%Begin The 5 Best Private Web Browsers of 2022 Menu Lifewire Tech for Humans Newsletter! Search Close GO Internet, Networking, & Security > Browsers 510 510 people found this article helpful
The 5 Best Private Web Browsers of 2022
By Andy Wolber Andy Wolber Freelance Contributor Southern Methodist University Spring Arbor University Andy Wolber is a former Lifewire writer who has been writing about technology for 15+ years.
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His focus is G Suite, iOS, and nonprofit sector apps. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on March 1, 2022 Fact checked by Nadia Baloch Fact checked by
Nadia Baloch Lesley University Nadia Baloch is a fact checker, researcher, and writer with a background in psychology.
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Lily Watson 6 minutes ago
lifewire's fact checking process We independently research, test, review, and recommend the best
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Sofia Garcia 1 minutes ago
Most people can quickly identify at least four different types of privacy that may be a concern.
lifewire's fact checking process We independently research, test, review, and recommend the best
products—learn more about our process. If you buy something through our links, we may earn a commission. Tweet Share Email Browsers Chrome Safari Firefox Microsoft Lifewire / Design by Amelia Manley You can take several steps to protect your privacy as you browse—but when we use the word privacy, we need to clarify what we mean.
Most people can quickly identify at least four different types of privacy that may be a concern.
Defining Privacy
First, privacy may mean privacy from other people with access to your device. You might not want the fact that you searched for a gift for someone in your household to be discovered by someone that shares access to your computer.
More concerning is the scenario where a person in an abusive relationship, for example, may not want someone else in the household to know they’ve searched for help. Second, you could mean that you want privacy between sites you visit.
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Oliver Taylor 13 minutes ago
At one point or another, you might have noticed that advertisements for an item you’ve searched fo...
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Noah Davis 11 minutes ago
Your browser relies on your local network connection (often over Wi-Fi), which is routed through you...
At one point or another, you might have noticed that advertisements for an item you’ve searched for now appear on several sites you visit. That’s because activity and ad trackers often operate across multiple sites. Third, you likely also want privacy over the connections from your device to a website.
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Oliver Taylor 15 minutes ago
Your browser relies on your local network connection (often over Wi-Fi), which is routed through you...
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Kevin Wang 13 minutes ago
In some countries, government agencies actively monitor and/or restrict access to information on the...
Your browser relies on your local network connection (often over Wi-Fi), which is routed through your internet service provider, then over the internet to a destination website. Each step in that process represents a potential place your privacy might leak information. Fourth, many people also prefer privacy from governments.
In some countries, government agencies actively monitor and/or restrict access to information on the internet. Human rights activists, academics, and innovators may wish to keep internet browsing activity unknown to officials.
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Ryan Garcia 2 minutes ago
But a fully private web browsing experience that reveals no information whatsoever about you as you ...
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Natalie Lopez 5 minutes ago
To get some sense of what a site might “know” about you, visit What every Browser knows about yo...
But a fully private web browsing experience that reveals no information whatsoever about you as you browse can be difficult to achieve. Most web browsers reveal at least some basic information to sites you visit.
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Scarlett Brown 9 minutes ago
To get some sense of what a site might “know” about you, visit What every Browser knows about yo...
To get some sense of what a site might “know” about you, visit What every Browser knows about you by Robin Linus and Cover Your Tracks from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. You’ll soon see that your browser may reveal your location, device hardware, software, and connection speed. These sites also can show whether or not your browser protects you from tracking ads or invisible trackers.
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Lily Watson 13 minutes ago
How Were These Browsers Chosen
As of 2021, many people use Chrome on desktops, Safari on...
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Kevin Wang 39 minutes ago
The five browsers featured below rely on open source code, with specific customizations and configur...
