On Browsers (Like, Other Than Chrome)

In the history of Web Browsers, market domination has been the source of problems. Netscape Navigator’s dominance gave way to Internet Explorer (though admittedly very shady business tactics) and then frustration over Microsoft’s own handling of Internet Explorer paved the way for Mozilla Firefox’s boom. But then, a lot of technological advancements made Google’s Chrome a lot more attractive, and it gained market share. And now, that’s the state of the browser economy.

Google Chrome is far and away the most popular browser out there. Handling 65% of all internet traffic (and close to 80% if you only look at computers), and it got to that position in part by being efficient and modern. Google hires incredibly talented people to work on Chrome to keep it successful, but it is a browser with downsides. 

• Chrome doesn’t care about your privacy. And it has demonstrated that repeatedly. When you start with a fresh install of Chrome, it first asks you to sign in using your Google account. This is how your face appears in the top right corner of the browser. This is also what starts Chrome tracking each and everything you do on the web. Yes, even in incognito. Google recently had to pay a $392M settlement with 40 state attorneys general related to this.
• Chrome is a resource hog. While the skeleton of Chrome is a lightweight architecture called Chromium (more on that later), the actual Chrome browser adds a lot of proprietary elements to that, which among other things, will slow down your computer’s performance and suck battery life. Some details on this can be found on the not-at-all balanced polemic Chrome Is Bad.

While I can’t agree with a statement as simple as “Chrome is bad,” I do think about some of the problems it creates, and so to that end, I would like to showcase some alternatives to Chrome you might want to consider. If, at the end of the day, Chrome is still what you want, that’s great! But at least you can know you’ve made an informed decision.

Before digging into some of the other options, let’s describe what Chrome is:

Facts at a glance

Pros

• Can sync across multiple devices
• Integrates with Google products
• The underlying engine (Blink & V8) is very fast. V8, especially, is what a lot of modern javascript runs off.
• Google is the most responsible for the changes to the Chromium engine, so new website features will almost always be available in Chrome first.

Cons

• It is a significant memory hog, especially on MacOS.
• There are very real privacy concerns with Google integration.
• Google will track everything you do in Chrome. (Yes, even in incognito.)
• The Chromium approach (Blink + V8) is available in other browsers without some of these tradeoffs.

More info

• For people who like the bleeding edge, there is also Chrome Dev and Chrome Canary to get all the newest updates.

A favorite of privacy enthusiasts, Brave’s extremely fast and streamlined browser offers excellent privacy defaults. While Brave is a fork of Chromium, its underlying goals are not tied to ad revenue as Google is, so the build is considerably different.

Facts at a glance

Pros

• Uses a lot of the same tech as Chrome, but faster
• Blocks tracking & ads by default.
• The fastest browser on this list.
• In addition to normal Privacy mode, Brave also allows you to use an augmented privacy window with Tor.

Cons

• Some of Brave’s script-blocking can make sites run unpredictably if you’re in “Shields Up” mode.
• Relies on Chromium for most of the under-the-hood technology.
• Brave comes with a lot of crypo stuff out of the box. You can turn it off but expect to see ads for new cryptocurrencies until you do.

Fun (?) Facts

• Brave’s market share is difficult (if not impossible) to guess because Brave goes undercover. Brave’s user agent disguises itself as Chrome, so distinguishing Brave from Chrome in real-world environments is difficult (although not impossible).
• Brave was created by Brendan Eich (the original creator of JavaScript) after leaving Mozilla - Brave’s reason for existing is to address concerns Eich had about other browsers.
• Brave’s effort at monetization is via the BAT (Brave Attention Token). This is meant to allow website visitors to directly pay website makers for their content without seeing ads, with Brave taking a piece of the cut on the exchange. This also ties to the crypto stuff above.
• By default, Brave uses its own privacy-focused search engine, directly competing with DuckDuckGo.

Firefox predates Chrome by a couple of years and is run on a completely different engine (Gecko + Spider Monkey). This has been rebuilt a couple of times since the browser first came out. Firefox is the flagship product of Mozilla, a non-profit Corporation also responsible for the MDN website documentation, the Thunderbird mail client, Mozilla’s VPN, and Pocket.

Facts at a glance

Pros

• Run by Mozilla, an American non-profit organization
• It has excellent developer tools, especially if you opt for Firefox Developer Edition.
• It has a robust directory of extensions that are specific to Firefox. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/extensions/
• If you set it up that way, you can sync across devices (like Chrome).

Cons

• Financially dependent on large ad contracts with tech companies (primarily Google)
• As the only browser running on the Gecko engine, Mozilla has difficulty keeping up with modern web specs.
• Bleeding Edge CSS often gets to Firefox much later than Chromium browsers.

Safari is the defacto web browser offered by Apple and has held a steady second-place market share on account of its install base across all Apple products (more of that in fun facts). Since Safari is made by Apple and their goal is to make sure you buy, and like Apple products, their motive differs from all other browsers on this list.

Facts at a glance

Pros

• Runs with much lower power usage on MacOS devices.
• It will integrate better with other Apple software.

Cons

• Only available on Apple devices.
• Very limited extension ecosystem.
• Minimal developer tools.

Fun (?) Facts

• Every single browser used on an iOS device (iPhones, iPads, etc) is actually running Safari due to Apple’s legal control of the ecosystem. If you’re running something called “Firefox” on an iPhone, that’s actually Safari with some Firefox-specific implementations.

Initially created as a fork of Opera (another Chromium browser), Vivaldi was made with an eye on productivity and a more full-featured browser than other Chrome alternatives. The Vivaldi Suite offers calendar, email, task, and RSS views. While still faster than Chrome, Vivaldi aims to be more featureful.

Facts at a glance

Pros

• Some privacy protection out of the box, tho not as robust as Brave’s.
• Integrated features like Translate, Tasks, Calendar and Email.

Cons

• Vivaldi’s desire to keep caching makes it not the optimal choice if you’re doing a lot of front-end development work.

Fun facts

• Similar to Brave, Vivaldi uses a generic Chromium user agent to prevent the practice of browser sniffing. This makes it difficult (tho not impossible) to tell if a website user is running Vivaldi as their browser of choice, usually false reporting as Chrome.
• Brave was founded by Bon Jon Stephenson von Tetzschner, the Icelandic former CEO of Opera, who left Opera over disagreements with company management. Vivaldi was made to try to address these concerns.