Significant changes are afoot in the ad-sponsored web, and the browser has grown a key battleground for end-user privacy. While Chrome is the most widely used browser globally, there are alternative browsers and ways to enhance your privacy while using Chrome.
Unfortunately, there’s no simple way yet to guarantee total privacy through browsers. However, online ad companies can handle web browsing histories to specific fingerprint browsers over time.
Use Safe Browsers: Why?
While you may be intimate with anti-spyware and antivirus software, which respond after a warning becomes apparent, safe browsers restrict specific actions from happening in the first place, making it a very proactive approach to staying safer on the internet.
Safe browsers support stop third-party tools, like cookies. Cookies accumulate your private information, like the websites you’ve attended, usernames and passwords, and other tracking data. Safe browsers also don’t participate with your identity, like some of their petty secure equivalents. Even if you utilize a VPN, you’re only defending your IP address, position, and the data in transition. Your browser can still expose your identity by leaks or browser fingerprinting.
Let’s work through some of the best browsers for privacy.
Mozilla Firefox
One of Firefox’s most powerful privacy hallmarks is Enhanced Tracking Protection. Mozilla has also acquired Tor techniques to block browser fingerprinting. In computing, Firefox developers are on a never-ending quest to increase tracking-prevention features, like its work on browser data storage that can follow users across the web, which goes beyond just saved cookies and marks various caches.
Firefox is loaded with opportunities to customize the browser for privacy by transcribing preferences#privacy in the address bar. For instance, the “standard” Enhanced Tracking Prevention blocks social media trackers, cross-site tracking cookies, and blocks tracking in private windows, crypto miners, and fingerprinting scripts. A “strict” mode might break some sites, but there are ways to allow Enhanced Tracking Protection for trusted sites. And for these, with time, Mozilla gives a way to customize the privacy characteristic.
| Pros | Cons |
| Firefox has spent on ETP No credit in profiting from online ads | Despite a meaningful overhaul, still losing users Launching its read-it-later assistance Pocket through Firefox |
NoScript Extension
Disabling scripting on mysterious or arbitrary sites is the most meaningful impact. Scripting is adequate for most of the most critical privacy risks. Unfortunately, it is also accountable for the delivery of some web browser deeds. So not holding scripting on by default may keep you from being hacked.
| Pros | Cons |
| Freely ready for various browsers It doesn’t accumulate your web history | A bit cumbersome to install the white-list |
Microsoft Edge
Based on Google’s Chromium project, Microsoft Edge is now available for Windows 10, macOS, and Linux. Unfortunately, Microsoft has rated the worst browser for privacy.
It was diagnostic data that can be undoubtedly disassociated from the device ID. Microsoft stated its collection does include data about websites visited but said this data is not related to track users browsing history or URLs tied explicitly to the user. Microsoft has an amusing take on Google’s FLoC. Microsoft does not support fingerprinting because users can’t consent to it.
| Pros | Cons |
| It’s not Google Chrome Edge is gaining new features rapidly | It has a burgeoning online advertising business Position on FLoC is ambiguous |
DuckDuckGo Extension
DuckDuckGo is a privacy-focused search engine. It is a vocal supporter of consumer’s privacy rights. DuckDuckGo and the beginning of encrypted messaging app Signal show an expanding appetite for privacy-focused alternatives to tech giants like Facebook and Google. In addition, DuckDuckGo’s Privacy Essentials extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft’s new Edge has been installed by four million Chrome users. Its reputation is built on the idea that it does not accumulate user data but can provide the same search results as those gathering user data.
| Pros | Cons |
| Approved on Chrome, Chromium-based browsers, and Firefox DuckDuckGo seems to have a solid dedication to user privacy If you don’t want FLoC, it blocks it automatically | It’s a software extension, and that constitutes another avenue for security flaws to creep in. |
Brave: Chromium Challenger
Brave, Chromium-based browser, by default, blocks ads, fingerprinting, and ad trackers. However, Brave announced it had passed 25 million monthly active users in February, still a portion of Chrome’s 2 billion users across desktop and mobile. FLoC is a type of fingerprint created to replace third-party cookies. Google designates a FLoC ID to clusters of Chrome users with comparable interests, providing privacy by letting individuals’ hide within crowds’, as Google put it, while still presenting targeted ads to advertisers.
| Pros | Cons |
| Privacy-focussed by default Not in the traditional online ad business A fast experience | No apparent negatives, but issues in the past show it is not perfect |