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The 2025 Ultimate Browser Tier List
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the web browser ecosystem is extremely
vast and over the years of researching
privacy and security software writing
for privacy guides all that kind of
stuff I have tried a ton of different
web browsers um so today I just wanted
to go through pretty much every browser
that I see brought up um within like
these privacy and cyber security spaces
big or small and rank them all according
to uh how I feel about them what I like
what I dislike and of course privacy and
security given my background this list
is going to come with a pretty heavy
bias towards privacy and security um
your web browser is probably the single
most used application that you use on a
day-to-day basis so having one that
doesn't suck up all of your data and
send it somewhere else um is pretty
important because you're going to be
interacting with it a lot and security
is also super important because your web
browser is probably the single most
attacked by the internet application
that you run on a on a daily basis so
the dangers of zero days and other
vulnerabilities is extremely prevalent
when you're making a choice here I think
that's enough inro though I'm just going
to get into this we have this tier list
here um it goes from s to f s being top
tier most excellent browsers F being the
worst I think you all have seen a tier
list before so we'll just get into it uh
starting with brave browser now Brave is
a pretty controversial browser I would
say but I'll just say straight out of
the gate here that I do like Brave and I
think it's one of the best chromium
browsers out there for your privacy and
security Brave does a lot of their own
independent and original work in the
browser anti-fingerprinting space that
improves the Privacy Outlook of web
browsing overall in my opinion and that
really sets them apart from other um
chromium Forks or other browser Forks
that kind of more or less just toggle
some existing flags and call it a day um
Brave definitely has been in some hot
water in the past for pretty
questionable business practices um they
were adding referral tags to some crypto
Links at one point and they have a
pretty close affiliation with their own
cryptocurrency but disabling wallet
features and all that stuff really gives
you one of the best private and secure
browsing experiences in a Chromium
browser that's available in my opinion
so brave is a pretty solid pretty solid
beat here for me I would say um moving
on to chromite chromite is an actively
updated Fork of bromite which is a once
popular browser for Android I think if
you're looking for an Android browser
Brave is probably going to be the better
move for most people but if you're
looking for a chromium alternative to
Brave on Android um I don't think you
can really go wrong with chromite so
that's going to be uh a pretty solid B
tier alternative to Brave on Android
let's see moving on to Firefox here
Firefox is an interesting one uh Mozilla
is one of the longest standing advocates
for internet privacy that we have and
their web browser has a really long
track record of being a reliable
favorite of people kind of in this space
who want software that actually respects
them unlike some of the Alternatives
that big tech companies are putting out
there however Firefox has kind of been
slower than even some of those big tech
companies when it comes to adding
certain privacy Centric features uh so
like back in 2020 for example Safari was
the first major browser to block third
party cookies by default which is
something that really I think Mozilla
should have been on top of but they
didn't really fully get around to doing
until just last year I and many others
also take issue with the Telemetry that
Firefox collects by default Integrations
with internet services like pocket and
Mozilla seemingly giving higher priority
to new products rather than just
focusing on Firefox um so there are
definitely some issues that I have with
Firefox but it's still a great browser I
think think that its defaults could be
better um and diving into settings
setting better options is definitely a
must when you use this but I would say
um again a pretty solid B tier for
Firefox however that being said hardened
Firefox is definitely something that I
like now there isn't a specific
Standalone browser called hardened
Firefox but pretty much any hardened
configuration of a standard Firefox
install is going to get top marks in my
book I prefer the configuration changes
that Arin Fox user.js provides um so if
you look up Arin Fox on GitHub here um
they have a whole walkthrough under Wiki
and explanation but it's basically just
a template that uh increases the privacy
and security of a standard Firefox
install so you can add that and it sets
all of the Privacy related settings
security related settings to better
defaults and it's very customizable um
that's the kind of thing that would
