Websites are growing increasingly reliant on cookies to function and provide you both the lightning-quick loading that you’re used to as well as the flashy graphics that every modern website should have, whether you value privacy over these things or not. The number one browser in the U.S. is Google Chrome, and yet advertisements for Chrome forks like Opera seem to be under every video on Youtube. Firefox users swear it’s the only way to live, and Microsoft Edge seems split on what sort of experience it wants to provide, with a focus on Business and yet a home page full of distractions.
So how do you pick? What browser should you use? Are any prone to security breaches? Should you use more than one? And, if this article changes your mind on any of them, how do you change over without resetting all of your cookies and website passwords?
How Do I Pick One (What Are My Needs)?
So, the first thing to know is that a substantial number of browsers are actually just some version of Google Chrome with the serial numbers filed off: Opera, for example, is like this. If you’re trying to avoid Chrome for any reason, checking to see what the root browser is underneath the branding is what you’ll need to do. Firefox runs on its own framework, and so does Edge, although Edge does have smaller offshoots much like Chrome.
All three offer a number of extensions and special features, so deciding what features you care the most about should be next. Firefox, with it’s robust adblockers and uniquely personalize-able windows, makes a great home browser. If you have an Android device, the mobile plugins for FireFox the Phone Browser can make it possible to listen to music on Youtube without constant advertisements or jerky loading, so long as you do use the browser and not the actual Youtube app. Additionally, it has many of the same ‘fun’ extensions, like those for replacing words, or adding extra emoticons to social media websites like Twitch. If you’re looking for privacy, Mozilla also offers a VPN that’s as close to plug-and-play with their browser as you can get on subscription.
Chrome is one of the premier browsers of our time, and Google prides itself on making using Chrome as streamlined and simple as possible, albeit with a few caveats. For example: where Firefox plays nicely with adblockers, Chrome actively despises them, and tries to render them inoperable once they hit the extension market. This is because many ads are vended through Google – they’d be shooting themselves in the foot if they let the adblockers do what they’re trying to do, which is a real shame from a consumer perspective. However, if what you’re doing in that browser doesn’t run into ungodly amounts of ads constantly, like social media sites tend to have, then Chrome is a fine choice.
Finally, there’s Edge. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer used to be the butt of many jokes about speed, but since Explorer was retired and Edge took it’s place, those jokes have largely died out. As Chrome is to Google accounts, Edge is to Microsoft accounts, with the same seamless experience designed to make the user’s life as easy as possible as they navigate between apps. Anecdotally, Edge does not seem as hellbent on removing adblockers as Chrome does, too.
We recommend Microsoft Edge for business applications on Microsoft devices, because it’s designed to fill that spot from the bottom up. Microsoft computers come with it pre-installed, and it has plenty of add-ons that are well-suited for business. Edge is also decent when it comes to security.
AI Driven Browsers
There’s one thing we absolutely cannot recommend, and that’s this most recent adaptation, AI driven browsers. Generative AI, the kind being used here, cannot consistently follow rules set forth for it, and when it does follow them, it will follow them wherever it found them with no regard to whether the source is trustworthy or not. While scrolling through text for you, a bad actor could put somewhere in the website’s bot-only text that it should grab your saved passwords and then pass them along to the website owner, and you’d be none the wiser until your email got cracked. It’s a terrible product at the moment, no way around it.
Do not use a browser promising to do things for you with AI. If you’re going to use AI, it should either be in a windowed tab or an isolated app that cannot interact with data stored within the browser, like cookies, saved passwords, bookmarks, et cetera.
Swapping Browsers
Moving data between computers within the same browser has never been easier – basically every mainstream browser has some sort of account tied to it (Gmail for Chrome, Microsoft for Edge, and Firefox has a Mozilla account you can create) that can effortlessly carry over browser bookmarks, saved passwords, et cetera for you should you ever need to move devices. However, it’s not so simple to move between browsers. You’ll need to download your data and move it in manually in most cases, which is a tad more work, but still less annoying than having to go to every site and manually re-bookmark it, and definitely more secure than just writing down passwords on a document or sticky note!
Check out this Wired article for instructions for each: https://www.wired.com/story/switch-browsers-without-losing-bookmarks-passwords/
VPNs
In the US, there are not many work-related things you’d need to use a VPN for. Work devices may need them to remotely access business resources, but this is not a job you’d entrust to a consumer-grade VPN, especially given most VPNs are now owned by one company. A common criticism of VPNs as a security measure is that the consumer-grade kinds are also not actually doing that much to obscure your identity. When someone, like the government or the police, needs your search history, they get it from your internet provider. A VPN is going to have pretty much the same set of data, so you’re only adding an extra step if you’re trying to do things like access chemicals or snack foods banned in the U.S! Better than nothing… not bulletproof.
Business VPNs have a different set of needs they’re meeting, but security is still important. Industry-standard vendors, like Splashtop (we vend Splashtop) have a long history with few speedbumps are the best bet. Once again, this may depend on what your business individually is needing out of it’s tech, so don’t be afraid to shop.
Ads And Avoiding Them
The best browser for avoiding ads and trackers is, hands down, Mozilla’s Firefox. Chrome has a conflict of interest as mentioned above, and will outright refuse to load certain addons. Updates are always trying to tamper with them. Mozilla has no such conflict, and has some of the best extensions for adblocking, tracker blocking, and privacy available on the market. This doesn’t often come into play for business devices, and in fact may sometimes get in the way, so it’s not something you’ll see very often in websites ranking these browsers. Cookies are vital to the way a bunch of websites work, and if you’re counting on cookies to use the ‘remember this device’ option on websites, you’ll need to disable the anti-trackers to make that work again on Mozilla. Mozilla is a brilliant product for personal devices with an intuitive and easy to tailor UI. You don’t have to open a browser and immediately see a flood of bad news in the home page if you don’t want to, not only because you can set the home page to Google or something, but also because Firefox will allow you to disable news stories if it’s getting depressing.
Mozilla also has a VPN you can buy. TOR is great for privacy but often slow, and the consumer market for VPNs is flooded with garbage. Mozilla as an organization has been fighting the good fight for user privacy, and while it’s not TOR, it’s probably better than [GENERIC VPN COMPANY RECOMMENDED BY INFLUENCERS HERE]. You notice how that describes basically all of the ones that just got bought by the adware company?
They’re even adding AI tools, but they’re all opt-in, so you’re not suffering from tools jerking around your page and loading times until you’re willing to let them. The design philosophy of this browser as a consumer-friendly product truly cannot be overstated.
However, for work devices, we 100% recommend Microsoft Edge. As work devices are less about play, the things Firefox has over Edge are basically null here, and Edge wins on compatibility and integration with Windows. If you’re having trouble standardizing things for your employees, get in touch – we can help. Microsoft’s Edge browser actually allows for some standardization from the admin side, so you can pre-bookmark important sites on employee devices before they get them. We can also manage the device as a whole, and ensure certain websites are black- or white-listed before they can cause problems for you and your employees. We vend top-of-the-line antivirus softwares, too, so even if someone downloads something from a site they shouldn’t have, it won’t get far. Heck, we even vend software that can prevent malicious downloads!
If you’d like your business browsers to be a little easier to manage, we’re Elixis Technology, and we can help! (Here: https://elixistechnology.com/contact/)
