Tired of Chrome? Try These Alternatives
If you’re one of the people still using Google Chrome as their main browser, well first of all you’re obviously in good company and bad too.
Seriously. I’m going to explain why this is so important, but what I want to show you is just how easy it is to move browsers and how much better your life will be when you break up with Chrome.
Here, I’ll tell you right now that the best alternatives for chrome browser for you to use instead of Chrome is Brave or Firefox. Or in some cases, it could be Safari, Edge, Librewolf, or Tor.
So I guess the short answer is that pretty much anything is better than using Chrome but the answer is interesting, and for you to make the most informed decision, here’s what you need to know.
My goal is to get you to seriously consider changing your default browser on both your desktop and mobile device. Now I wish there was a one-size-fits-all alternative, but as with any privacy-related issue, the solution that works best for you is heavily dependent upon your situation and your threat profile.
For example, let’s say you don’t have a high threat profile, meaning, you recognize the need for greater privacy but you’re not particularly paranoid about a government agency monitoring your device and you don’t feel threatened by Big Tech companies like Google and Facebook. That’s not a bad thing.
And sometimes the best alternative is the one that’s easiest to implement. For you, that might be the native browser for your operating system. If all your products are Apple, then that would be the Safari browser.
For Windows users, you’ll find the Edge browser installed by default. My only recommendation here — and this applies to everybody — I would advise you to spend a couple of minutes exploring the privacy settings on the browser you end up choosing.
In Safari, for example, you can disable ad tracking, which Apple hilariously tries to sugarcoat by saying that you are “allowing ad effectiveness”. Disable that. You can also disable the use of Apple Pay, which you may or may not want to do, and you can block all cookies, which may impact your experience on some websites you visit.
For Edge, you are given three levels of tracking prevention: basic, balanced, and strict. For both browsers, tune the settings to fit your preferences and then adjust as you go along and learn how those settings affect all the websites that you normally visit.
Ok, if you have a higher threat profile or a greater desire for privacy, my go-to internet browser is Brave. And I’m not the only one who says this “Of all these options, Brave and Firefox rank the highest.”
“My #1 browser to ditch Chrome for is Brave.” From the moment you install the Brave browser, the default settings provide the greatest level of privacy than what you’ll find in any other browser. And that’s not just my opinion.
That’s backed up by independent tests that compare each of the major browsers on both desktop and mobile platforms. Brave is free to download and use, and the migration process from Chrome is incredibly simple. Just open your desktop menu, find bookmarks, and click on “Import bookmarks and settings”. Brave will instantly recognize the browsers you already have installed on your computer and allows you to choose which data you would like to import.
All in all, it took me less than 5 minutes to finish the migration and I was able to easily sync that with the Brave browser on my phone. There are several online reviews available to learn more about Brave and its features. You can read from here Brave Browser Review .
Let’s say for a moment that your interest in privacy is just off the charts. Perhaps you feel like an ex or a family member is tracking you or you highly suspect that the government is watching what you’re doing.
There are a few options for you, but before I share what those are, let me explain a few things. First, there is no guarantee of complete anonymity, no matter which browser you choose. Second, at this level of privacy, most of the time you won’t have a mobile browser option or if you do, it’s a stripped-down version of the desktop browser that doesn’t offer the same privacy benefits.
And finally, remember that there’s always a balance. You’re always giving up something, whether that’s your data and privacy on one side, ease of use, internet speed, or something else on this side. There is no perfect solution, only an acceptable balance. So with that out of the way, the two best options here are Firefox and the Tor browser.
The advantage of Firefox and Tor over a lot of the previous browsers I’ve mentioned already is the fact that they were not dependent on the Chromium engine, which is the engine that runs more than 70% of the web including Google’s Chrome browser.
Now there are pros and cons to using a Chromium-based browser and the one I use daily Brave, is Chromium-based, so I’m not bashing it at all.
But if your goal is to remove yourself from any trace of Google, and I know a lot of people who want to do this, then using a non-Chromium browser is probably important to you. The only problem is that Firefox doesn’t offer the greatest privacy out of the box.
There are even custom versions of Firefox, such as Librewolf, which offer high levels of privacy out of the box but require a bit more hands-on technical know-how than the average user is used to seeing, at least for an internet browser.
There’s a process and you have to be motivated to go through it. And for all the benefits of something like the Tor browser, the biggest downsides here are a decreased internet speed and the fact that some websites block any traffic coming from Tor.
Keep in mind that my message here has been to decrease using Chrome as your main browser, not necessarily to delete it.