How Were These Browsers Chosen
As of 2021, many people use Chrome on desktops, Safari on macOS and iOS, and either Chrome or Edge on Windows systems. While each of these companies takes steps to secure these browsers, people are not able to fully audit the code in these browsers. And since Google, Apple, and Microsoft do not provide access to all of the code, many computer privacy professionals reasonably consider these browsers to be less trusted than browsers for which all of the code is publicly available.
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Lily Watson 9 minutes ago
The five browsers featured below rely on open source code, with specific customizations and configur...
The five browsers featured below rely on open source code, with specific customizations and configurations made (or available) in favor of privacy. If you search a bit, you’ll find many more customized versions of browsers built from either the Firefox or Chromium code. The selected browsers are relatively widely used and frequently updated.
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David Cohen 3 minutes ago
Most Private Tor Browser
Tor Browser Buy on Torproject.org What We Like A long-establish...
Most Private Tor Browser
Tor Browser Buy on Torproject.org What We Like A long-established, widely-trusted, privacy-focused project Versions available for all common platforms
Tor connections available for many major websites Relies on a modified and customized Firefox code base
What We Don't Like Slower than with a mainstream browser
You can’t use every site or service with the Tor Browser
Tor Browser optimizes for privacy at the cost of speed. Available for Windows, macOS, and GNU/Linux on the desktop, with versions also available on Android (Orbot: Tor for Android), iPhone, and iPad (Onion Browser), the app relies on a system of relay requests to make it difficult to detect and track information about your location and system. Because these requests route information to distinct locations, pages take longer to load than with a conventional browser that optimizes for speed.
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Hannah Kim 33 minutes ago
You can also connect specifically to sites intended to be used with Tor. These sites, identified wit...
You can also connect specifically to sites intended to be used with Tor. These sites, identified with a .onion suffix, are intended to permit people secure and private access to services that might not otherwise be feasible. For example, someone might use Tor to connect to DuckDuckGo.onion or Facebook.onion sites from within a country where access to these services is blocked for most browsers.
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David Cohen 3 minutes ago
Fastest Brave
Brave Browser Buy on Brave.com What We Like A fast browser with default se...
Fastest Brave
Brave Browser Buy on Brave.com What We Like A fast browser with default settings configured for privacy
Best daily-use, privacy-oriented browser Developers are technically very strong What We Don't Like Company behind the browser is relatively new
A comparatively new project, Brave takes the Chromium core code and customizes it with several private-by-default choices. For example, by default Brave blocks advertisements and trackers, and also strengthens the security of connections to sites from http:// to https://.
That last change wraps the traffic from your browser to the website you’re visiting with encryption. Brave also gives you simple sliders to block scripts and enable fingerprinting protection. Fingerprinting refers to the way that sites combine general information about you to create a profile.
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Luna Park 78 minutes ago
As a simple example, your location and the number of apps you have installed might be enough to uniq...
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Mia Anderson 61 minutes ago
Most Customizable Firefox
Firefox browser Buy on Mozilla.org What We Like Extremely well...
As a simple example, your location and the number of apps you have installed might be enough to uniquely identify you. Brave is available for all major platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, as well as Android and iOS.
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William Brown 45 minutes ago
Most Customizable Firefox
Firefox browser Buy on Mozilla.org What We Like Extremely well...
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Grace Liu 9 minutes ago
(For some additional changes to improve privacy, see Protect your privacy.) Firefox also lets you ad...
Most Customizable Firefox
Firefox browser Buy on Mozilla.org What We Like Extremely well established and widely used
Full-featured browser with support for extensions
What We Don't Like Customization required to optimize privacy
Additional customizations and extensions add complexity
One of the oldest and most well-established browsers, Firefox, can be configured for privacy and is available for all major platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, as well as Android and iOS. You may need to spend some time, however, adjusting settings to ones that, for example, block third-party cookies (that track you), clear your history when you close, and enable private browsing by default.
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Ava White 3 minutes ago
(For some additional changes to improve privacy, see Protect your privacy.) Firefox also lets you ad...
