What are the best privacy oriented web browsers?

Based On:Chromium with Proprietary GUI

License:Freeware

Default Search Engine:Groot

Plays local media files including hot-links to videos online too. See More

Top Pro

Also available as a portable download

Top Con

Does not support extensions due to security concerns.

Top Pro

Has a great looking media player

Top Pro

Now also includes a built-in screen recorder

Contains a built-in screen, webcam, and microphone recorder. See More

If you follow their instructions religiously, Tor is the nec plus ultra in terms of safety and privacy. For the time being at least. See More

score 76 · Answer 2

Tor Browser

Top Pro

Tor sets the standard for safe and private browsing

Top Con

Extremely slow

DynamicHorme's Experience

If your predominant concern is privacy over all else, Tor is still the place to go. Pair it with a VPN and follow strict security settings for maximum privacy. Pair with Tails OS for the closest you can come to complete anonymity. See More

Specs

License:Open Source (MPL-2.0)

Based On:Mozilla Firefox ESR

Tor Browser routes traffic through the Tor network and deletes all privacy sensitive information (such as the browsing history or cookies) at the end of each session. Additionally, it encrypts all traffic. See More

Top Pro

Provides anonymity

Top Con

A lot of websites will ask for CAPTCHA

As a result of presenting to the CDN or web application server as the IP address of the exit node, you will have the same IP address as many other users. This will also be true if you use a VPN (particularly a popular one or one with a low node count). See More

Yandexuser's Experience

Oh no, not tor again. I was hoping that tor can uprgrade its speed, but it wont on my mac big wur. So dumb. See More

Top Pro

Access hidden .onion sites

Top Con

Too much bloat

Tor comes with about 10 security add ons installed by default. See More

LoveableSaturn's Experience

Security bloat See More

Top Pro

Free and Open Source

Open source builds trust in using the program. See More

Top Con

Tor is very outdated on Firefox code

It's not that it uses the same browser engine, just look at the logos. See More

Top Pro

NoScript and HTTPS Everywhere installed by default

Top Con

You will hang on every recaptcha

Top Pro

Portable

Can be installed and run on a portable device such as a USB stick. 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. As those would expose your identity in the TOR network for those sites. See More

Top Pro

Uses the Tor network

Top Con

Not made as your daily browser

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

Top Pro

Based on Firefox

Firefox is a great browser, and Tor is built on it. See More

Top Con

Does not guarantee perfect anonimity

The reason being that your behaviour can identify you so. Logging in websites also, obviously, give your identity to the site. Those things obviously also apply to any other browser. See More

Top Pro

The only browser package which includes a gateway built-in into TOR a network where you can actually browse the web completely anonymously

Privacy. It's fundamental. And this browser has enabled and keeps enabling people to lookup things they don't want their ISP/ government or surveillance marketers to see. And what's better they won't know a thing about what you searched. What is visible to the outside world however is the fact: you make use of TOR and probably the TORBrowser this client / citizen of ours is using TOR to obfuscate his /her traffic (=~anonymize ). See More

Top Con

Dependent on Mozilla

Since it uses gecko. See More

Top Pro

Safe

Tor is just as safe as Chrome or Firefox, as long as you don't visit malicious websites. See More

Top Pro

The only browser package which includes a gateway build in into TOR a network where you can actually browse the web with completely anonymous or at least to whatever you browse on it

Privacy. It's fundamental. And this browser has enabled and keeps enabling people to lookup things they don't want their ISP/ government or surveillance marketers to see. And what's better they won't know a thing about what you searched. What is visible to the outside world however is the fact: you make use of TOR and probably the TORBrowser this client / citizen of ours is using TOR to obfuscate his /her traffic (=~anonymize ). See More

Top Pro

Relatively fast

It is part of the GNU Project. See More

score 108 · Answer 3

GNU IceCat

Top Pro

Made by idealists

Top Con

Too much bloat

The browser comes with 15 addons installed by default, most of which are useless or ruin one's browsing experience. See More

PrincipledAirmid's Experience

I testes all major browser and Icecat is the only on that does NOT phone home, does not connect to anything behind your back. All the others do. Period See More

Specs

Blocks unwanted JS code. See More

License:OpenSource

Top Pro

LibreJS

Top Con

Includes LibreJS by default with no way to remove it

Extensions can be added or removed like in firefox. See More

ExpertLir's Experience

Most private browser based on firefox for now. Period. See More

Top Pro

SpyBlock

Blocks privacy trackers See More

Top Con

Not up to date

Latest binary is still version 60.7 ESR and was last updated over a year ago. In order to have an up to date version you have to build it yourself from the Gnu git repository. See More