create a hardened Firefox install
there's other guides and resources out
out there to making Firefox more privacy
respecting than its defaults but I would
say pretty much if you put in the effort
to make Firefox better than its defaults
I would uh it's going to get top marks
in my book uh so that's definitely an a
tier for me let's see what's next ooh
Microsoft Edge uh I think this is going
to be of no surprise to anybody here but
that's a pretty solid F tier browser in
my opinion um and no Microsoft Defender
application guard does not make this a
private insecure browser as some people
might claim the incredible amounts of
telemetry bloat wear in this browser
should immediately cross this off of
anybody's lists just to be completely
fair to Microsoft Edge I will note that
the edge security team has done a few
things from time to time which I would
actually like to see other security
Focus browsers incorporate uh Microsoft
Edge does have a cool uh toggle where
you can set on a perite basis whether
javascript's just in time compilation is
enabled which um if you don't know uh
jit just in time compilation represents
a pretty major security risk in all
browsers a lot of browser
vulnerabilities are related to that and
being able to disable it by default and
enable it if it breaks a site rather
than just having it on or off like in a
lot of other browsers is a super cool
feature so that is some of the things uh
that edge works on on the security side
of things that makes it kind of neat and
I wish other browsers would copy but a
handful of cool features isn't to redeem
uh probably one of Microsoft's biggest
spiber attempts in my opinion and it's
just mindboggling to me that we're
letting Microsoft slowly REM monopolize
internet browsing in Windows after they
failed to do so with Internet Explorer
definitely enough um Safari Safari is
certainly not an ideal browser by any
means um but I do think this will be
saved from F tier because it is kind of
a decent choice on iOS on Mac OS I'd
stick with pretty much anything else but
inside Apple's mobile wall Garden
Safari's webkit is pretty much the only
available browser option for thirdparty
browsers to use anyways so you might as
well just stick with using Safari in
most cases instead of other browsers
which are mostly just wrappers around
Safari's code because in those cases
when you use a third party browser on
iOS um you're relying on both that
developer and the Safari Developers for
security and privacy updates rather than
just one of them so not as a GRE just as
Microsoft ads for sure but it's a
proprietary browser it's not great
pretty solid D tier for me vadium uh
most people probably aren't familiar
with this but it's basically just a
chromium based browser for um an Android
ROM called graphine OS uh I think that
this browser falls short in a lot of
privacy specific respects um but it's
pretty great that Google Integrations
which come in standard and chromium are
removed vadium just doesn't have a lot
of additional privacy protections like
content blocking functionality or any
sort of like anti-fingerprinting uh
privacy protections that kind of thing
so I think most Android users will
likely be better off with um a browser
like Brave instead but it's not terrible
um it's not a terrible option by any
means I would say probably a c tier for
sure oh now we're getting to the good
stuff uh tour browser um this is this is
NS tier I just got to say straight up
this is kind of the real OG of privacy
browsers uh using tor browser is pretty
much the only way to truly browse the
internet anonymously and uh just having
that option available is super important
for so many reasons um the ultra
paranoid among you can use tour browser
and take your security to the max by
using it alongside like wanic and Cubes
but really anybody can take advantage of
the Privacy protections that tour
provides um it's a really great browser
and the more people use it the more
privacy protecting it becomes to people
who need it and it's just one of the the
best definite s tier opera on the other
hand uh these days Opera is pretty much
just another generic chromium clone um
but it's also proprietary instead of
Open Source I don't want to be one of
the anti-china people necessarily but
being acquired by a Chinese Investment
Group back in 2016 and then immediately
bundling a free VPN that collects all of
your traffic information right inside of
Opera should definitely raise a lot of
red flags for people who are concerned
about their privacy there's other
browsers that if you like the old 2012
era opera um you might want to consider
instead of this but this is pretty much
uh nothing of note these days and I
would definitely avoid it um in a
similar vein Opera GX um it's been
popularized a lot by some sponsored
YouTubers but it's just Opera with a
gamery skin um and for the same reasons
it's getting enough F here faldi on the
other hand so if you were one of those
for former Opera users you might
