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Browser apps review

Overall best
  • For computer: Chrome
  • For phone: Kiwi
  • For browser extensions, checkout extensions guide
  • Ways to customize browing without extensions: browsers with built-in ad block, external DNS based blocking, or use external programs like Adguard with HTTPS certificate filtering.

Browser is key to experience the Internet and an intense battleground of tech monopolies. Modern browsers are almost equally fast. The most important things to consider are censorship and features.

  • PWA (web app) is supported in all mobile browsers, except iOS webview. It's also supported in some Chromium desktop browsers

Concerns​

Everything you want​

  • Own and control your data

  • Cross-platform convenience

  • Open source

  • Community decision making

Without the bad stuff​

  • No 3rd party access

    • No censorship

    • No data mining

    • No commercial or state surveillance

    • No eavesdropping

  • No walled gardens

Speed test​

⭐ Kiwi for mobile​

  • https://kiwibrowser.com/
  • May be kicked out of Google extension store because it's too good
    • [Update: Restored] Kiwi Browser removed from Play Store due to YouTube background playback

Pro​

  • Open source
  • Full Chromium browser, can install any extension!

Con​

  • Android version only
  • Low ratings (4.0)

⭐ Chrome for desktop​

Usage tips

  • Customized search engines are good
  • Do not use tab grouping because they do not restore after browser restart!
  • Chrome as an OS: Initial intention was to integrate all platforms and run vm for chrome. That thought has been dropped
  • Release versions: canary > dev > beta > regular

Pro​

  • A good portion is open source (Chromium)
  • Simple
  • Fastest
  • Easy sync with Google account
  • Best developer tools

Con​

  • Censors domains and websites

    • Will display "harmful content warning" for some political controvercial sites
    • Will display red or grey "unsafe padlock" for any website without a Google-approved "Certificate Authority" (CA)

  • Censors extensions

    • Force-disable all extensions under Chrome web store domain!

    • Censored extensions such as Gab's "Dissenter" extension, youtube downloaders etc.

    • To only allow extensions in Chrome Web Store soon

    • Limiting extension capabilities

      • The developers of such extensions uBlock Origin, uMatrix and NoScript say that the filters allowed by the interface are not enough to build even the simplest software. This means that now advertising on Google will be inevitable. The ability to block ads will be retained only for corporate clients.

      • “Over the years, Manifest V3 is more secure, performant and more privacy-friendly than its predecessor,” said David Lee, Product Manager for Chrome Extensions and Chrome Web Store.

      • Lee clarified that extensions on Manifest V2 will no longer be accepted in the Chrome Web Store from January 17, 2022, and existing extensions can be updated. From January 2023, extensions on the old standard will no longer be launched, and it will no longer be possible to update them.

Tor​

  • Based on Firefox

Pro​

  • Famous for preserving privacy

Con​

  • Slow for daily work

Waterfox​

Pro​

Con​

  • Much slower than Chromium browsers
  • One person project. Risky to be discontinued
  • Risk being incompatible with some sites because of the low market share of Gecko based browsers
  • Search engine not as customizable as Chromium

Chromium​

Pro​

  • Open source
  • Simple
  • Fastest
  • Has the lastest improvements over Chrome

Con​

  • Loses cookies after restart, so need to re-login to many websites

  • Not available in Google Android Store

  • Started by Google and is still dominated by Google

    • user are subject to Google terms of service also talks about how it is still used for google analytics

  • Be prepared for patches that makes sense for Google's commercial interest rather but worsens the user experience

  • Troublesome to sync settings across devices (basically just copy and paste the files)

Opera​

Pro​

  • Not relying on Google services

    • Can blacklist Google extension store pages

  • Built-in adblock, which should be free from Chromium extension censorship (manifest v3). Though it's not very good.

Con​

Yandex​

Pro​

  • Auto import Chrome settings

Con​

  • Still relies on Google services

    • Forced whitelisting of the Chrome App Store. Cannot blacklist

  • Only 3 mobile extensions

Vivaldi​

  • Former Opera founder left to make Vivaldi browser

Con​

  • Still relies on Google services

    • Forced whitelisting of the Chrome App Store. Cannot blacklist

  • No mobile extension support

Edge​

Pro

  • Fastest
  • UI innovations

Con

  • Bundled with Windows and difficult to switch default browser
  • Censorship: Made by Microsoft, many censorship issues
  • No extension Support for Android version of Edge browser

Dissenter​

https://apps.gab.com/

  • Desktop only (phone version censored by Apple and Google)
  • a fast ad-blocking web browser based on Brave
  • By reputable Gab
  • Updated back in 2019, using old Chromium, a bit too old for now
  • The key reason of installing, the dissenter extension is broken https://github.com/gab-ai-inc/gab-dissenter-extension/

Safari​

  • By Apple
  • Unique approach to extensions, like Manifest 2.5 - they have kept background pages but made them ephemeral; they have implemented DNR (which only makes sense as behind the scene it runs the regular Safari Content Blocker)

Pro​

  • Extensions on all platforms, desktop and mobile

Con​

  • Closed source
  • Full of bugs for the extension platform

Brave​

  • Mobile version doesn’t have extensions!
  • Based on Chromium
  • Can install PWA on Android

Pro​

  • Talented founder: The firm was co-founded by Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript and a co-founder of Mozilla

  • Principled founder: after he left that browser vendor under pressure for supporting California's 2008 Proposition 8, a ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage

  • Built-in adblock, which should be free from Chromium extension censorship (manifest v3)

Con​

  • Still relies on Google services

    • Forced whitelisting of the Chrome App Store. Cannot blacklist

  • Weird business model, has ads

    • The web browser from Brave Software relies on an unusual business model: it strips out ads from websites, replaces them with its own ads, then allows users to send money to sites they like. The "Brave Rewards" network.

  • Losing tabs and bad crash recovery

Duckduckgo​

  • No desktop support
  • No mobile extension support

Iron browser​

https://www.srware.net/iron/

  • Privacy focused, based on Chromium
  • Bad reviews
  • Hard to use

Firefox​

Pro​

Con​

About mobile extensions​

Firefox nightly for phone​

Use Nightly on phones for better support for uBlock Origin

  • Can display everything properly
  • Can import settings file
  • Can install unsigned add-ons

Add-ons to install on mobile:

  • uBlock Origin to block ads
  • Video background play fix to allow YouTube and other videos to continue playing while screen is turned off

Read more​

Browser engines​

  • Modern

    • Blink

      • Google Chrome/Chromium (desktop)
      • Opera (desktop)
      • Microsoft Edge (Chromium) (desktop)
      • Best in graphic-intense scenarios

    • Gecko

      • Firefox (desktop: 0.85.5 and later)[note 1]
      • Firefox for Android (mobile: 0.9.1.0 and later)
      • Thunderbird (desktop: 1.3.0 and later)
      • SeaMonkey

  • Old

    • WebKit
      • Safari
    • EdgeHTML
      • Microsoft Edge (legacy)

Browser feature comparison​

Browser market share​

Potential browsers to look for​