(For some additional changes to improve privacy, see Protect your privacy.) Firefox also lets you add extensions, which can add functionality as well. For example, you might add the Privacy Badger and HTTPS:// everywhere extensions, both from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, to block ads and encrypt the connection between your browser and websites, respectively.
Basic Mobile Browser Firefox Focus
Firefox Focus Buy on Mozilla.org What We Like A focused, privacy-oriented mobile browser
Automatically displays number of ads and trackers blocked when Tracking Protection is on One tap to erase your browsing history What We Don't Like On iOS, several steps to enable content blocking in Safari While versions of Firefox are available for Android and iOS, a mobile-only app, Firefox Focus, gives you fast browsing with privacy preferred by default.
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Sophia Chen 71 minutes ago
Firefox Focus automatically blocks ads as well as ad trackers, website analytics trackers, social tr...
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Brandon Kumar 63 minutes ago
On an iPhone or iPad, Firefox Focus can also serve as a content blocker for Safari. If you enable th...
Firefox Focus automatically blocks ads as well as ad trackers, website analytics trackers, social trackers, and content trackers. Optionally, you may choose to block web fonts. And, of course, you can change the default search engine.
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Evelyn Zhang 11 minutes ago
On an iPhone or iPad, Firefox Focus can also serve as a content blocker for Safari. If you enable th...
On an iPhone or iPad, Firefox Focus can also serve as a content blocker for Safari. If you enable this option, the app will block ads and trackers as you browse with Safari. Firefox Focus prominently displays a trash can icon on both Android and iOS.
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Julia Zhang 14 minutes ago
Tap the trash can and the app immediately erases your browsing history. When Tracking Protection is ...
Tap the trash can and the app immediately erases your browsing history. When Tracking Protection is turned on, the app also shows a shield that displays how many trackers Firefox Focus has blocked from a site.
Mobile Search With Site Privacy Grades DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo Buy on Duckduckgo.com What We Like A focused, privacy-oriented mobile browser
One tap to see number of ads and trackers blocked, along with a privacy policy rating One tap to erase your browsing history What We Don't Like Privacy practice information not available for many sites
You might know of DuckDuckGo.com as a “search engine that doesn’t track you.” Many people set DuckDuckGo as the default search engine in desktop and mobile browsers, instead of less privacy-focused alternatives.
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Isaac Schmidt 29 minutes ago
But DuckDuckGo also offers dedicated Android and iOS apps. The apps block ads, analytics, and social...
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Luna Park 30 minutes ago
DuckDuckGo also lets you bookmark sites. Similar to Firefox Focus, DuckDuckGo displays a fire icon o...
But DuckDuckGo also offers dedicated Android and iOS apps. The apps block ads, analytics, and social trackers. Wherever possible, they also encrypt the connection from your browser to your destination website.
DuckDuckGo also lets you bookmark sites. Similar to Firefox Focus, DuckDuckGo displays a fire icon on both Android and iOS.
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Ella Rodriguez 12 minutes ago
Tap the fire icon and confirm, then the app will immediately erase your browsing history. Any bookma...
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Sophia Chen 54 minutes ago
Tap the grade to see what the grade would be without tracking blocking (e.g., “D”) along with th...
Tap the fire icon and confirm, then the app will immediately erase your browsing history. Any bookmarks you’ve saved, though, will remain, so you can still access those sites. DuckDuckGo also displays a Privacy Grade.
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Ava White 70 minutes ago
Tap the grade to see what the grade would be without tracking blocking (e.g., “D”) along with th...
Tap the grade to see what the grade would be without tracking blocking (e.g., “D”) along with the grade as a result of tracking blocking (e.g., “B”). DuckDuckGo draws from the TOSDR.org site, also known as Terms of Service: Didn’t Read, to evaluate each site’s privacy policies. These policies, along with the quantity of trackers blocked, and availability of an encrypted connection, factor into the grade.
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