actually be interested in Vivaldi um it
was started by ex Opera developers in
xec after Opera was acquired by those
aformentioned Chinese investors and it
really is I would kind of describe raldi
as the Swiss army knife of web browsers
I don't really hate Baldi or anything
they support a lot of the ideals that
I'm aligned with they host a lot of Open
Source internet projects for the public
to use such as email hosting free blogs
they even have a mastedon server um that
kind of stuff and they pay for that all
with the funding that they make from the
browser itself so the products the open
source projects and communities that
they have are free which I think is
pretty cool um of them to do
unfortunately for Vivaldi being close
source is a pretty big blow to me
trusting their browser I would say and
they try to weasel out of it sometimes
with claims about how Baldi is built
upon the open source chromium and some
aspects of it are Source available but
it's not not really the same thing as
being an open source project and
additionally Vivaldi's privacy
protections out of the box are just
fairly lacking in my opinion uh the
pre-built options that they give you at
first launch to improve your privacy
don't actually make a huge difference as
far as like anti-fingerprinting goes um
so it's just not my favorite browser in
terms of like privacy protections or
security you could certainly do worse
than using faldi I would say but you
could also definitely do better I think
um so I would probably stick it in D
tier moving on to duck Dogo browser um I
don't know how many people are even
aware that they made a browser since
they're most famous for their search
engine but uh dock. go browser is a
pretty neat browser available on most
platforms it has excellent content
blocking capabilities of the Box um so
stuff like ad blocking tracker blocking
that kind of thing but besides that it
doesn't really have too much going for
it it isn't a fork of an existing
browser which is kind of cool but it's
basically a wrapper for your operating
system systems built in web View and
typically applications like that are not
as secure as the Standalone Chromium
browser engine and additionally duck
ducko browser is an open source so while
I like the effort and I like duck duck
Go's vision for privacy in general
that's going to get a d tier for me Pale
Moon Pale Moon is an interesting browser
um they're kind of like desperately
trying to hold on to some ideals of the
older web which is a cause that I'm
somewhat sympathetic towards but then I
tested out Pale Moon and I remember that
there is a reason that Firefox moved on
from that ancient code that Pale Moon is
trying to keep alive um websites barely
function a lot of the time and all of
the modern security features that are
standard in pretty much every web
browser are missing in Pale Moon so if
you're using it I would say it's
probably time to move on and try a
Harden Firefox configuration instead um
yeah yeah that's going to be an F tier
mul browser is an interesting one this
is a fork of Firefox for Android but
unlike Firefox it's completely 100% free
in open source um whereas Firefox
bundles some proprietary libraries in it
with for things like DRM it also has
increased browser fingerprinting
protections out of the box and it
includes a lot of additional security
patches as well this browser is
developed by uh divested Computing who
also makes dest OS um which is probably
my favorite custom Android dram
currently on the market so if you're
looking for an Android Firefox based
browser I would say mul is probably one
of the best options you can choose
that's an easy a tier for me in a
similar vein mulch is another web
browser for Android from the same people
divested Computing um but this one is
based on chromium instead of Firefox
unfortunately it has many of the same
issues as vadium because it's pretty
much much uh it's very heavily based on
vadium it's almost just a fork of vadium
entirely the main benefit is that it's
supported on more Android robs other
than graphine OS but otherwise it lacks
uh serious privacy protections it lacks
content blocking that kind of things so
probably along the same lines of vadium
C tier here not super exciting but it is
worth mentioning moving on to Arc um Arc
is actually one of the biggest newcomers
to the browser industry in general it
seems like a lot of people are pretty
excited about it um and Arc which is
developed by the browser Company of New
York is certainly interesting I would
say it's based on chromium it receives
regular and frequent updates um which is
all the stuff you'd expect from a good
browser and in the time I've been
testing it out I actually do quite like
the user experience a lot it makes uh
the browsing the internet much easier
and better in my humble opinion it's the
only Chromium browser that I'm aware of
which
um has functionality similar to
firefox's multiac account containers
where I can have essentially different
