The best browsers for privacy help protect your online identity with third-party ad blockers, VPNs, and a pledge to never sell your data.
Web browsers have become flooded with ad-sponsored content, making browsers a key battleground for end-user privacy. While Chrome is the most widely used browser in the world, there are alternative browsers and ways to improve your security available to help you stay anonymous online.
Data is one of today’s key ingredients for generating revenue. Online advertising companies can use web browsing histories to fingerprint individual browsers over time, creating shadow user profiles to reveal information including a user’s interests, product searches, and more — which can lead to targeted advertising. When you look for a privacy-focused browser, you will want to investigate how advertising trackers and cookies are managed, whether or not search histories are stored or shared, and whether or not the browser developer has a transparent privacy policy in place.
Below, you will find other recommendations for secure browsers that can protect your privacy — not only from cyberattacks, but also from businesses that scrape, store, and sell your data.
Brave Best browser for privacy overall
Brave features: Chromium-based | Blocks third-party ad trackers | Blocks cookies | Incognito windows | Onion routing | VPN | Off the record browsing
Brave is a Chromium-based browser that blocks ads, fingerprinting, and ad trackers by default.
Brave supports millions of users worldwide. The organization’s business model relies on privacy-protecting ads that pay publishers and users when users pay attention to ads. The company is transparent about this revenue stream, and it is optional — with users rewarded in crypto tokens if they opt in to ad viewing.
Brave has several privacy-enhancing settings, including options to block third-party ad trackers, upgrade unsecured connections to HTTPS, as well as block cookies and fingerprinting. Invasive ads and trackers are disabled, which the company says then improves loading times on desktop and mobile.
Brave removed Google code from its Chromium to improve user privacy, including some account integration, background sync, and inline extensions. There is also a “Tor mode” available for use, which provides anonymized onion network routing.
The browser developer also offers a VPN and firewall service which protects sessions even outside of the browser. Many users say the browser exceeds expectations, although others find some functionality, such as VPN connectivity, could use improvement.
Brave also offers a feature called “Off the Record” (OTR) for users who may be victims of intimate partner violence. The browser developer says the feature “aims to help people who need to hide their browsing behavior from others who have access to their computer or phone.”
Mozilla Firefox Most secure browser for tracking protection
Mozilla Firefox features: Enhanced tracking protection | Firefox Focus for mobile | Strict privacy standards | DNS queries sent to a secure resolver service | Focus on accessibility | Encrypted Client Hello
Firefox is a must-have for individual browser privacy across multiple devices.
One of Firefox’s most important privacy features is enhanced tracking protection. Mozilla has borrowed Tor techniques to block browser fingerprinting, and Firefox developers are constantly seeking to improve tracking-prevention features.
Firefox is rich with choices to customize the browser for privacy. It blocks social media trackers, cross-site tracking cookies, tracking in private windows, crypto miners, and fingerprinting scripts. There is a “strict” mode, too, that might break some sites when trackers are hidden in content — but there are ways to allow enhanced tracking protection for trusted sites. Furthermore, a recent improvement is the introduction of Encrypted Client Hello (ECH).
Users enjoy Firefox’s privacy focus but note that it can be a resource hog.
The other option for Firefox fans is Firefox Focus, a privacy-focused browser for iOS and Android that blocks trackers and has a built-in ad blocker.
Mozilla also offers a VPN, with the option to connect up to five devices to over 500 servers in 30 countries.
The Tor browser Best for anonymous browsing
The Tor browser features: Onion routing | DuckDuckGo integration | Access to websites outside of the clear web
Another great choice for improving your privacy on the web is the Tor browser, a non-profit project focused on anonymizing users online.
Its proprietary web browser disguises a user’s IP address and activity by relaying it through a network of servers (nodes) run by volunteers.
