So you are looking for Google Chrome alternatives because you want to protect your privacy.
There is countless of web browsers out there and you want to pick one that makes it worth
ditching Chrome.
You don’t need to sacrifice functionality.
Quite the contrary.
By switching to these privacy browsers, your device will no longer devote its resources
to send your browsing history and other private information to Google’s servers.
You want a privacy-focused browser that either blocks all trackers by default, or lets you
easily do that with simple configuration.
It needs to be fast, and should let you opt out of sending any personal information to anyone.
As a rule of thumb, we are going to go through a range browsers that are open source software,
meaning developers around the world can freely look at their source code and verify whether
their promise of privacy checks out.
I’ll briefly review each privacy browser on this list and mention its benefits and drawbacks.
You should be allowed to make your own informed decision so I won’t suggest any single one
over the rest.
This list is not a ranking, they are equally good when it comes to privacy protection.
If you like this tutorial, be sure to express your feelings so that Youtube knows people
find it useful and its algorithms will suggest it to more people.
Even though I clearly advise people to stop using Google services.
So much for their artificial “intelligence”.
Those of you watching who already use any of these Google Chrome alternatives, please
share your experience in the comments with your privacy browser of choice, so that people
can know more about their user experience.
After making these videos, I am never going to make any income from Youtube, as all of
my viewers will block ads by default.
But if you help me grow, maybe one day I’ll get a brand deal from Microsoft to promote
Edge as the best privacy browser ever.
The first privacy-focused browser we’re gonna look at is Brave Browser.
Brave is my browser of choice if I wanted my grandparents to protect their privacy without
having to do anything.
Usually with other browsers, you need to go through some configuration and install addons
to protect your online privacy.
With Brave, all that is pre-installed and pre-configured by default.
Right out of box, Brave will block all advertisements, trackers, and malware.
Brave integrated HTTPS Everywhere, which forces websites to use encryption if they support it,
so that your connection is more secure.
Third party cookies are also blocked, and if you are more vigilant about your privacy,
you can even block scripts and enable fingerprinting protection.
While this could break some sites, Brave allows you to easily manage that and only enable
scripts on sites you trust.
Script blocking is limited to only allowing all, or allowing none, which means you can’t
single out only tracking scripts to block and allowing the rest for the website to function.
Compared to having an extra extension to block individual scripts, Brave script blocking
won’t let you customize your web experience as much.
But not everybody is willing to go that extra mile for their privacy, so for those who just
want an easy but still strong privacy protection, Brave is there to do the job for them.
With just a single installation of Brave Browser, websites will render significantly faster
without all those ads and trackers.
Your bandwith consumption will decrease, your device will work faster and Brave will require
fewer resources to function properly.
It’s extremely simplistic and doesn’t bother you with any bloatware and spyware
that come pre-installed with Chrome.
Brave is consistent across platforms, and the way it looks and works on your big screen
or small screen, will be exactly the same.
With Brave you don’t have to learn anything.
Just let the browser work for you and enjoy the web free from advertisers and trackers.
The only drawback of Brave is that because it’s such a young project, it doesn’t
have a lot of support for other browser extensions.
If you want to personalize your browsing with unsupported add-ons that you can’t live
without, Brave doesn’t have any options for you to install those.
Brave gives you very lightweight, fast, and sleek browsing experience, but doesn’t let
you add anything of your own.
However, more and more developers are joining in as Brave increases its popularity.
So this fact will most likely change soon enough.
One of the problems with blatant ad blocking is that a lot of the web is funded by advertisements.
And just because a website runs ads, doesn’t mean it’s evil.
It turns out that people who run that website just need to eat as well.
You can support those websites by putting some money into your Brave wallet and donating
to websites you like in micro-transactions.
Another way to support good marketing is to allow Brave ads, which are advertisements
that do not track your privacy on the Internet.
Every time you click on an add, you submit to the retailer and advertiser all of your
personal information, like your username, email address, and your browsing fingerprint.
Advertisers need to learn this is not OK, and what Brave does is a great battle plan
to win the war for privacy.
To better protect your privacy on any browser, I recommend that you configure your browser
to delete all of browsing data and use bookmarks instead of browsing history.
Brave lets you easily clear browsing history each time you close a session.
You can also easily choose a password manager, but it’s only recommended that you store
your passwords encrypted and not in plain text inside your browser.
Another privacy browser is made by the champion of fighting for digital rights and privacy
on the Internet, the Mozilla Foundation.
Their Firefox browser is a flagship free and open source software, that came more than
a decade ago to save us all from the Internet Explorer.
Firefox’s market share dipped due to Google bashing our heads with their Chrome browser
each time you used a Google service.
But Firefox is still extremely important and it’s the browser that helps the Internet
be more free and open.
Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization, which means that unlike Google, Microsoft,
or Apple, it doesn’t have to track you to make a profit off of your privacy.
Firefox is often most recommended privacy-focused browser because it allows for immense configuration.
Not just through add-ons, but also by tweaking its code to make sure no information is tracked.
As you can see I already have some extensions installed on my Firefox.
That is because by default, Firefox doesn’t block any ads, encrypt the web, or deletes
cookies and trackers.
But you can turn it into a really powerful firewall with simple configuration.
Your absolute musts are uBlock Origin and HTTPS Everywhere.
You can block sending reports and telemetric data, and tell websites you don’t want to be tracked.
Unlike Chrome, Firefox will not track or sell your browsing history to advertisers.
So once you configure your Firefox to protect your privacy, you can be sure no one else
has your browsing history.
You are in full control of your web experience.
Firefox lets you go into about:config tab, and hard code some privacy protection into it.
I will cover that in my next video because there’s a lot you can do here.
Other options for good privacy configuration are CookieAutoDelete extension, Decentraleyes,
and Privacy Badger.
If you are a vigilante of privacy and freedom, you can block scripts and trackers through
uMatrix or NoScript.
If you don’t know how to use these, I’ll make a tutorial with full explanation in the future.
Out of all browsers on this list, Firefox has been around the longest and will probably
stay here the longest.
It enjoys the widest support for browser add-ons, plug-ins, bug fixes, and security updates.
It’s also the most used one out of all privacy browsers, so your browsing fingerprint is
going to blend in with the crowd more seamlessly.
Firefox lets you configure it to delete browsing data each time you close it.
You can easily manage bookmarks and bookmark all tabs to remember a session if you want
to come back to it later.
The only negative side is that by default Firefox will send some crash reports and user
data to Mozilla servers.
But this is always transparently communicated to you upon first install, and you can easily
disable it in the settings.
Also Firefox recently joined the establishment to combat what it decides to be fake news.
The specifics on what they’re going to do remain vague, but just in case there was something
shady to be going on, there are forks of Firefox, which allow you to use the same software but
developed separately.
One such project is called Waterfox.
Waterfox browser is essentially Firefox clone, but it has some features of its own.
Mostly it distances itself from the Mozilla Foundation and removes all data collection and telemetry.
So it’s basically same as Firefox but with even better default privacy.
You’d still need to go through same privacy configuration and install same add-ons as on Firefox.
Luckily majority of them are supported.
But be aware this project is not backed by an entire foundation of developers maintaining
its security so make sure you are aware when a potential exploit pops out.
Waterfox set Ecosia for search by default.
Ecosia is a search engine that donates its revenue to plant trees.
You can keep that or change your default search engine in the manager menu.
What’s good about this fork is that it’s based on the latest stable version of Firefox.
So it’s always going to look modern.
There is another fork, called Palemoon, which forked from an older version of Firefox.
Palemoon is what Firefox used to be a couple of years ago.
It provides you with more customization, and there is also no data collection and no profit
behind the organization.
It looks a bit old, which might put off some of the younger users.
I didn’t really like its default theme so I changed it.
It resembles Firefox in every aspect, but the layout maintains its traditional look.
Palemoon supports a range of Firefox extensions and builds its own exclusive add-ons on top of it.
Like Firefox and Waterfox, you need to configure Palemoon with the same privacy extensions.
I don’t see anything wrong with Palemoon.
I use it daily now and it’s even faster on my machine than Firefox.
I don’t mind that it looks a bit older.
I only care about my privacy online without sacrificing functionality and Palemoon functions perfectly.
It didn’t crash on me a single time during my 4 month use.
Firefox is also used by Tor Browser bundle, which I list as another privacy browser you can use.
You can download tor from torproject.org and access websites with a hidden IP address.
Your traffic will be anonymized, and although websites and your ISP will know that you are
connecting through Tor, they won’t be able to identify you.
To use Tor correctly, don’t login to your online identities while browsing the web on
the same session.
Tor doesn’t magically protect you from data you submit to websites.
So even if you use Facebook onion link, Facebook will still collect your posts, likes, comments,
and chat messages.
They will also be able to see your browsing history from Tor if you visit other websites
while logged in to your Facebook account.
Close your Tor session after you dealt with your online accounts, each time you want to
browse the web.
The purpose of Tor is to hide you from governments and advertisers from knowing what you do.
But Tor doesn’t do magic and it’s not all you need for online anonymity.
If you engage in illicit activities, chances are law enforcement agencies will find ways
around Tor network to get some incriminating evidence.
But as it is, Tor’s standing is solid and secure.
Tor will slow down your traffic, but if your connection is fast enough, you can use Tor for everything.
Provided you use Tor properly, by closing and starting new sessions to separate your
online identities from trackers, you can totally stop updating your advertising profile Facebook
and Google maintain about you.