browser profiles with different website
logins cookies Etc all on a per tab
basis in a single window which is a
workflow that I really like I don't like
having to open multiple windows to have
multiple browser profiles for example
all of that being said the downsides of
Arc are pretty significant and that
means it's not going to score higher
than a d I would say um it's totally
proprietary for one thing um and for
something like a web browser I really do
feel like being open source is kind of a
must these days um Arc is also only
available for Mac OS and iOS although
Windows is on the way and probably worst
of all is that it requires an arc
account you sign in um before you can
even use the browser fortunately it
doesn't sync any browsing data to that
account um it uses native iCloud syncing
instead and their privacy policy is
actually really nice easy to read
reasonable um so it does have all of
that going for it but this isn't going
to be my go-to choice for anyone looking
for a private browser by any means up
next we have Orion browser um this is
another proprietary web browser for Mac
OS and iOS it's one of the rare few
browsers which is based on Safari rather
than chromium or Firefox which is really
interesting but it pretty much inherits
all the same issues as Safari uh as a
result which means means
probably I would usually Reserve uh
smaller Forks like this um to F tier
because usually browser Forks are less
often updated they're less reliable that
kind of thing but Orion does have one
pretty neat feature on iOS which is that
it is one of the few browsers on iOS
which supports some Chrome extensions so
uh that is useful and cool enough to
probably warrant a d tier rating another
Android browser here uh simply called
privacy browser it's another web view
based browser for Android much like Duck
ducko uh and there's not much more I can
say about it other than uh what I've
said about duck. go already however
privacy browser does seem to be worse at
content blocking than duck. go out of
the box it is however at least open
source unlike duck. go so I think I'll
give it the same D tier rating is duck
ducko browser but you're probably better
off with a real browser for Android like
Brave or mul browser up next is waterfox
waterfox has kind of a rocky history in
the Privacy Community uh it was acquired
by System 1 which was an advertising
company in 2020 um but then in 2023 it
emerged fully independently owned again
um by the original developer so I don't
know what happened there but it seems to
be fully independent again and they're
refocusing on privacy and that kind of
stuff in a lot of ways I prefer this
browser over other Firefox based privacy
browsers like Libra wolf which we'll get
to in a bit it has fully automatic
updates for example it has signed
binaries and it has a really long 12year
track record which is pretty impressive
um for a browser Fork like this to be
around 12 years it shows that they're
pretty serious about this project the
biggest downside to me is that waterfox
is based on Firefox ESR extended support
release builds rather than the mainline
Firefox builds ESR builds um for a
variety of reasons are actually less
secure than regular Firefox uh they
receive most of the security patches
available but not all of them and the
just being behind on features isn't
super great in general for web browsers
it's not an insurmountable problem for
example tour browser is another browser
that's uh based on Firefox ESR and
that's obviously s tier here but
waterfox just doesn't add quite enough
to justify using ESR releases in my
opinion compared to Simply hardening a
standard Firefox install where whereas
TOR browser on the other hand adds
pretty significant improvements which
kind of either negate the security
downsides of Firefox ESR or they make
any security trade-offs kind of worth it
I'm also not a fan of how waterfox
claims um on their website that there's
no Telemetry whatsoever when there is
some outof the-box data collection for
things like updates the data collection
that waterfox does do is pretty
reasonable in my opinion it makes sense
um you have to like connect to a server
to get updates and that kind of thing
but the marketing for waterfox is still
I think slightly misleading um which
isn't great overall I would give it
probably a probably a c tier moving on
to ice cat um this is pretty much just a
fork of Firefox from ganu with non-free
components in mozilla's branding removed
I'm not sure I really see the value in
doing that um it appears to be pretty
infrequently updated based on Firefox
ESR releases as well and it hasn't had
any official releases reles in 5 years
although its Dev Branch does appear
current but pretty much overall it
doesn't really have any real features of
Note um that I found that make this
worth considering over just a standard
Firefox it's probably not even a browser
that you'll encounter in the wild in
unless like your Linux package manager
comes with it because they don't have
