the background. The dialog box tells you about the changes that have been made, and lets you chose when you want to update. See More

Top Pro

Web Panels

Web Panels allow for easy access to any site from the side panel. They are useful for reading two websites side by side or for chatting (i.e. Facebook) and surfing at the same time. Panels can be hidden when not in use. See More

Top Pro

Faster than Firefox and Safari

Top Pro

PC Cross-platform

Vivaldi is available on Windows, GNU/Linux and macOS, so it covers the most used PC operating systems. See More

Top Pro

Programmable user interface

For you programmers out there: Since Vivaldi uses JavaScript, React, Node.js, Browserify and multiple npm packages to build the browser, it can be customized with ease by anyone who knows HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. See More

Top Pro

Manages bookmarks well

Vivaldi has an excellent bookmarks system. Bookmarks can be easily accessible via Speed Dial, side-bar, bookmarks bar, quick commands. No more messy bookmarks bar is needed and location bar suggestion is improved thus! See More

Top Pro

Dark theme out of the box

There's even an option to automatically transition from light to dark based on the time of day. See More

Top Pro

Saving Sessions

It saves oversights many options and functions implemented in Vivaldi. E.g. see CON "No option to open saved tab stack as... tab stack!" See More

Top Pro

Portable version can be added on default apps

Most portable version cannot be added as default apps but Vivaldi offers that option and it comes with updater too. See More

Top Pro

Cross browser extensions with Opera and Chrome, Firefox web-ext's too

All Vivaldi, Opera and Chrome users can get extensions from all extension/addon sites, especially from Opera Addons and Chrome Store. See More

Top Pro

Usable fullscreen mode with address bar when needed

In comparison, on Chrome you will not see the address bar, only on ChromeOS when your mouse is on the top of the screen. See More

Top Pro

Analytical history

View graphically your most visited pages on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis. See More

By logging into Chrome using a Google account it's possible to sync history, extensions, passwords, bookmarks and other settings between devices. This makes it great for anyone working with multiple devices as it allows experiencing consistent context when in the browser. See More

Google Chrome

Top Pro

Syncs between devices

Top Con

Huge memory hog

Each tab runs as a seperate process n the browser uses significant chunks of RAM, giving the browser poor performance on machines without enough RAM to supply. See More

Eric Tellefsen's Experience

Fastest browser. Great privacy extensions constantly updated, load a great number of tabs See More

Specs

License:Proprietary

Based On:Chromium with proprietary Media codecs and Addons

Browser Engine:Blink, Webkit on iOS(since Apple does not allow third party web engines)

Default Search Engine:Google

As of February 2015, Chrome scores highest of all browsers for HTML5 compatibility. See More

Top Pro

Excellent HTML 5 feature support

Top Con

Online tracking by default

Chrome allows opting out of tracking by going to Settings > Advanced > Privacy and un-checking any unwanted services. Alternatively Chromium can be used to get a similar browser experience without Google's services on top of it. See More

Rebel's Experience

In my opinion the best browser there is it's safe, fast, has plenty of extensions (small programs within the web browser) and besides looking great its syncs everything not matter the system or device. When it can run Chrome it syncs. Just install, Log-in and start browsing, it's that easy. See More

Top Pro

Plenty of extensions

Chrome has a very simple to use web store which is shown to its users in the intro tour. It is very well organized, and contains an extremely huge variety of free and paid apps, all verified by Google. See More

Top Con

Bad for battery life

Drains battery life on both Windows laptops and Macs much quicker than the alternatives. It can shave hours off the battery life of any non Chromebook laptop. See More

ProudEkecheiria's Experience

performs exactly as a computer on android phones compared to other browsers where some websites do not function android See More

Top Pro

Automatically updates

Chrome updates in the background ensuring you're always on the latest version. This makes it much more likely that sites will work on your browser, since (almost) all Chrome users will be running exactly the same version. See More

Top Con

Proprietary

Google Chrome is proprietary software, meaning that it is not open source. See More