Addermc's Experience

Granted I'm using mobile. But GNU IceCat loads and gets results alot faster than Firefox or any of it's "forks"(except focus). Use IceCat, Brave,Web Shuttle and Puma browsers. Qwant and Runnaroo engines. See More

Top Pro

Protects your freedom, certified free by the FSF

Top Con

Mainly just an old Firefox

It is mainly a renamend older version of Firefox that comes preinstalled with some extensions. See More

InterestingMerope's Experience

who cares about free software? nothing is free. If you're not paying for the product, you're the product. See More

Top Pro

All the benefits of Firefox, but with 100% free software

Top Con

Requires too much unnecessary configuration to use

You have to manually delete all the bloated addons from your files (only for them to show up again when the browser is updated) and manually install some addons and themes that the browser labels as "corrupt". See More

PowerfulMinerva's Experience

autistic browser See More

Top Pro

No spyware

Top Con

Can't install some Firefox themes/addons

"Installation aborted because the addon appears to be corrupt". See More

GenuineEndymion's Experience

no one uses it See More

Top Pro

Extra security and privacy features

Top Con

Very slow boot time

It takes 10+ seconds for the browser to load up See More

Top Pro

Https-Everywhere by default

Top Con

Dependent on Mozilla

Since IceCat is based off Firefox which is released under MPL, it's dependent on all of Mozilla's decisions. See More

Top Con

Hard to get

It's a bit hard to get because on some OSs (Windows and Mac) it needs proprietary software to build which Gnu does not endorse. See More

Browser Engine:Qt WebEngine (Blink)

score 23 · Answer 4

Falkon

Top Con

Linux-only

Top Pro

Made by KDE

Specs

License:OpenSource (GPLv3)

Based On:QupZilla

It often requires quite a lot of clicks to add and remove bookmarks. See More

Top Con

Bookmark management not the strongest part

Top Pro

Lightweight

Top Con

Now under the KDE umbrella

Qupzilla is now discontinued and renamed to Falkon. It will also now be a part of KDE and will probably need more dependencies like kde-frameworks in the future. See More

Top Con

Limited addon support

Only a few addons are supported, with the only privacy protecting one being a basic adblocker. See More

"Unfortunately, at the moment we are only barely keeping up with maintenance releases following upstream Firefox releases. AppImage and Flatpak-releases are still to be considered experimental." See More

score 64 · Answer 5

LibreWolf

Top Con

Understaffed quote from gitlab's repo below impacts security of browser

Top Pro

Carefully hardened browser

Many privacy preferences enabled by default. See More

InterestingMerope's Experience

lol See More

Specs

License:Open Source (Mozilla Public License Version 2.0)

Based On:Firefox

Gecko engine is not compatible with modern sites from several time ago. See More

Top Con

Gecko engine is not compatible with modern sites

Top Pro

Built-in Adblocker

Comes with uBlock Origin. See More

PowerfulMinerva's Experience

nobody gives a shit See More

Top Con

It connects to third parties services in background

The same features that should protect you, are connecting in background to third parties services for 'you protection'. See More

Top Pro

Free software and developed by an open source community

Community-maintained FOSS. See More

GenuineEndymion's Experience

no one uses it See More

Top Con

It phones home

When you use the browser it will connect to 'check for new version' See More

Top Pro

Provides almost all of the major benefits of Firefox

It's a fork of the popular browser Firefox. See More

InquisitiveBoann's Experience

unreliable because its development died a long time ago for many months and it will die again See More

Top Con

The screen size can be used to identify you

What is called "Letterboxing" makes Librewolf users increment the windows size in fixed increments, making it easier to identify librewolf users. See More

Top Pro

Built upon the latest Firefox stable for up-to-date security and features

Top Con

Development died for many months at one point

Top Pro

Supports various Linux distributions

See here. See More

Top Pro

Can be installed with apt, has ppa (so no snap forced/ needed)

Microsoft Edge collects less information than Chrome, but still is collecting data about you and your interests. See More

score 9 · Answer 6

Microsoft Edge (Chromium)

