Ethical Web Browsers

How to find an ethical web browser

Web browsers initially appear like a dull, functional cousin to the flashier technologies in the rest of this issue. They certainly spend less time on the opinion piece dissection table than the likes of AI or social media. But the limelight needs an occasional refocus. After all, a web browser is a gateway to the internet, and whoever controls that gateway gains huge influence over the shape of the web.

Our choice of web browser defines how much personal data is gathered about us, which adverts follow us from site to site, how safely passwords and payment details are handled, and far more. Browsers, and the companies who produce them, therefore shape how personal data is harvested, how advertising power is concentrated, and how freely users are able to navigate the web.

In this guide we discuss which browsers are best for privacy and which are least reliant on Silicon Valley’s technology behemoths, alongside a range of other issues.

Which brands are rated in the guide?

This guide rates 15 browsers including the monopolistic Google Chrome, along with Big Tech offerings from Microsoft (Edge), Apple (Safari) and ChatGPT (Atlas). 

Alternatives to Big Tech are also covered including DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Firefox and Tor, and other independent browsers like Brave, LibreWolf, Mullvad, Waterfox, and Vivaldi. 

With overall scores ranging from 0 to 84 (out of 100), there are plenty of options to make a relatively easy and pain-free ethical switch. 

What is a web browser?

A browser is, in the simplest sense, the piece of software that allows ordinary people to make use of the internet – whether that’s for surfing the web, buying things online, or arguing with strangers in comments sections. But it's important that we don’t see browsers as neutral tools; they are much more than passive windows onto the web.

What makes a web browser ethical?

In our view, an ethical browser would seek to minimise surveillance, offer clear and honest privacy controls, protect users from fraud and malicious software, and avoid nudging people toward choices that primarily enrich the company behind it.

It would also respect openness: supporting shared standards rather than locking users into a corporate ecosystem, and allowing genuine choice over search engines, extensions, and settings.

In short, an ethical browser would treat its user as a citizen of the internet, not just as a product to be monetised.

This ethos is fully embodied in our Best Buy selections, yet it can feel almost entirely antithetical to that of the browser hegemon, Google. We discuss the myriad issues with Google’s military links, especially regarding Israel, separately.

Challenging Google's monopoly

The world of browsers in 2026 looks somewhat akin to a late-stage game of monopoly. Google Chrome is used by 70% of people browsing the web worldwide – having grown massively from just 25% a decade ago. Next largest is Apple, which claims 16% with the Safari browser. All other browsers have tiny shares of the market by comparison.

However, on laptops, tablets and even phones, you can choose to change the default browser, download the app and choose it as the default browser in App settings.

(Source StatCounter, as of May 2026)

The pursuit of monopoly power is perhaps the browser world’s original sin. When faced with competition from an innovative browser competitor, Netscape, in the 1990s, the then-dominant Microsoft attempted, in the alleged words of a senior executive, to "cut off Netscape's air supply". 

The US government accused Microsoft of illegally monopolising the browser market by restricting PC manufacturers and users from uninstalling Microsoft’s software, Internet Explorer, to use competitors. Bill Gates was roundly accused of being less than truthful in the resulting 1998 antitrust case, yet Microsoft’s charge of “unlawful monopolisation” was largely overruled in subsequent appeals. Netscape's browser later went on to form the basis of Mozilla's Firefox.

This arguably set the tone for a culture of monopolisation in the browser world, and after a quarter of a century of “browser wars” it was Google’s Chrome that eventually came out on top. We don’t suggest that Chrome’s initial popularity was down to corporate malfeasance on Google’s part – it is widely accepted to be a fast and convenient browser – but the tech giant’s current chokehold on the market deserves interrogation.

Browser software

Google’s influence over the market extends far beyond Chrome itself. 

The company is the main developer behind Chromium, the software which provides the majority of code for most other browsers, including Atlas, Brave, Ecosia, DuckDuckGo, Microsoft Edge, Samsung Internet, Opera, and Vivaldi.