Raghu Ranganathan's Experience

Chrome is the browser I use most, and for very good reason. It's a stable, simple browser which is extremely easy to use. It is in sync with the latest web standards, and runs on the webkit engine. It's supported by Google, and hence has deep integration with its services. What I love about it is the syncing capabilities. When I log into a new computer, all my apps and extensions, and my autocomplete history get moved into chrome. This is what makes chrome indispensable. The main problem about chrome is that it runs each extension as a separate process, making it consume huge amounts of volatile memory. That's the only complaint I really have about chrome. However, if you use chrome once, you will probably never stray away from it. See More

Top Pro

Free

It's free to use. See More

Top Con

Big target for hackers

Chrome is the most popular browser in the world. That makes it the most targeted browser in the world by hackers. See More

NobleShu's Experience

fast See More

Top Pro

Multiple account login

You can have multiple Chromes with different accounts logged at the same time. And it is really easy to manage different accounts. See More

Top Con

Bad quality control on extensions

Some just plain don't work while a few actually break the browser. See More

Top Pro

Good performance

According to TopTen Reviews, Chrome is currently one of the best performing browsers for initial (cold) startup, average startup, and navigation times. See More

Top Con

Increasingly slow

When Chrome first came out, it was known for being lightweight and very speedy. Over the years, more and more features have been added to Chrome. Because of this, crashes, errors, and general laggy-ness has increased noticeably. See More

Top Pro

Installs extensions without requiring a restart

Top Con

Does not hardware accelerate HTML5 video correctly

Chrome is unable to hardware accelerate HTML5 video correctly which makes playing 4k video on laptops a poor experience filled with lag. Though there is a workaround for YouTube in that a plugin can be installed to force Flash playback instead of HTML5, which plays smoothly and has no HW acceleration issues. There's another plugin (h264ify) that will force to use the h.264 codec video if available instead of the VP9 one which is the resource hog. See More

Top Pro

Sandboxed Tabs

Every tab runs as their own process, so if one crashes or becomes unresponsive, the whole browser isn't affected. See More

Top Con

Hard/impossible to transfer passwords to a different machine without uploading them to Google

Top Pro

Blurred fonts on Windows

Fonts on Windows are blurred, that is especially noticeable in light fonts on dark background. Small italic text is hard to read. See More

Top Pro

Customizable by user

Each of the managed users can have their own configuration (themes, extensions, etc.). See More

Top Con

No mobile extensions

Chrome on Android and iOS does not support extensions. See More

Top Pro

Great built-in developer tools

Chrome comes with built-in developer tools, making testing and enhancing web pages simpler for those of us involved in working with such technologies. As well as being beneficial to developers, this also has some benefit to non-technical users; in that by making testing simpler for developers those developers are more likely to use Chrome for their tests, and can spend more time making improvements over investigating underlying causes of issues. See More

Top Con

You can not delete the browser history on exit

Top Pro

Huge variety of extensions available

Top Con

No menu bar (except on Mac)

There's no no menu bar, except on Mac OS. See More

Top Pro

Multimedia Plugins and Codecs included

Google Chrome comes with its own flashplayer and the most common multimedia codecs so you don't have to worry that they are outdated nor do you need to install them as a third party package. See More

Top Con

Gives too much weight to Google on the future of the Web

Top Pro

Perfect integration into GApps

If you use GApps then Chrome is the perfect browser for you. See More

Top Con

Basic

Unlike Opera and Vivaldi which are more stable and has more features, Chrome is pretty basic. See More

Top Pro

Plays more media formats than any open source browser

Includes support for many licensed unfree media formats. See More

Top Pro

Only one distributor

Unlike those various unofficial Chromium builds, there is only one distributor, so all Chrome releases follow the same standards. See More

Top Pro

Uses Blink

It uses the blink rendering engine which has removed many legacy khtml/webkit code to be much lighter and faster. See More

Top Pro

Chrome is faster than Firefox

Top Pro

Simple user interface

For example, the address bar is also the search bar. Google calls it Omnibox. See More