Top Pro

Fast

Top Con

Microsoft sends all your browsing history to Microsoft and tracks you by default

Specs

Based On:Chromium core with proprietary UI

License:Proprietary

Default Search Engine:Bing

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

Top Pro

Great UI

Top Con

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

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 Con

(Integration with) Windows designed by Microsoft so that deinstall/ install of browser of user choice is extremely elaborate

Let's just wait to see history repeat itself, and Micorsoft being fined for it. (Again!) See More

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

Lynx offers surprising compatibility with current WWW standards, including SSL/TLS. See More

score 7 · Answer 7

Lynx

Top Pro

Still under active development

Top Con

Not for "uneducated" users

Specs

Browser Engine:libwww

License:OpenSource

Based On:N/A

Platforms:Unix-like, DOS, Windows

Top Pro

Oldest web-browser still in general use

Lynx was first released in 1992. Using it is one of the best hands-on ways to understand the history of the Web. See More

Top Con

Experimental

Reserved to nerds and maniacs. See More

Top Pro

Naturally well-suited to accessibility tools

Being a text-based browser, Lynx is easy to operate using text-to-speech or Braille tools for visually-impaired users. See More

Advertisements keep popping up in the Windows notification center. Must opt in to ad system, but no option to disable sound for ad notifications only. See More

score 78 · Answer 8

Brave

Top Con

Quite intrusive advertisements, especially on Windows

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

TranquilNapir's Experience

A decent privacy focused browser with built in TOR, its nice alternative to chrome when used with duckduckgo as search engine, you can also earn rewards. See More

Specs

Brave Software is a for-profit company (though users must opt into Brave ads and Brave doesn't track users). See More

License:OpenSource (MPL)

Based On:Chromium core

Top Con

Brave is an Ad company

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

TranquilTishpak's Experience

It's the only browser that runs well off my usb stick on any computers. Most installs don't need admin privies. See More

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

Built-in Adblock

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

DynamicHorme's Experience

Brave thrives on brand recognition. Look for open source forks or non-mainstream browsers (aside from TOR) if you want privacy. See More

Top Con

Hypocritical/deceptive stance on privacy and advertisement

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

Top Pro

Option to disable additional privacy concerns

Like fingerprint tracking. See More

PerseveringAmm's Experience

PRO Easy to manage privacy Brave remove advertising from sites, making their appearance cleaner, and without installing additional plugins. See More

Top Con

Promotes search engines that track users such as Bing and Google

Google Search is the first search engine on the list. See More

Top Pro

Tor is available right in the browser

Top Con

Useless built-in 'ad blocker'

Its adblocker is useless to be honest. Since the extension uBlock Origin is a great blocker by itself, the Brave ad blocker does not block every ad! 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

Sync issues

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

Top Pro

Sync is now available

Option to synchronize data between devices using peer-to-peer connections. No sign-in required, only a sync code. See More

Top Con

No reader view

But can be accessed with an extension. See More

Top Pro

Now supports Chrome Webstore

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

Top Con

Tor available in browser

The torbrowser is specifically build so that every user has or close to the same device-fingerprint. Because the brave-browser isn't that every user within brave which uses tor within the browser stands out allot more then those using TOR over the torbrowser package or within TAILS. Thus compromising privacy for convenience. 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

Doesn't remove search engine ads

Top Pro

Very fast

The fastest browser out there. See More

Top Con

Dumbed down in the latest versions

In previous versions, Brave felt more like Firefox. Now it's been dumbed down, it feels more like Chrome/Chromium. For example, there's no menu-bar. And when you install Brave, it just installs, it doesn't give you any options on how to install it. See More

Top Pro

Supports the latest technologies

Brave regularly adds new functionalities like decentralized domain support and a native crypto wallet long before Chrome considers them. These features to be disabled in settings. See More

Top Con

Bad community full of alt-right people

Top Pro

Optional feature for you to get reimbursed for viewing ads

Basic Attention Token; you can decide 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

Top Con

The iPhone version has some odd behavior

When reopened, Brave often returns to the "search results" page, rather than the webpage you had previously browsed to from the search results page. Might just be due to configuration though. See More

Top Pro

Developed by creator of Mozilla and Javascript

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

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

score 50 · Answer 9

Pale Moon

Top Con

Outdated rendering engine

Top Pro

Uses Goanna layout engine

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

Specs

Browser Engine:Goanna (Gecko-fork), SpiderMonkeys

License:Open Source (MPL-2.0)

