by Henry Bueltmann
June 15th 2022 Microsoft finally killed off Internet Explorer.
So you’ve been using Internet Explorer since 95 and are now out of a web browser, what do you switch to? This article can help. Here are details about most mainstream web browsers in no particular order.
Google Chrome
Chrome is the most popular web browser in the world by a longshot. It has a dominant market share of 65% worldwide and 48.6% in the US. Chrome is also a Chromium based browser. Chromium based browsers are built on the foundation of Chromium, an open source browser that many others are built on top of. Chromium is an extremely basic browser, so companies will modify and add on to Chromium and release their own browsers. All Chromium based browsers should support the same plugins. Google Chrome is generally the fastest web browser. However, this is also owned by Google, meaning you get zero privacy in anything you do, even in incognito mode. All your activity is monitored and analyzed by Google if you use this.
Firefox
Firefox is the web browser that I personally use on my PC. It is a very privacy respecting web browser with an extensive plugin library. However, Firefox does suffer from being a bit slower than other browsers and it has fewer plugin options than Chromium based browsers. I do recommend this as a great private browser, and the slower speed is not drastic or unusable compared to other browsers.
Safari
Safari is the browser that comes with all iPhones and Macs. It has very few plugins or extensions available for the browser. Safari is also rather slow compared to other browsers. It’s a proprietary Apple browser, meaning it has the same privacy issue as Google Chrome, tracking everything you do. I cannot recommend using this browser, it really doesn’t have benefits over other browsers.
Microsoft Edge
Edge is the browser that comes with all Windows devices. It is nearly neck and neck in speed with Google Chrome. It has access to all Chromium plugins, meaning it ties with Chrome in plugins. However, it is heavily forced by Windows, and all your activity is monitored by Microsoft. It is a useful tool for installing other browsers.
Brave
Brave is a private web browser that comes with an integrated ad blocker. It is Chromium based, meaning it ties with Chrome and Edge for plugins. It’s the fastest of the private browsers, beating Firefox and Tor in speed. I do recommend this as a good private web browser built on Chromium.
Opera
Opera is a strange one. It comes with many features that other browsers don’t, such as an integrated crypto wallet, integrated messaging apps, and a built-in VPN. However, all these features make it rather slow and RAM heavy, and the VPN is not very private or fast. If you have a beefy computer and really want to do everything from your browser then this makes sense, otherwise there are much better options.
Tor
Tor is the most private web browser possible. It sends all your activity through three volunteer-run remote relays, keeping you highly anonymous and safe. This does mean that it has the worst speed of any browser listed here. Additionally, many websites will straight up fail to function in Tor. This is a good browser to use to navigate the darknet or do very suspicious stuff, but it does not make sense as an ordinary daily use option.
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