The core software inside a web browser that interprets web content and, in simple terms, makes websites work is also known as a “browser engine”.

Only three significant players remain: 

• Chromium, which is primarily developed by Google; 
• Gecko, which is developed by Mozilla; 
• WebKit, developed by Apple. 

Most browsers in this guide are based on Chromium or Gecko. See table below for a handy comparison.

Safari uses WebKit, and Apple mandates that all browser versions for iOS (iPhones) are rebuilt in its WebKit engine.

The Chromium engine is open source – meaning that its source code is publicly accessible, and anyone can view, modify, distribute, and use it freely – so these browsers are not simply fronts for Google.

Chromium-based browsers like Vivaldi have excellent privacy controls and personalisation options, and are indeed a great alternative to Google.

But commentators have argued that when one company effectively controls the main browser engine (Chromium), it can influence or define what new features and technologies become practical standards, because much of the web will follow whatever that engine does.

This dynamic has been described as a “browser monoculture”. This has caused issues in areas like ad blocking. Google's updates to its extension platform have affected ad blocker extensions in Chromium-based browsers, which conveniently benefits Google's advertising business.

Waterfox’s Alex Kontos notes that this is an “inevitable conflict when one company runs both the dominant browser and the world's largest ad network.”

Analysts have noted that while antitrust is beginning to catch up with Google on alleged monopolistic behaviour in search and online advertising, its Chrome ecosystem is often overlooked.

In a 2024 paper named Google's Chrome Antitrust Paradox, a group of academics argued that “Chrome is instrumental in Google’s strategy to reinforce its dominance in online advertising, publishing, and the browser market itself [...] often to the detriment of competition and innovation.”

The judge in a landmark 2024 antitrust case against Google put things in simple terms: “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly”.

Google is, unsurprisingly, one of our companies to avoid.

Which browsers are independent of the Google monoculture?

A simple answer might appear to be Mozilla’s Firefox and the browsers that are based on its Gecko engine (LibreWolf, Mullvad, and Waterfox), but the answer is more complex.

Although on a technical level Firefox is an independent browser, Mozilla counter-intuitively receives most of its revenue from Google. 

Google has agreements with several browser companies to make Google the default search engine for users. In return, Google shares a portion of the revenue it earns from searches performed through those browsers.

Google is estimated to pay Mozilla approximately $410-420m per year, and Apple a staggering $20bn per year, to maintain its position as the default search engine in each browser.

This is a complex situation. Mozilla’s revenue structure appears to be in conflict with its users’ interests – nudging them towards Google’s search ecosystem and helping maintain its search engine monopoly. Yet this revenue enables Mozilla to continue as a non-profit committed to an open, secure, and user-centric internet.

The browsers which we deemed to be least financially or technically dependent on Google were LibreWolf, Mullvad, Tor, and Waterfox. Other companies were marked down slightly under Israel-Palestine and Arms and Military (two areas in which Google scores very poorly) if they were dependent on Google for revenue or code infrastructure.

Who owns which browsers?

The browser world can be divided into two groups: those owned by Big Tech companies, and those which are open source (which means anyone can look at and use its code) and/or owned by independent or non-profit organisations.

Big Tech companies:

• Chrome: Google (United States)
• Edge: Microsoft (United States)
• Safari: Apple (United States)
• Samsung (South Korea)

Independent:

• Brave: open source (United States)
• DuckDuckGo: open source (United States)
• Ecosia: independent, B Corp, nonprofit; both the search engine and browser generate money to fund tree planting including at hospital sites in the UK. (Germany)
• Firefox: Mozilla Foundation, nonprofit (United States)
• LibreWolf: open source, volunteer run (Europe)
• Mullvad: open source, developed in a collaboration with the Tor project. (Sweden)
• Tor: open source, developed by the Tor Project, nonprofit organisation (United States)
• Vivaldi: independent (Norway)
• Waterfox: open source (UK)

Opera is a little different. It was developed in Norway in 1995, but has since been owned by different Chinese companies and is currently owned by Kunlun, a publicly-listed Chinese company. Its HQ remain in Norway.

