Brave is a fast, cross-platform browser built on Chromium that blocks ads and trackers by default. It is not always a popular choice within the privacy community, but it offers a complete package out of the box on all platforms and is suitable for beginners or when setup time is a factor. Wikipedia offers more information about its controversies.
Brave
Open Source Win Mac Linux Android iOS United States
Official website brave.com
Our take
Setting aside the community’s reservations about its crypto and ad features, the plain truth is that Brave blocks ads and trackers well out of the box with no setup, which is rare. The catch is it is Chromium-based, so you are still feeding the engine Google built, and you will want to turn off the rewards and crypto bits you did not ask for. A solid default for non-technical people who will never touch settings; purists who want off Chromium entirely should look at a Firefox fork.
GitHub at a glance
brave/brave-browser
Stars
22,880
+ 29 this week
Last commit
today
healthy
License
MPL-2.0
Latest release
v1.91.175
today
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Brave alternatives
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Tor Tor, short for The Onion Router, is for enabling anonymous communication. It directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network, consisting of more…
Firefox Focus Dedicated mobile privacy browser with automatic tracking protection and ad blocking. With Focus, your pages load faster and your data stays private.
DuckDuckGo Privacy-focused search engine and mobile browser. Blocks trackers, forces encrypted connections, and does not profile you. Partially open-source, based in the US.