Based On:Mozilla Firefox ESR

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

Top Con

Still contains some spyware

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 Con

Unsecure

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

Top Pro

Respects your privacy

Is not spyware like Chrome or Firefox. See More

Top Con

Pale Moon is based on very outdated Firefox code

Top Pro

Open source

Top Con

Unique user agent string

Can be used for fingerprinting unless you change it in about:config See More

Top Pro

Stable

Top Con

Uses Goanna

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

Top Pro

Good community support

Top Con

Does not contain multi-process sandboxing

Top Pro

Designed for usability, not the shiny new things

Top Con

WebAssembly enabled by default

Top Pro

Support for existing web standards

Top Con

Lacks popular extensions and adblockers

It doesn't have ublock origin and umatrix. See More

Top Pro

Support for GTK themes

Pale Moon supports your GTK theme while Firefox does not. See More

Top Con

Lead developer loves Cloudflare and hates Tor

Website is cloudflared and he thinks most sites should be hostile towards tor. See More

Top Pro

Customizable

Top Con

Pale Moon's website is cloudflared

Top Pro

Optimized for modern processors

Top Con

Incompetent developers

Top Pro

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

Top Pro

Has its own library of legacy extensions

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

Supports complete themes

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

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

score 43 · Answer 10

Mozilla Firefox

Top Pro

Open Source

Top Con

Uses Google as its default search engine

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

PositiveBorlung's Experience

Amazing! See More

Specs

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

License:OpenSource (MPL-2.0)

Based On:Netscape>Mozilla Suite

Default Search Engine:Google

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 Pro

Respects your privacy

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

niingu's Experience

There is only one browser out there. See More

Top Pro

Awesome customizability

Great library of add-ons. See More

Top Con

Some built-in advertising

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

Top Pro

Free, open source and community driven

Firefox is available as a free download. All Mozilla software is licensed under the Mozilla Public License. Instructions on how to obtain the source code can be found here. See More

Top Con

High telemetry (by default)

Sends a lot of your data to a lot of different sources. Firefox can at least be customized with some difficulty to avert these concerns unlike Chrome. See More

Top Pro

High performance

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 Con

Pocket integration

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

Can only be installed as snap on some distros

Top Pro

A lot of add-ons

An enormous number of add-ons. See More

Top Con

Abandoned XUL for WebExtensions

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

Terrible user interface

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

Top Pro

Uses less resources

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

Top Con

Downloader includes now a virus checker

All Downloads in Firefox will now be scanned for viruses and there are a lot of false positives. 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

Supporting Gecko makes no sense

Since Blink is available under a more open and permissive license. 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

Multi Profile are not user friendly

Multi profile require commandline -no remote to use and open about:profiles to create manually (on Chrome you can instantly create them on right top user button). See More

Top Pro

Strong HTML5 feature support

Firefox scores strongly on HTML5 feature support. See More

Top Con

Devtools for WebExtensions are buggy

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

Sometimes very buggy and slow

On sites like twitch.tv chat scrolling is still not fixed. Compared to other browsers Firefox is still very slow and feels sluggish. 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

Now forces install and use of snap

Top Pro

Automatically updated

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

Top Con

Installs Addons with updates

Mozilla is installing/integrating addons with every update like the Mr. Robot promotion - it also has integrated Pocket that spams you every time you open the browser or a new tab with partners of Pocket. See More

Top Pro

Really independent browser

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

Top Con

Uses extremely old browser version

Firefox uses a 15-year old version of Netscape, which has been dead for years. 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

Crappy license

Cannot redistribute binary after source code modification. See More

Top Pro

Very secure

Top Con

Multi Profile is not user friendly

Multi profile requires commandline -no remote to use and open about:profiles to create manually (on Chrome, you can instantly create them on right top user button). See More

Top Pro

HTML5 Video Preload

The only web browser that only preload entire HTML5 video which useful for slow internet See More

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

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

Partial dark mode

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

Top Pro

Firefox Lockwise password management

Helps store your usernames and passwords. Lockwise also lets you know if any of the sites you have login details for have had their (and potentially your) data leaked! See More

Top Con

False positives in virus-scanner

All Downloads in Firefox are scanned for viruses, but there are a lot of false positives. 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

Cannot open multiple instances

You cannot open multiple Firefox windows at the same time. 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

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

WebRender

The newer versions of it will soon use WebRender to render webpages, which'll make it much more efficient by utilizing GPU to paint webpages. See More

