Brave emphasizes ad-blocking and privacy. At the same time, it lets you earn cryptocurrency while you browse. Like most modern browsers, Brave relies on a customized version of Chromium (the code that powers Google Chrome), so it’s compatible with most websites. Brave has higher goals than simply letting you hoard crypto or even protecting your privacy. Its creators want to achieve a revolution in how web commerce works, with direct micropayments replacing rampant web ads. To earn cryptocurrency rewards with Brave, the software periodically pops up an unobtrusive ad in a box outside the browser window—you can turn it off if you prefer.

The EFF’s Cover Your Tracks tool reports “strong protection against Web tracking.” A feature called Shields blocks third-party ads and tracking cookies by default. Brave forces the use of HTTPS (a common feature in recent browsers) and lets you choose between Standard and Aggressive tracker-blocking and ad-blocking. Brave also has advanced fingerprinting protections that “randomize the output of semi-identifying browser features” and turn off features that sites commonly use to sniff device info. In our brief tests, Brave was the only browser for which the EFF tool reported a randomized fingerprint. Brave offers other privacy-focused products, including for messaging, news, search, and video calling. A VPN option that cloaks all apps on your system costs $9.99 per month. The browser even now has generative AI tools that summarize web pages and generate text.

Brave now offers a $60 minimalist web browser called Brave Origin. It removes features like its cryptocurrency wallet and Leo AI. However, you can still streamline the Brave browser for free in a few clicks.

Platforms: Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows

The famed private search provider DuckDuckGo has a standalone desktop and mobile web browser. The Chromium-based browser boasts some design niceties. For example, a flame button at the top, sort of a panic button, lets you close tabs and delete browsing data instantly. The search bar is centered and on the same line as the back and forward navigation buttons for a clean and clear look. The new tab page offers custom site buttons and a list of previous sites you visited, with a count of how many trackers it found and blocked for each.

The browser also includes automatic cookie consent management for pop-ups and support for the emerging Global Privacy Control standard. It has Duck Player for playing YouTube videos without Google ads, which worked well in testing and could be reason enough to install the DuckDuckGo web browser.

You can also install the DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials extension in your existing desktop browser to make it more private. It blocks third-party trackers, switches your search engine to its privacy-focused one, forces sites to use an encrypted HTTPS connection where available, and lets you see a privacy score for sites you visit. The extension raised Chrome’s score on the EFF’s Cover Your Tracks tool to "strong protection," which was also the score for the standalone DuckDuckGo browser.

Platforms: Android, iOS, macOS, Windows

Mozilla has long been at the forefront of trying to improve privacy on the web. Its Firefox browser is a free and open-source alternative that doesn't use the Chromium code base. The company introduced the Do Not Track initiative, and Firefox was the first browser to feature a private browsing mode that could hide browsing activity not only from people with access to your device but also from the sites you visit. Firefox's Total Cookie Protection places each site's cookies in a separate web container, preventing sites from sharing your data.

Its Enhanced Tracking Protection’s Standard setting blocks cross-site cookies in Private Windows, cross-site tracking cookies, cryptominers, fingerprinters, tracking content in Private Windows, and social media trackers. Firefox includes built-in support for the Global Privacy Control initiative, which requests that sites not share or sell your private data.

The EFF’s Cover Your Tracks tool reports “strong protection against web tracking” at this setting. Strict mode blocks trackers hidden in ads, videos, and other site content. Firefox's standard fingerprinting protection uses a list of known and suspected fingerprint trackers, and another feature called Resist Fingerprinting "limits the personal characteristics of a user’s operating system and hardware exposed to websites." However, its support page states that this setting can break some websites. On privacytests.org, Firefox does better than the big first-party browsers, but doesn't check off as many boxes as Brave, LibreWolf, and Mullvad.

Platforms: Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows

LibreWolf is a modified version of the open-source Firefox browser that hardens security and removes any whiff of "phoning home" that many browsers do, particularly those from big tech vendors like Apple, Google, and Microsoft. LibreWolf won't win any design awards with its bare-bones interface, and it offers little in the way of browsing conveniences aside from the standard bookmarks, tabs, and history, but that's not its point.

By default, LibreWolf automatically clears browser data and cookies when you close the browser. This might be inconvenient, as it means you must sign in to each website you use every time you open the browser. You can turn this off, however, and it's possible to configure other browsers to erase browsing data on exit.

LibreWolf comes with the excellent uBlock Origin ad-blocking extension with Tracking Protection and uses the non-data-gathering DuckDuckGo as its default search engine. The browser earns excellent scores on the open-source PrivacyTests.org set of web browser privacy measurements, and the EFF's Cover Your Tracks fingerprinting test reports "strong protection against web tracking." So intent on not sending any data to servers is the browser that it turns off the Google Safe Browsing protection that's active in standard Firefox.

