In the last decade, data collection and monitoring has become a global phenomenon, as user information has become the world's largest asset. Mainstream browsers are amongst this's worst offenders. Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Safari in particular all use cookies to track the websites you visit and keep records of your browsing history, all to send you targeted advertising. Add useful Chrome extension to your browsers. Click here to add the new Adobe Express Chrome Extension.
If you are concerned about your privacy remotely, then you will want to avoid these browsers and start using alternatives to protect your information. Fortunately, all of our suggestions avoid meaningful tracking and implement integrated protection to fight invasive tracking of websites.
Best Private Browsers:
1. Firefox-
Firefox is a simple, fast, private open-source browser, and it has been completely audited, showing that they are doing exactly what they claim they are doing. It is produced and developed by the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation.
Might be that Firefox is at least as secure and stable as Chrome. The new (ish) "Quantum" rendering engine was built from the ground up to improve speeds and includes integrated Tracking Protection at the interface.
Firefox now also includes built-in canvas fingerprinting protection, the most common form of fingerprinting on browsers.
Firefox is way ahead of its mainstream competition because it doesn't track your web browsing to target you ads.
2. Tor Browser-
Tor browser was designed to provide the Tor anonymity network with secure access. Tor Browser is Firefox based but has additional security features.
FEATURES:
- Uses HTTPS Everywhere and NoScript plugins (all scripts which are disabled by default).
- Other browser plugins like Flash, RealPlayer, and QuickTime are blocked.
- Using its default search engine, Disconnect.me.
- Uses Private Browsing mode always.
3. Brave-
Unlike all the other browsers in this roundup, Brave is based instead of Firefox, on Chromium. Chromium is the open-source code behind Chrome, with all the proprietary bits being stripped out (at least theoretically).
It comes with an integrated ad-blocker, tracking protection, script blocker, and functionality with HTTPS-Everywhere. Brave also offers one-click anti-fingerprinting and security against WebRTC leakage. And anybody who used to Chrome will instantly feel right at home.
Brave is a controversial choice as, Brave helps fund itself through an ad-replacement programme. This replaces "bad ads" that involve tracking pixels from its network partners with "good ads." Participating in this system is opt-in, but critics say it contributes to an issue, private browsers are expected to address.
It is available for Windows, MacOS, Android, Linux, and iOS.
4. Pale Moon-
Pale Moon is a Firefox open source fork which is lightweight and highly customisable.Its code has been removed from Firefox entirely. It is compatible with many but not all of the classic Firefox add-ons.
It is not compatible with the latest WebExtensions add-ons from Firefox, but it does have a growing library of add-ons that have been explicitly rebuilt for Pale Moon.
Much of Pale Moon's code from newer versions of Firefox has been updated, but its user interface remains the highly customizable XUL-based front-end. This involves endorsing a wide variety of personalized themes and skins.
Pale Moon does not offer "special privacy features" as such, but it does not include dubious, privacy-invasive software, included in other mainstream browsers.
While it provides "close adherence to official web standards and specifications," Pale Moon continues to work on full support for HTML5 and CSS3, so it can struggle to render some web pages.
Some users say security updates are lagging behind but this is very unfair. It can take up to a week before Mozilla allows the developers of Pale Moon to access its new updates, but these are always introduced as soon as possible and are always up to date.
Pale Moon is available for both Linux and Windows.
5. IceCat-
GNU IceCat is just Firefox which removes the trademarked branding to comply with the free software guidelines of the GNU Project.
It will block zero-length image files of third parties which are also known as web bugs. It will also detect and block non-free JavaScript, and has the option to set a different user agent string in about:config for different domains. This is good to defeat browser fingerprinting.
IceWeasel is very similar to IceCat with the exception of Debian (Linux), and without additional privacy features from IceCat. IceWeasel is no longer maintained, now that Firefox has returned to Debian. IceWeasel is based on Firefox 's older (pre-Quantum) version, but Icecat is built on Firefox 's new ESR. That means it can use up-to-date Firefox add-ons and has a Quantum speed boost.
GNU / Linux, Windows(unofficial build), Android and macOS (self-compiled) are available with IceCat.
6. SeaMonkey-
As with Pale Moon, SeaMonkey uses Firefox code and the Gecko rendering engine. But, in our private browserlist, it is separate from all the other services.
It integrates a browser, a newsgroup and email client and a WYSIWYG HTML editor. Some might argue that this makes it very bloated but most modern hardware can easily accommodate the bloat.
SeaMonkey is perfect for anyone wishing to encounter an old-school internet, but it lags behind Firefox in terms of updates and security patches.
Conclusion:
If you want to hide your spouse's birthday present shopping on a family computer or hide your adult viewing habits on a shared laptop, private mode is great. It's often referred to as 'porn mode' for a reason, after all!
What it does not do is provide your ISP with any meaningful privacy (let alone anonymity) or anybody who spies through the internet. To do so, you need to use a VPN to mask your IP address, as well as different browser add-ons to avoid web monitoring (which may or may not be bundled with the above mentioned privacy browsers).
All the browsers in this list are open source and offer much greater privacy than Chrome, Edge/Internet Explorer or Safari.