Top Con

Doesn’t support multiple languages for spell check

If you write in multiple languages, you need to manually switch the spell check language. 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

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

HTML5 video preload

The only web browser that only preloads entire HTML5 video which is useful for slow internet. See More

Top Con

Uses GTK on Linux/BSD

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

Top Pro

About:config

Master about:config and uBlock Origin, and all Firefox-based browsers will be yours. See More

Top Con

Mozilla once partnered with George Soros to fight misinformation

Mozilla once partnered with George Soros to fight misinformation. See More

Top Pro

Mobile

Firefox has a solid mobile app. See More

Top Con

Experiments

Top Pro

Screenshot tool

Powerful screenshot tool built right into the browser. 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 Pro

Screenshots tool

Powerful screenshots tool built right into the browser. See More

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 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 Pro

Firefox Experiments

FF Experiments are Mozilla projects available from FF Test Pilot, such as Firefox Colour, witch lets you customise your browser theme to your liking! 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 Pro

Integration with Pocket

Firefox comes with built-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 Pro

Good font rasterizing

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

It uses the Qt Web Engine from your local Qt installation which is usually not often updated. See More

score 7 · Answer 11

Otter Browser

Top Con

External rendering engine

Top Pro

Legacy Opera

Aims to recreate the best aspects of Opera 12.x. See More

Specs

Browser Engine:Qt WebEngine (Blink)

License:OpenSource (GNU GPL-3.0)

Based On:N/A

Anyone can contribute to the Otter Browser, solve common issues, bugs. See More

Top Con

No support for addons

Top Pro

Open source

Top Con

Under GNU GPL

It is licensed under GPL which is less permissive than other opensource licenses like BSD or MIT. See More

So the source code can be verified. See More

score 12 · Answer 12

Basilisk

Top Con

Security risk

Top Pro

Open source

Specs

Browser Engine:Goanna (Gecko-fork)

License:OpenSource (MPL)

Based On:Mozilla Firefox

Top Con

Uses Goanna

A Gecko fork that is developed by mostly one developer. See More

Top Con

Limited WebRTC support

A notes panel allows to save notes from webpages and can include screenshots for reference and have tags and organized in folders to help manage them. Thumbnails are too small and Notes do not have separate page in settings, but it should, there are a lot of things to improve. See More

score 11 · Answer 13

Vivaldi

Top Pro

Notes

Top Con

Lots of features and customizability

Vivaldi has a lot of features and customizability. Far more then most (perhaps all) other browses, and many to list them all individuality as separate pros. See More

Top Con

Can't disable all telemetry

Vivaldi needs some amount of knowledge about the amount of active users, for business deals. According to its privacy policy, Vivaldi sends an approximate location (country or major city), randomized ID, version, CPU architecture, screen resolution (to know what screen sizes to test on) and time since last message every 24 hours (to know amount of active users). See More

Top Pro

Compatible with all Chrome extensions

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

Top Con

Enabling "Hardware Accelerated Scrolling" can make scrolling jittery

Top Pro

Tab bar position can be changed

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

Top Con

World champion on data collection

On data collect/harvest is on high level [1st place]...is a 3 in 1: Google + Mozilla + proprietary new technique/method = proud winner with no competition: Vivaldi. 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

Still uses some Google services (can be disabled)

Top Pro

Built-in ad and tracker blocker

Vivaldi has a built-in blocker that allows you to select between blocking just trackers or both trackers and ads. With customizable blocking list sources, good performance, and support for all the standard blocker list features you find in ad blocker extensions (with more to come), you might not need an ad blocker extension at all. This also comes in handy on Android, where Chromium/Vivaldi doesn't support extensions. 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 add-on or native Vivaldi function to stop this. See More

Top Pro

Fast and safe

It is so much faster and safer. See More

Top Con

Slower than Chrome

Top Pro

GDPR compliant

Top Pro

Analytical history

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

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

Tabs can be stacked

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

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

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

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 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

Current versions misses support for Debian-based distributions, which is by far the most widely used group of Linux distributions. See More

score 24 · Answer 14

Iridium Browser

Top Con

Poor Debian support

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

Specs

Since the whole Chromium Release need to be scanned, PC users may wait half a year while the Chrome base gets updated five or six iterations. See More

License:OpenSource (BSD)

Based On:Chromium

Top Con

Slow updates

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 Con

Buggy

Sometimes removing extensions won't work. Some websites downright refuse to load, no matter the settings. 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 Con