Browser basic specs 

There are lots of factors to consider when reviewing browser options so this handy table shows you at a glance what software the browser is based on, compatibility with operating systems, the level of AI integration, and the default search engine used. 

How do browsers make money?

Most (but not all) browsers have been developed with an interest in making money. Companies like Google and Microsoft track your web browsing habits and collect data on what web pages you’ve visited.

They use this personal data to create user profiles for targeted advertising and to sell to third parties. Showing adverts is how many browser companies make their money, but a 2025 study by Surfshark found that, of the ten leading browsers, Chrome was the most "data-hungry" in terms of the personal information it harvests. Safari (Apple's browser) limits cross-site tracking and data sharing, unlike Chrome and Edge, but Apple still uses some data for Appleads personalisation unless you opt out.

We recommend choosing a browser which is transparent about how it makes money. 

Waterfox, for example, has a Revenue Model page on its website, as does Vivaldi. Both receive revenue from their default search engines, but Waterfox also offers paid subscriptions to its Private Search feature (the Waterfox browser itself is free to access) and Vivaldi makes some revenue through non-personalised pre-installed bookmark links to companies like eBay and Booking.com – these can easily be removed.

Mullvad's browser does not appear to generate much revenue itself but is a complementary product to Mullvad's paid VPN service (although it can be used freely without the VPN).

Which browsers won’t sell your data for advertising?

• Brave
• DuckDuckGo
• Ecosia
• Firefox
• LibreWolf
• Mullvad Browser
• Tor
• Vivaldi
• Waterfox

DuckDuckGo has adverts on its search pages and makes an income from private ads and affiliate partnerships. But as it doesn’t track or store your history, the adverts are related only to your current search, e.g. if you type in walking boots, they will show you adverts for them, but these won’t appear the next day on an unrelated search.

Firefox, LibreWolf and Tor are non-commercial projects. Firefox is made by non-profit Mozilla and doesn’t sell users’ browsing and search history to advertising companies; LibreWolf is maintained by a team of volunteers and Tor is supported by donations. 

Brave has a different take on adverts. It doesn’t gather or sell user data indiscriminately, but allows users to anonymously opt in to seeing adverts which have been pre-approved by Brave, which then earn the person rewards. The adverts on Brave don’t track users in the traditional way and no personal data is gathered. But they are a way of consumers supporting approved companies, which also helps Brave continue to offer its service.

Revenue from Ecosia's adverts is used to fund its climate activities particularly tree planting. Ecosia says that if you click on the adverts, this is not associated with a user profile. This means your clicks cannot be used to target ads to you either on Ecosia or elsewhere on the Internet. They partner with Microsoft to run the adverts.

How to block online ads when browsing

"Fifty-one percent of web users have installed an ad blocker. It’s the biggest consumer boycott in human history." Cory Doctorow 2025.

Adverts can be used to track your online activity if you click on them, and can be annoying if you don’t want to see them.

Pop-up adverts can be particularly worrisome, with some redirecting you to malicious sites, which might contain malware, viruses, out-of-date software, or malicious code.

Blocking auto-playing video adverts and other irritations can make your browsing experience better, faster, and safer too. If you don’t want adverts to appear on web pages you view you can install ‘ad blockers’ as an extension or plug-in to your browser. Popular options include Ad Blocker, Ghostery, and uBlock Origin.

Some browsers come with in-built ad blockers. 

These browsers include Brave, LibreWolf, Opera and Vivaldi. Waterfox is currently adding one, which will be enabled by default in an upcoming release. Firefox's anti-tracking feature blocks some adverts, and Tor’s no-script can be configured to do the same. And whilst the DuckDuckGo browser doesn’t currently support extensions, it has some built-in data blocking which prevents many adverts.