Top Pro

Backed and supported by Google

Whilst Chrome is based on the open source browser Chromium, Google reviews this code and build on top of it. This means it takes (and contributes to) a number of the benefits of the open source model whilst having the resources, support and investment of a major company. See More

Top Pro

Works great with many extensions

Unlike Firefox, Google Chrome can keep its fast performance regardless of how many extensions are installed. With more than 10 extensions Firefox gets slower and slower in a geometric progression rate. Google Chrome doesn't care how many extensions the user has installed - 3 or 133 it still performs great. See More

It is officially discontinued since 2016. See More

K-Meleon

Top Con

Discontinued

Top Pro

Highly extensible

Has hundreds of its native extensions written on its own macrolanguage. Supports dozens of XPI-extensions for Firefox. See More

Specs

License:OpenSource (GNU GPL)

Based On:Mozilla ESR 31

Browser Engine:Goanna (Gecko-fork)

Top Con

Windows only

Top Pro

Fast and lightweight

Light on memory footprint: the smallest RAM amount used among all the modern browsers. Fastest application startup. Very responsive. Invaluable on the older and low-end hardware. See More

Top Pro

Extremely customizable

Almost every detail can be personalized: skin buttons (icon theme and on/off state) toolbar placement menus number of settings and preferences proxies (add and switch with ease) locale (switch on the fly without downloads and restarts) etc. See More

Top Pro

Secure and fully under user control

No malware/adware toolbars/extensions can be injected. You can switch off Java, JS, Flash, popups, and Ads from the toolbar or with a hotkey. See More

Yandex.Browser

Default Search Engine:Yandex

Browser Engine:Blink

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Iridium Browser

Top Pro

BSD license

You are in control and you can do almost anything with the code. See More

Top Con

Not available for mobile

it is not available for android or ios, however it is planned in the future. See More

Specs

License:OpenSource (BSD)

Based On:Chromium

Browser Engine:Blink

Top Pro

Based on Chromium

Supports all the modern web features and uses Blink. See More

Top Con

Poor debian support

current versions miss support for debian-based distributions which is by far the most widely used group of linux distributions. See More

Top Pro

Privacy enhancements over Chromium

Disable "Use a web service to help resolve navigation errors" Disable autocomplete through prediction service when typing in Omnibox Always send "Do-Not-Track" header Network/DNS prediction is disabled by default Block third-party cookies by default Link auditing (<a ping="...">) is disabled by default Fetch plugins list from iridiumbrowser.de where it will be updated regularly Site data (cookies, local storage, etc.) is only kept until exit, by default Passwords are not stored by default Input form autofill is disabled by default For IPv6 probes, use a DNS root server instead of Google The default search provider is Qwant Load "about:blank" on new tabs instead of the currently set search engine and/or promotions. Don't report Safe Browsing overrides. Don't use autofill download service. Disable cookies for safebrowsing background requests. Disable the battery status API. See More

Top Pro

Lots of extensions available

Due to access to the Chrome Web store. See More

Top Pro

Extensions are updated manually

They won't update automatically in the background. See More

Top Pro

Security improvements over Chromium

Increase RSA keysize to 2048 bits for self-signed certificates (used by WebRTC) Generate a new WebRTC identity for each connection instead of reusing identities for 30 days Generate a new ECDHE keypair for each WebRTC connection instead of reusing them for multiple connections Disable using system-provided plugins (i.e. Java, Flash, etc.) See More

Top Pro

Disabled features

Disable background mode Disable EV certificates, so they are shown just like "normal" certificates Disable Google cloud printing Disable Google hot word detection Disable Google experiments status check Disable Google translation service Disable Google promotion fetching Disable Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) status check Disable Google Now Disable automatic update check Disable profile-import on first run See More

Top Pro

Portable release

It is available as a portable version See More

Top Pro

Simple installation

Provides installers and packages for the most operating systems and linux distributions. See More

Top Pro

Fast

It is fast since all background services have been disabled or removed See More

Top Pro

Sandboxing

Every ta and plugin run as own process. See More