Avoid Like The Plague:

1. Opera (GX)

Opera is owned by a Chinese company with a horrible privacy and consumer track record. They’ve operated a VPN where they steal your data, were caught up in a lending scheme, and more. Vivaldi, a recommendation below, was founded by the people who made Opera before it got bought, and have many of the same features. It’s still not as great as Firefox, but a drop-in replacement nonetheless. [UPDATE 2024-05-28: Here’s a great article about the shadiness of Opera]

Avoid at all costs:

1. Brave Browser

Brave Browser has been caught doing some shady things like inserting their referral link into Amazon, and BAT is kind of a crypto scam where they insert ads as notifications to steal, I mean payout money , again I meant their own cryptocurrency to online creators. The CEO Brendan Eich also supported a bill in California to ban same-sex marriage.

https://practicaltypography.com/the-cowardice-of-brave.html

2. Google Chrome

Google makes money from ads and tracking users. Google Chrome is just a funnel for the ads and tracking business. All Google Chrome does is send your browsing data back to Google so they can use it to sell more ads to you. It’s a creepy, nasty business, and especially for something so vital as a browser. It also has a near-monopoly on the browser market which allows them to get away with this stuff. We need competition to Google.

Avoid if you can:

1. Microsoft Edge

Microsoft has a bad record on internet browsers and consumer protections, and I wouldn’t recommend them. But recently Microsoft has been trending in an upward direction with Edge, as a decent fork of Chromium with some nice features. I still wouldn’t trust slimy Microsoft with a ten foot pole, but Edge isn’t as bad as say Chrome or Opera.

Recommendations:

1. Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is my top pick because it’s the only one of the lot operated by a nonprofit with a track record for protecting consumers’ interests. They have done a great job operating Firefox for the last 20 years, and I expect that to continue into the future.

2. Ungoogled Chromium

Ungoogled Chromium is Google Chrome but without the Google. Google makes Chromium, the underlying technology for other browsers to use, so the Ungoogled Chromium team just took out all the creepy parts of Chrome. If you like Chrome, this is the same thing but better.

3. Arc Browser

Arc Browser is an excellent browser for Mac users. It has a stunning design and great functionality. It’s based on Chromium, the same thing as Chrome but without the creepy parts. I don’t trust them as much as the Ungoogled Chromium and Firefox teams was they are a for-profit company that doesn’t release their code to the public, but it seems like a solid browser at the moment.

4. Vivaldi

Vivaldi is my pick for Opera users. Founded by the same people who made Opera before it got bought, it has many of the same features but operated by an independent company. They also don’t release their code to the public, but it’s a fine browser for people familiar with Opera