content: Let's talk about browsers I've seen several posts & discussions lately about various browsers and their various advantages and disadvantages. So I decided to make a list of browsers and discuss some of their merits and faults. This list is not exhaustive, considers only desktop browsers, and does not include browsers that are developed solely for a single platform (so Internet Explorer, Safari, MS Edge for example are not included). I want to focus on the privacy advantages/disadvantages of browsers as well as other aspects such as speed, compatibility, etc. They are presented in no particular order. Homepage - https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/desktop/ Uses the Blink layout engine. You all know this browser. Made by Google and based on Chromium, it is proprietary and not privacy friendly. Currently the world's most popular browser and arguably the fastest though there are widespread reports of it eating RAM like candy. There is also concern that its layout engine may become the defacto standard for rendering content leading to a repeat of the browser wars from the late '90s-early '00s. If you have any concern at all for privacy, avoid this browser at all costs. Homepage - https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/ Uses the Gecko layout engine but will switch in the near future to Mozilla's new engine, Quantum. This browser used to be king but has slowly faded away over the past decade partially due to the emergence of Chrome and partially due to neglect and poor development decisions. Developed by Mozilla, it is still the world's 3rd most popular browser. Mozilla has recently indicated a desire to revitalize the browser. It struggles to keep up with Chrome in terms of speed but occasionally a new version will benchmark faster than Chrome. It is not very privacy friendly out-of-the-box but can be configured to be quite friendly to the privacy conscious users. There are a host of addons available that help in this respect. The browser is mostly open-source but the Firefox branding is proprietary. Mozilla's political stances have caused concern among Voaters and others. Homepage - https://www.chromium.org/Home Uses the Blink layout engine. This browser is the base for Google Chrome but is fully open-source. It is easily installable on GNU/Linux but builds can be found for Windows and Mac. It does not include the auto-updater that Chrome does and a few other proprietary bits of Chrome are also not included. Privacy-wise, it is better than Chrome but still relies on Google's services far too much. Use this browser if you absolutely must have Chrome but still want some privacy. Homepage - https://brave.com Uses the Blink layout engine. Developed by the former CEO of Mozilla and creator of Javascript, Brandon Eich, this new browser aims to provide a privacy and user respectful advertising focused experience out-of-the-box. It is based off of Chromium but comes with a custom adblocker installed that either replaces ads with Brave-approved ads or blocks all ads depending on user preference. Brave is working to create an ad-network that only allows ads that respect user privacy otherwise behave themselves. The browser includes a configurable micro-payment system that allows the user to pay website owners. This is an optional system that Brave hopes will be able to seriously reduce the need for website to rely on advertising. The browser is open source. Brave has recently added webtorrent support, a relatively new technology that allows web pages to be served over the Bittorrent protocol. The privacy implication of this are not yet clear. The browser currently lacks addon support but it is coming soon. The browser is still undergoing heavy development so don't be surprised if you find a few rough edges. Homepage - https://www.torproject.org/ Uses the Gecko layout engine. Not quite Firefox but not quite a fork, this browser is basically Firefox with a few tweaks, some bundled addons & settings, and built-in TOR support. Mozilla & the TOR Foundation are working to add the adjustments to Firefox proper. The browser sacrifices privacy for anonymity but is the best browser for anonymity. Homepage - https://qupzilla.com/ Uses the QtWebEngine layout engine. A small, open source, alternative browser, Qupzilla is developed by David Rosca, also known as nowrep. It began as a school project but has continued to grow since then. It includes all basic browser functionality the extension system is lacking; it comes with several important extensions (such as adblock) preinstalled but good luck finding more. It allows for quite a bit of tweaking in the settings. The privacy costs of this browser are not known but are almost guaranteed to be less than Chrome. Homepage - https://konqueror.org/ Uses the KHTML layout engine (optionally allows Webkit). This browser is developed by the KDE project. It predates all other browsers in this list by 6 years and is open source. Its layout engine is the predecessor of the WebKit engine which is the predecessor of the Blink engine. Konqueror is more than just a web browser and serves also as a file manager. The browser is highly configurable and quite fast but lacks a robust addon ecosystem. It includes an adblocker by default and allows for great control over cookies. It is generally considered to be privacy friendly. Homepage - https://www.opera.com/ Uses the Blink layout engine. (Formerly used the Presto engine.) This proprietary browser used to have a cult following and was widely considered to be aimed at power-users. It includes an optional VPN to increase user privacy. After the browser switched to the Blink engine, many features were lost. The browser was sold in 2016 to the Chinese internet company Qihoo. This browser is likely the only one in this list that is a dangerous to user privacy as Google Chrome. Homepage - https://vivaldi.com/ Uses the Blink layout engine. This new browser is an attempt to create a browser in the mold of the old Opera. Chrome extensions are compatible and the developers plan to release an independent platform for extensions. It is proprietary but appears to care more about user privacy than Chrome. Homepage - http://midori-browser.org/ Users the WebKit layout engine. Another small browser, Midori is used by default in the Elementary GNU/Linux distro. It aims to be lightweight and fast. It is developed by Christian Dywan and Nancy Runge. It is fast and open source but not always stable. Homepage - https://jtechme.github.io/jg/jumpgo Uses the Gecko layout engine. A small browser project started in 2011, it is the only non-Firefox based browser that I am aware of to use the Gecko engine. As it does not include a Linux version I have never used it. Homepage - https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ Maintained by the GNU project, this is basically Firefox without any proprietary code or trademarks. The maintainers also compile a list of free (as in freedom) plugins. It is better for privacy than Firefox out-of-the-box. Homepage - https://www.palemoon.org/ Uses the Goanna layout engine. This browser is a non-tracking fork of Firefox and uses its own fork of the Gecko engine. It is developed by Moonchild Productions and is open source. Widely loved by Voaters, this is probably the best known Firefox fork. It supports some Firefox addons and has a small but growing ecosystem of its own addons. Privacy-wise, it is better than Firefox by default but may not be as secure due to smaller its developer base. Its lead developer maintains that security patches to Firefox are regularly merged to Pale Moon. Its users like it in part because it uses Firefox's pre-Aurora UI. As with Firefox, the branding is Proprietary. Homepage - http://www.dillo.org/ Uses the Dillo layout engine. Dillo is probably the smallest, fastest browser in this list. It sacrifices compatibility for speed and weight and is popular with minimalist & lightweight Linux distros. It does not support Windows but is compiled for OSX, GNU/Linux, and other OSes. It does not have any particular privacy features. Homepage - https://www.waterfoxproject.org Uses the Gecko layout engine. Waterfox is intended to be a faster, more privacy conscious version of Firefox. It is compatible with most Firefox addons and focuses on 64bit. It removes the pocket integration, Adobe DRM, and telemetry found in Firefox. Benchmarks are inconclusive as to if it is faster than Firefox. Edit: Safari, not Opera, is not included.