Platforms: Linux, macOS, Windows

Mullvad Browser uses Mozilla's open-source Firefox codebase. This browser is a collaboration between the Mullvad VPN service and the Tor Project. It's designed to prevent browser fingerprinting and make everyone using the Mullvad Browser with the Mullvad VPN appear identical. You can use it with any VPN—or no VPN—but it's most effective alongside Mullvad VPN or at least a trusted VPN.

It looks just like the Tor browser but doesn't offer actual Tor functionality (unlike the Brave browser, which even recommends using the full Tor Browser to access Tor). Mullvad, however, does implement protections against AI-powered privacy threats with its DAITA (Defense against AI-guided Traffic Analysis) technology.

Mullvad has its own leak test, which is somewhat self-serving since only browsers configured to use Mullvad's DNS servers pass it. The browser comes with the excellent uBlock Origin ad- and tracker-blocking extension. And the default search provider is DuckDuckGo, which is better for privacy than Google or Bing. The Mullvad browser pushes you toward signing up for the company's Mullvad VPN service, but at least that's among our Editors' Choice winners for VPNs. The browser performs very well on both the PrivacyTests.org suite and EFF's Cover Your Tracks test, indicating that it blocks ads and invisible trackers and has a non-unique fingerprint.

Platforms: Linux, macOS, Windows

The Tor (it stands for the onion router) browser’s slogan is, “Protect yourself against tracking, surveillance, and censorship.” It provides a multistep encrypted route for your browsing that makes identifying you very difficult. It offers even more privacy than a VPN because your encrypted traffic goes through at least three nodes. The first node knows the source but not the destination of the traffic, the middle ones know neither, and the last knows only the destination. This system makes it nearly impossible to trace traffic back to you. Tor also lets you access sites that use its onion protocol on the dark web.

The downsides? It slows down your browsing, and some sites don't play well with it. For instance, if you crank up Tor to its safest level of protection and disable JavaScript, a lot of common sites won’t run—basically anything that features interactive content, such as YouTube.

The EFF's Cover Your Tracks tool reports "strong protection against web tracking" and "a non-unique fingerprint." It also reported the lowest amount of identifying data of any browser I tested, under 10 bits. Tor came in fourth on the PrivacyTests.org browser tests, with 132 passes behind Brave (143), Mullvad (141), and LibreWolf (139).

An even more private way to run Tor is through Tails, a lightweight operating system based on Ubuntu that you run off a USB drive. Tails doesn’t save any unencrypted data from your browsing session and leaves no traces on your computer’s drive.

Platforms: Android, Linux, macOS, Windows

Vivaldi includes Proton VPN, our top-rated VPN service, with unlimited free data. You can activate it from the VPN button on the browser's toolbar. Note that Vivaldi's Proton VPN integration functions as a proxy and protects traffic only within the Vivaldi browser. You need a separate VPN to protect traffic from other applications on your device.

This Chromium-based browser also comes with an ad blocker and a tracker blocker. Vivaldi's browser sync feature uses end-to-end encryption to protect your bookmarks and other browsing data. Its privacy policy promises not to profile you or sell your data.

Beyond privacy features, Vivaldi is an extremely customizable alternative web browser developed by one of the creators of Opera. Vivaldi's web panels sidebar lets you load any web page you like alongside your current web page. The browser supports adjustable mouse gestures and even lets you move the tab bar to the bottom of the browser window. It also includes an optional calendar, email client, and feed reader.

Platforms: Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows

Waterfox is based on the same Gecko web rendering engine that powers Firefox. The organization behind Waterfox became independent of its corporate owner in 2023, so it's now an independent project. The browser's docs include a clear, reassuring privacy policy, and it uses the same Enhanced Tracking Protection as Firefox. The browser's privacy policy says, "We try to avoid any personal data where we can and keep data collection to the minimum." The tracking protection in Waterfox is identical to that in Firefox, which claims to protect against cross-site tracking cookies, cryptominers, fingerprinters, social media trackers, and trackers hidden in ads, videos, and other content. For more privacy, you can turn off WebRTC.

Although Waterfox and LibreWolf are both based on Firefox, Waterfox is less strict and makes different trade-offs. For example, Waterfox won't automatically clear cookies and sign you out of websites when you close the browser with its default settings, while LibreWolf does. Waterfox also uses Google's Safe Browsing service to block phishing and malware. LibreWolf disables Google Safe Browsing for privacy reasons, but this reduces protection against online threats.

Like Firefox, Waterfox lets you sync add-ons, bookmarks, history, passwords, settings, and tabs. The browser uses Oblivious DNS, which obscures your website requests from your ISP, a boon to privacy. You can also use any extensions and themes designed for Firefox. The EFF's Cover Your Tracks test reports strong protection against tracking with Waterfox's default privacy setting. The test, however, reports a unique fingerprint despite the browser's claim of fingerprint protection. Like most browsers here, this feature uses only a block list rather than actually randomizing fingerprint data like Brave. It currently defaults to Bing for web searches for financial support, but you can, of course, change your search provider to something more privacy-focused (such as DuckDuckGo). The Waterfox developers are working on a first-party private search option.

Platforms: Linux, macOS, Windows