What to look for, when choosing a browser?
In the current year and with the browsers galore out there, we are absolutely spoilt for choice. It’s a predicament to choose and be happy with any specific one. This calls for the need of an even-handed approach, to find what truly matters and works for us and our browsing needs.
First of all, if you are still a vanilla Chrome user, you are culpable for willingly selling your data and soul to Google and should be condemned for eternity… On the other hand, if you also fell for the hype of “gaming” browsers like Opera, you are also selling your data to shady companies, and should rethink your life choices. (I can help with that)
Now that I have gotten that out of my system, it’s time to get to my point. My main wants in a browser are; speed, privacy and security. With all these requirements, what actually fits the bill?
Firefox is the way
To get to the root of “What is the best options for browsers out there?”, I had to do some digging and these are the results. Critically, if you don’t want to fall into the monopoly of Chromium, there is an easy solution, Firefox!
Depending on your needs, privacy and security awareness, there are many forks out there, like Mull Browser, Waterfox or Librefox and many more. They are really great for privacy, especially for ephemeral or one-time use links in routine usage. Tor is also another crucial Firefox fork, focusing on ultimate security, at the cost of speed and usability(not recommended for daily usage).
However, for day-to-day use, I would use Zen Browser or Floorp. These browsers keep a balance between usability, user experience and speed, but they are not as much focused on privacy even though there is some basic security built-in. I personally use Zen, it’s a great browser overall, with amazing features and ease of use.
For stubborn Chromium users
If you still want to stay in the Chromium ecosystem, then Brave and now Helium are the only worthy browsers out there. They actually prioritises security, blocking browser fingerprinting and not selling your data. I personally use the Beta build of Brave, in the rare cases when I am not using Zen.
For Brave, make sure to turn off all the crypto-wallet bloat if you don’t need them, and enjoy one of the fastest and smoothest browser experiences out there. It’s also early days for Helium, but it’s light and minimalist approach is amazing! It still has some features to add, like DRM support and syncing, but they are being worked on and the future of the project is bright.
There is also Thorium and Vivaldi. Thorium was good but it’s really slow to update, potentially leaving you vulnerable to new exploits. Vivaldi is slower and also has some holes in it’s security. They both also still don’t live up to the performance, security or privacy of out of the box, like Brave and Helium.
Conclusion
Sticking to my wants of speed, privacy and security in a browser, my current daily driver nowadays are Zen, and then Brave. I used to have Mull, set up as my default link opener, but I have switched to just using Brave for that. For even more security/privacy cases, I can recommend Tor, but that is quite far out for the average folk. I am also looking into changing from Brave to Helium, when it is more developed, but these are my recommendations thus far.