Some ad blockers aren’t available for particular browsers. For example, uBlock Origin isn’t available for Safari because Apple (which owns Safari) has prevented it from being installed as an extension. 

Digital privacy rating

Privacy is often framed as a personal concern: “I have nothing to hide” versus “privacy keeps me safe from predatory companies”.

But it is a mistake to see privacy as an act of self-care – it is a collective issue. When you reveal information about yourself, you are almost always revealing information about others too. 

For example, of the 87 million people targeted in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, only 270,000 had consented to the firm collecting their data – the others were "Facebook friends" of the consenting users.

More broadly, a culture that values privacy is essential for encouraging honest private debate, and for building the trust and relationships that underpin liberal society.

We updated our rating on digital privacy for our guides on social media, AI tools, search engines and web browsers.

We rated companies on their overall approach to digital privacy and on specific criteria for each tech service e.g social media, search engines.

Companies were rated on important digital privacy issues such as:

• use of targetted advertising
• use of personal data for AI training
• multi-platform company (with one login account) where data could be cross-shared

For web browser companies specifically, we also looked at five key privacy features:

• Anti-fingerprinting protection, which helps prevent websites from uniquely identifying users based on device and system characteristics.
• Blocking third-party cookies by default reduces external advertisers' ability to track users across different websites.
• Tracker blocking is built in, which helps prevent known tracking scripts from loading.
• Stripping tracking parameters from URLs, removing identifiable data embedded in links that can be used to monitor user activity across the web.
• IP anonymity, using a built-in VPN or integration with networks like Tor. Concealing a user’s IP address makes it more difficult to track browsing activity back to an individual device or location.
   

Which browsers scored highest for web browser digital privacy?

The highest scoring web browsers were those that blocked trackers and third-party cookies, and enabled URL parameter stripping and anti-fingerprinting protection by default. Companies also gained marks for rejecting targeted or behavioural marketing.

Browsers scoring 90-100 (out of 100) for digital privacy:

• DuckDuckGo
• LibreWolf
• Mullvad
• Tor
• Vivaldi 
• Waterfox

Brave scored 80 for web browser digital privacy, and Firefox 60.

Worst browsers for web browser digital privacy:

No prizes for guessing, Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge both failed to score a single point in the digital privacy category.

Personal data and browser settings

Personal data is a valuable commodity. Not only can it be sold to advertising companies to target you with specific adverts, but it may be stolen with the potential for identity theft and fraud.

Information can be recorded by cookies. These are small text files of information created when you visit a website, and they are stored on your device. Cookies are generally used for storing your preferences and other personalisation features. This includes things like passwords and language settings. 

Cookies can be temporary, permanent, first party, or third party. If you regularly visit a weather page for example, a first party cookie may store your location so that you don’t have to type in the town name every time. It’s set by the owner of the weather website. In contrast, a third party cookie which is gathered while you are on the weather page has been placed there by other providers, primarily for tracking activity and advertising purposes.

Cookies can store enough data to potentially identify you without your consent. They are the main way that advertisers use to track your online activity so that they can target you with specific adverts. Cookies can be considered personal data in certain circumstances and are therefore subject to the GDPR regulations in the UK and EU. This includes US-based websites visited by someone in the UK. As a result of this you often have to either accept or decline different types of cookies (e.g. ‘essential’ or non-essential) when you visit a website.

Information can also be stored in your browser history, which lists all the sites and web pages you’ve been to. Sometimes it can be handy to look through your history if you need to find a website again, but it may be accessed by others, for example, by law enforcers, with different legislation in place in different countries. Those involved in sensitive work like activism may therefore want to limit the amount of information stored in their browser history.

The default privacy settings vary considerably depending on the browser you use. If you don’t want to spend ages going through all the settings and changing them to higher levels of privacy, use a browser which starts off at a higher level, as noted above.