any binary downloads on their site or
anything um but it's just a d tier
browser I would say no real reason to
use it over Firefox proper up next is
mulv browser and if you've been
following my work I think a lot of you
probably know that I'm pretty excited
about mulv browser mve browser is
developed by the privacy and browser
fingerprinting experts at tour project
in kind of a partnership with mvet VPN
it's relatively new but it draws on the
long history of Tor Browser as a result
of that partnership and it brings all of
T browser's anti-fingerprinting goodness
to regular VPN users basically if you
want like the most privacy protection
that a browser could give you but you
don't need the network surveillance
thwarting features of the tour Network
mulvad browser gives you pretty much all
the benefits of tour browser um as well
as the performance benefits of using a
VPN which makes it a pretty solid s tier
browser to me I think it's just
fantastic that all of this anti
fingerprinting protection is available
in a single package you don't have to be
using mulvad VPN specifically to take
advantage of muled browser but you
should be using a VPN of some sort to
avoid fingerprinting based on your IP
address
so that's something to keep in mind in a
similar vein to tour browser Onion
Browser is an iOS only browser for
accessing the tour Network being
endorsed by Toro project is as good a
reason as any to consider this a pretty
good browser however Onion Browser
doesn't benefit from all the same
benefits that tour browser does and
you're going to be very identifiable on
the tour Network as an onion browser
user which could allow sides to track
you uh given how relatively few Onion
Browser users there are out there it's a
fine browser for access accessing a
onion hidden service in a pinch on iOS
but it's not going to provide the same
anonymity as tour browser on desktop so
um I would say B tier but use it if you
need it on iOS oh our next browser
is
Thorium thorium I wish I had never heard
of this browser to be honest with you
but I get asked about it all the time
thanks to it being popularized by Chris
Titus Tech on YouTube here it was
immediately
very clear to me as soon as people
started asking about it that thorium was
a bad choice for privacy and security um
it very infrequently got updates it's
very far behind it's pretty much a dead
project even at that time um it's weeks
and months behind on Chrome updates
which has a very serious impact in the
real world because right when I was
looking at that for the first time a few
months ago there were some pretty major
Chrome vulnerabilities that were just
discovered at that moment which weren't
p patched and as far as I know still
aren't patched in thorium and the whole
situation with thorium has only gotten
worse and worse since then thankfully
Chris did eventually post a retraction
video on his channel um saying that it's
actually not a good browser after there
was kind of a development disaster in
which the thorium developer uploaded a
ton of um uh questionably legal content
in furry
art uh to the source code of thorium
which got distributed with thorium
releases which is just insane that that
could even happen in the first place um
so very solid F tier please do not use
thorium browser uh I really just wish
that Chris Titus Tech had done a little
more due diligence beforehand and
avoided bringing this browser to
everyone's attention in the first place
because even before that whole
development disaster it was very clearly
a bad browser as far as privacy and
security goes um and is pretty much much
actively harmful you're probably going
to get hacked if you use this browser on
the open web I would say so definitely
something to avoid up next bromite uh
nobody uses bromite anymore I'm just
throwing it in here cuz occasionally
somebody asked me about it um bromite is
a very or was a very popular browser for
Android that's no longer developed um
since it's 2 years out at date it's
definitely an F tier if you're using
bromite please stop but chromite might
be something that you're looking for if
you want a better alter alternative
that's actually still being updated up
next is florp browser this is a really
new browser but I have seen a lot of
people ask about this Firefox Fork um
after Chris Titus Tech again posted some
videos about it I guess he didn't really
learn from the thorium debacle and he's
out here promoting brand new browsers
once again but um having looked at it it
is kind of interesting it's a very new
browser so there's not too much that I
can say about it in terms of like
reliability or anything like that and
unfortunately it's another browser based
on Firefox ESR so outside of a couple of
gimmicks that it has it's pretty much
water Fox without like the track
recorder history so I would say d tier
um but we'll keep an eye on it our next
pressor is Midori U Midori if you use
Linux um like 5 10 years ago you might
be familiar with Midori uh it used to be
