The value of data has risen over the years. Companies are more data-hungry than ever, looking forward to every bit of data they can obtain on a user so that they can market their product to them more efficiently. Surveillance is at an all-time high, with every click being tracked, saved, and forwarded to a tech giant or marketer. This is why you’re inundated with ads for fitness trackers shortly after you click an innocuous-looking ad for one of those.
This is the new normal. Recent conversations with friends revealed that they prefer being tracked, so they’re targeted with ads that cater to them. This panoptic way of existing on the internet is the default for most browsers, and a handful of browsers that don’t engage in such activities lie in a separate “private browsers” category. We go over the five best private browsers for safe surfing. For a better, more comprehensive understanding of the topic, PrivacyTests is an excellent resource.
5
Tor
Tor, also known as The Onion Router (more on that in a bit), is one of the most private browsers you can use to surf the web. It features such a deep level of encryption that, according to Avast Academy, the US Navy developed it to keep American intelligence communications private. Today, it’s available to anyone who wishes to engage in safe browsing. It’s used by whistleblowers, journalists, and illegal activities on the dark web, and has gained a reputation for illegality.
Tor facilitates private browsing by hiding the user’s IP address and transmitting their data through so many layers of encryption — randomized nodes — that its origin (the user’s location and identity) is unrecognizable when it reaches its destination. This encryption technique, utilizing multiple layers, gives the browser its onion-like characteristic. Tor lets you browse secretly in peace by clearing your cookies when you close the browser.
4
DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is also praised for its safe browsing features. For starters, it (promises that it) doesn’t save or share your browsing history. This way, you aren’t inundated with scented candle ads after checking out one candle. It claims it can only see your approximate location instead of specific coordinates, which aren’t permanently saved on its servers. DuckDuckGo allegedly anonymizes your search queries so it doesn’t know what each user is searching for, and completely encrypts the content that it responds with.
Regarding selling your personal data to e-commerce companies, marketers, and tech giants, which is a huge industry, DuckDuckGo says, “We have never sold any personal information. Period.” The search engine claims it only collects and stores the info, such as your IP address, device, OS, that is crucial for its features to run smoothly.
3
Brave
Brave claims its search engine is one of the safest on the market. It manages private browsing by blocking “privacy-invasive ads” and trackers. It also safeguards users against browser fingerprinting, which is a tracking tactic marketers and advertisers use to identify and track users. Users are recognized through their device and browser settings, and their profile, saved under a unique identifier, is used to target ads at them. Brave facilitates private searching and safe search by converting every web page (possible) to the https protocol.
2
LibreWolf
LibreWolf is one of the best-performing browsers on PrivacyTests, passing almost every test with flying colors. It is a private browser based on Mozilla Firefox and one of its selling points is that it doesn’t feature telemetry. Telemetry is a technique where your browsing data is collected and sent to a third party for analysis. LibreWolf also saves you the annoyance of adware and even includes the famous adblocker, uBlock Origin, as a part of its bundle package. LibreWolf prides itself on “maximizing privacy, without sacrificing usability.”
It has a dedicated “https-only mode” privacy tool that only handles safe browsing. Though Windscribbles reminds us that, since this search engine is based on Mozilla Firefox, any security vulnerabilities that arise in Firefox can potentially affect LibreWolf.
1
Mullvad
The Mullvad browser is one of Mullvad’s products, and it also owns the more commonly-known Mullvad VPN. The browser offers a dedicated private browsing mode that doesn’t store your cookies, browsing history, or personal info you enter throughout your browsing session. You pick the level of security you wish to work on. The Standard mode allows all of a site’s features to function, the Safer mode blocks features it considers dangerous, and the Safest mode only allows the most essential features to run, while blocking most of them.
Like LibreWolf, this offers uBlock Origin as a plugin to block ads and annoying pop-ups. It also works against browser fingerprinting, like Brave does, by making the fingerprints of all users on the same OS alike.
Private browsing is one way to stay safe online
Maintaining a private identity while browsing is a good way to practice online safety. However, other measures contribute towards overall good online hygiene. Being careful about where you click is crucial. Countless threat actors hide links to sketchy websites behind innocuous-looking online ads or pop-ups. Such links can also be hidden behind email attachments or downloadable files on the internet.
The good thing about private browsers is that they safeguard you against threats by upgrading the sites you visit to https or blocking sites that aren’t safe. Still, that doesn’t absolve you of your responsibility to watch where you click and regularly perform antivirus scans on your device.