Using privacy features and VPNs

Most browsers have a private browsing feature, which you can switch to when you don’t want your activities recorded. Depending on the browser, this may be called an “incognito” tab or “private” window. This enables you to visit websites without the browser recording your activity and storing cookies. However, your internet activity is still available to your Internet Service Provider (ISP – the company providing your internet connection). An encrypted connection, such as a Virtual Private Network (VPN), provides stronger privacy protection.

A VPN encrypts your internet activity (converts into a secret code) and then sends it through a different network before it connects you to the website you want. You are therefore browsing the internet using the secondary server, which may be in a different country. This helps disguise your identity and activity on the internet. VPNs can be used to bypass geographic restrictions, shield your activity on public Wi-Fi, and hide your real IP address when browsing.

(The IP address is a unique identifier which enables you to send and receive information over the internet, like your home address but an online version.)

Tor is perhaps the most well-known browser which prevents data tracking. The Tor browser makes sure your browsing history and data are protected as it conceals your IP address. It does this by routing your activity through several servers (a server is essentially a computer that processes requests sent over a network and replies to them) before it reaches your chosen destination, rather than going direct.

Tor also encrypts all your web traffic and does not store your browsing data, cookies, history, or cache files locally. This means your identity is hidden and your location and country unknown. Your ISP only knows that you are using the Tor browser but it does not know which websites you visit. The operators of the websites that you visit and anyone watching them, will see a connection coming from the Tor network instead of your real IP address, and will not know who you are unless you explicitly identify yourself. It’s worth noting that Tor is notoriously slow to use however!

Are browsers secure and safe?

None of the browsers in this guide have a bad reputation for malware or hacking vulnerabilities, but the now-retired Internet Explorer became notorious for security issues in its final years. 

It’s best to use the latest version of any browser so that you avoid potential hackers taking advantage of insecure features or known vulnerabilities. You can do this by going to the browser's own website and downloading the most recent version.

Even the small browsers in this guide (LibreWolf, Mullvad and Waterfox) are regularly maintained. It’s something to be aware of if you choose a lesser known "fork" of Firefox or Chromium instead – there are far more out there than we could include in this guide.

Most browsers now default to, or give the settings option of using ‘https’ – which is basically an extension before a web address that changes the instructions given to your server to make your browsing more secure. Using https (with the s, not just http://) encrypts your communication when you visit a website.

AI integration in browsers

As we discuss more in the search engines guide, search engines are already defaulting to AI results.

Web browsers are also increasingly applying generative AI features.

Some of these can be turned off by the user, but there is concern that it will become harder to avoid AI when using the internet.

New “AI browsers” like ChatGPT Atlas or AI sidebars in normal browsers (e.g. Copilot in Microsoft, Gemini in Chrome, OpenAI chatbot in Firefox) often read the content of the pages you’re on and send that to their servers when you use their features (summarise, extract, translate, etc.). Once there, companies may use that data for training their models, depending on their policy and your settings.

Firefox, frequently recommended due to its enhanced security and privacy features, under a new CEO at Mozilla, has recently announced a big switch to AI. Although there will be an “AI kill switch” to disable the AI features, by default it will become an AI-integrated browser.

Mozilla publicly denied that its terms and conditions allow it to harvest general user data to train AI, after drawing backlash over vague wording.

Firefox users may want to activate that kill switch, or move to another browser like LibreWolf, Mullvad, Vivaldi, or Waterfox, which have no AI integration (see table above). Vivaldi and Waterfox have made the most explicit commitments that they won’t be integrating any generative AI into their browsers. 

Importantly, if you want to avoid using AI make sure you pair your browser with an AI-free search engine – see the search engine guide for more info on this. 