part of the fce project it came as
default on some popular dros like
Elementary OS um but the current version
of my Dory shares virtually no lineage
with that popular Linux drro of yester
year um in 2019 a company called asan
essentially acquired midori's brand and
they're currently releasing a browser
which is based on based on florp
actually which itself is forked from
Firefox so this like a fork of a fork
but asan has kind of gone about this
whole process in a pretty suspect in my
opinion and opaque way and they haven't
really given us much reason to trust
them right now so this is definitely a
browser that I would avoid um f tier
there puffen browser uh this is a kind
of unique browser because it processes
all of your web browsing on Virtual
machines in the cloud which is crazy if
you think about it it kind of defeats
the purpose of https encryption because
it decrypts everything that you do
online on Puffin servers which means me
that the operator of this browser could
potentially um access things like the
passwords you enter any other personal
information you enter and pretty much
everything about what you do in the
browser because the browser itself is
actually running on their machines it's
not even running on your machine it's
also totally closed source so virtually
nobody really knows what's going on in
the code besides um Puffin developers so
it's sometimes touted as a secure
browser because you're not running
potentially malicious websites on your
machine you're running it on their Cloud
servers but as far as daily browsing
goes I would definitely avoid that um
the risks of having all of your browsing
data just sitting on somebody else's
computer is uh far too great to to make
it worth it I would say moving on to
Libra wolf Libra wolf does a lot of
things right I would say but it also
does some things that I'm not really a
fan of the lack of buil-in automatic
updates and signed official builds is
part particularly bad from a security
perspective uh a lot of libbre wolf
proponents will say that you can get
around it with like package managers but
those typically aren't automatic and
they also aren't really standard on
platforms other than Linux and in an age
where browser zero days and
vulnerabilities are being regularly
discovered and exploited in the wild
automatic updates with in browser
notifications about them is kind of a
must for me and also given that the
Privacy protections of lier wolf can be
easily achieved in Firefox given some
hardening like with the Arin Fox config
I don't think that the more privacy
protecting defaults are worth the
security tradeoffs um in comparison to
Firefox so I would just say it's a solid
C tier it's probably not something
special but if you really like it it's
not going to be the worst browser out
there and last but not least you're
ungoogled chromium ungoogled chromium is
a really neat project in my opinion it
does exactly what the name suggests it
removes gooogle from chromium and it
doesn't do much else um unfortunately it
doesn't really make a lot of
modifications beyond that to help people
protect their privacy and automated
official builds are only available for
Macos and Linux it's also another
browser which again doesn't support
automatic updates which I really feel
like should be a hard requirement for
anyone's daily driver but I still like
on Google Chromium just as a project for
some specific use cases or as a
reference for anyone else building a
Chromium browser themselves uh so I'll
say it's a c tier for sure Okay I lied
that wasn't quite the last one because I
was editing this and I realized I forgot
to include the most popular browser
Google Chrome um again probably no
surprise to anybody but Google Chrome is
going to f tier uh because it's Google I
mean to be honest with you there's
probably no regaining anyone's trust
after being forced to pay a$ billion
settlement um over tracking people after
saying that you won't track people not
not a good look for any kind of browser
uh but I don't think people trusted
Google in the first place um they have a
lot of anti-privacy anti-user features
like manifest V3 and flock which they
now call privacy sandbox which is all
just an absolute disaster for the
private and open web so if you're
looking for a dropin replacement to
Google Chrome um definitely check out
something like brave but there was no
way Google Chrome was getting any more
than enough I think we all saw that
coming and that pretty much does it let
me know in the comments if I'm
completely off face about this or if you
agree feel free to have your own browser
Wars this is all just my opinion based
on my experiences with these browsers
and if there's any takeaway from this
video uh stop using Google Chrome stop
using Microsoft Edge use uh something
like Brave something like hardened
Firefox or even better try using
something like tour and see if it works
for your use cases
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