Google Safebrowsing enabled by default

Top Pro

Extensions are updated manually

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

Top Con

Dependent on Google

Top Pro

Lots of extensions available

Due to access to the Chrome Web store. See More

Top Con

Definitive unique browsing-fingerprint

Top Pro

BSD license

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

Top Con

Extensions MUST be updated manually

Top Pro

Simple installation

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

Top Con

Based on Chromium

Since iridium is based off chrome, it is depend on all of Google's decisions. See More

Top Pro

Fast

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

Does not save bandwidth when run on local machine, only on remote machine without bandwidth limit. See More

score 2 · Answer 15

brow.sh

Top Con

Does not save bandwidth

Top Pro

Works on all sites that Firefox works on

Top Con

Very slow

Top Pro

Supports JavaScript

Top Con

Experimental

Reserved to nerds and maniacs. See More

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

score 1 · Answer 16

Puffin Secure Browser

score 1 · Answer 17

CyberGhost

Add Video or Image

score 15 · Answer 18

Google Chrome

Top Con

Online tracking by default

Top Pro

Simple user interface

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

EfficientAinina's Experience

google shares your browser history to advertisers even in private browsing See More

Specs

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

License:Proprietary

Based On:Chromium with proprietary Media codecs and Addons

Default Search Engine:Google

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

Top Con

Bad for battery life

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

InterestingMerope's Experience

it is the best browser and if you don't use it then you have autism! See More

Top Con

It's Google

Data collection! 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

PowerfulMinerva's Experience

i like this browser because I can use do not track and incognito mode 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

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

GenuineEndymion's Experience

it is the safest becuase it is google See More

Top Con

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

Top Pro

Engine is open-source

Chromium is open source, except the proprietary media codecs like AAC, H.264, MP3 and Adobe Flash, that can't be legally open-sourced. See More

TrustworthyVirbius's Experience

cool browser See More

Top Con

Not fully open-source

While most of Chrome is open source: Chrome does have some closed-source components to make it possible to play some closed media formats. 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. Works very well with the uBlock Origin adblocker. See More

ResponsiveShalim's Experience

it is the best See More

Top Con

Made by the Americans

Top Pro

Plenty of extensions

There are far more available on this browser than any other. See More

Top Con

Huge memory hog

Each tab and extension in the browser uses significant chunks of RAM, giving the browser poor performance on machines without enough RAM to supply. 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

Made in United States (Five Eyes Member)

According to PrivacyTools.io: “The Five Eyes focus on gathering and analyzing intelligence from different parts of the world. While Five Eyes countries have agreed to not spy on each other as adversaries, leaks by Snowden have revealed that some Five Eyes members monitor each other's citizens and share intelligence to avoid breaking domestic laws that prohibit them from spying on their own citizens.” 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

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

Top Pro

Excellent HTML 5 feature support

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

Top Con

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

Huge variety of extensions available

Top Con

American agents may track you

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 Con

Keeps asking for root passwords

Keeps asking for root passwords (for simple web browsing? Really?). See More

Top Pro

Customizable by user

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

Top Con

No decent reader view

Unlike most other browsers, Chrome doesn't have a proper reader view function yet. See More

Top Pro

Plays more media formats than any open source browser

Includes support for many licensed unfree media formats. 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

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 Con

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

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 Con

Basic

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

No menu bar on Windows

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

Top Pro

As of March 2015, Chrome is the most popular browser on the internet, with a 43.9% - 63.7% market share, Its rendering engine Blink is also the most used rendering engine and used in many products including: Opera, Vivaldi, Qt, Brave, Steam or Electron meaning most developers will be testing their sites against this browser to ensure compatibility. See More

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

Can translate text directly

Top Con

Not as customizable as Firefox or Vivaldi

Top Pro

Syncs between devices

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

Top Con

No mobile extensions

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

Top Pro

Data Collection

Chrome uses online services to collect our data and improve our browser experience. But it sells it, and even tracks your voice See More

Top Pro

Chrome is faster than Firefox

It costs 9.99 on the app store. See More

score 4 · Answer 19

Kingpin Private Browser

Top Con

Not free

Specs

Default Search Engine:Google

Based On:Firefox 75.0

Top Con

High RAM usage

Because it's fast, Kingpin eats too much RAM, which can be a problem to PCs and Macs with smaller RAM. See More