Military links and tech companies

Our new Arms and Military rating for tech assessed whether tech companies had any direct or indirect links with the military, and rewarded companies which had explicit policies prohibiting military contracting. Companies were also marked down slightly if they were financially or technically dependent on companies that were heavily involved with the military. In this guide, companies were marked down slightly if they relied on Google’s Chromium engine or if they received money from Google to use it as their default search engine.

We didn’t find any browsers which explicitly prohibited work with the military.

Only Chat GPT Atlas, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari (Apple), and Samsung Internet were from companies found to be actively engaged in military contracting and scored 0/100 in this category. 

Tor was marked down for its links to the US Department of Defence – it was initially developed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and appeared to have continued working with them on censorship-resistant communication technology as recently as 2023.

How eco-friendly are browsers?

There were few high scorers under the climate rating. 

Ecosia is well known for its tree planting activities, but is also notable for having built its own solar plants since 2018. Its climate claims are discussed more in our search engines guide.

Firefox scored reasonably well for its use of renewable energy and detailed emissions reporting, while Apple has made genuinely impressive emissions reductions in the last decade. 

Vivaldi and Waterfox have taken the strongest stances against including generative AI in their browsers – AI is notoriously energy-hungry – and also received marks for their focus on renewable energy.

In general, however, most browser companies had minimal discussion on their climate impact. 

Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, and Open AI scored 0/100 in the climate category – the AI data centres used by these companies can gobble as much energy as an entire city. 

Which browsers are the fastest?

Chrome, Safari, and Edge consistently score amongst the fastest browsers, although Chrome has been known to struggle with lower-end hardware and RAM.

Chromium-based browsers are generally fast at loading pages (much of the internet is built using the same Java Script language that Chromium uses), while Firefox is slower than those three in most synthetic speed tests.

Tor is slow because it voluntarily trades speed for anonymity, routing traffic through relays across the world.

Mullvad's browser was designed in collaboration with the Tor Project but doesn't use the high-latency routing of the Tor network. It's a good option if you want a very private daily browser that's faster than Tor, and you can use a VPN with Mullvad for complete anonymity.

Frequently asked questions

Here are a selection of common questions around ethical and environmental web browsers.

What is the most ethical web browser?

In our view, an ethical browser would seek to minimise surveillance, offer clear and honest privacy controls, protect users from fraud and malicious software, and avoid nudging people toward choices that primarily enrich the company behind it. It would also respect openness: supporting shared standards rather than locking users into a corporate ecosystem, and allowing genuine choice over search engines, extensions, and settings.

Is there an ethical alternative to Chrome?

There are plenty of ethical alternatives to Chrome, although many browsers are, to differing degrees, financially or technically dependent on Google. We identified LibreWolf, Waterfox, Tor, and Mullvad is being the most independent from Google.

Which browser is best for privacy and ethics?

Tor browser is best if you want total privacy, but its focus on total anonymity is likely overkill for most day to day browsing, and it is very slow to use. LibreWolf, Mullvad, Vivaldi, and Waterfox offer a great mix of privacy protection and strong ethical credentials.

What is the most environmentally friendly browser?

Ecosia, Vivaldi, and Waterfox received the highest marks under our Climate rating.

Is Ecosia browser really environmentally friendly?

Ecosia scores well under climate and is well known for its tree-planting activities. We are generally sceptical about offsetting schemes, but Ecosia's focus on renewable energy generation earned it a high score in the rating. We have concerns about its ongoing integration of AI search however, which is discussed more in our search engines guide. (link)

Should I switch from Chrome for ethical reasons?

We recommend switching from Chrome. Google is among the lowest-rated companies in our entire database.

Which browser is most independent from Big Tech?

LibreWolf, Waterfox, Tor, and Mullvad are the least financially and technically dependent on Big Tech.

Which browser is best for privacy, ethics, and low environmental impact together?

Vivaldi and Waterfox have the strongest balance of privacy protection, transparent ethical policy, and minimal environmental footprint.

Additional research by Alyson Tyler.