Updated 06 February 2021.

Copyright: European Union Public License, version 1.2 (EUPL-1.2).

We’ve tested 17 browsers and tried to find the best balance between privacy and security. It was also necessary that some plugins could be used.

Disclaimer: we are not affiliated to any of these Companies, this article is 100 % our own findings and there is no affiliate marketing in place through the links provided below for your convenience. Apps are listed in alphabetical order.

How we write our reviews: To ensure an unbiased and thorough review all apps are tested:
• In real time, i.e. we use it on real projects.
• By different team members located in different countries.
• With different devices and operating systems.
• For a minimum of two weeks, four on average.
• Article is peer reviewed by other team members then sent to the app’s publisher for final review.

A balancing act:

They are very important in daily usage within the countries opera that have state sponsored-crimes. Security and Privacy are interrelated concepts but they’re not the same, having security does not necessarily mean privacy. Google for example have excellent security, but you have zero privacy while using their products, you can have high security with zero privacy. You can also choose to have privacy without any security, it’s a matter of choice. Everything you do while using Google products and services is tracked and kept by Google / Alphabet Inc. Your data is kept very safe from others, but not from Google. By data, I mean all your activities, starting from your search queries to videos watched on YouTube, search history to your device information, location data, interests, metadata and others. Private means private, only you can view and have access and no one else. But in this case, Google and advertisers have access to some of your data and your privacy is breached.

For our case it is important to find a high privacy browser, with good security which is also Zoho plug-in compatible. Based on Browserscope.org

Our specifications sheet:

These are the criteria upon which the browser review were based:

• Privacy.
• Secure, with end-to-end zero-knowledge encryption.
• Open-Source.
• Multi-platform.
• User-friendliness.
• Zoho plug-in compatible.

Read our article on password managers. (Which offers bookmarks and favorites end-to-end encryption) even if the browsers don’t have it incorporated in them.

01-AMIGO.

Website: https://amigo.mail.ru/

1.1 Pros:

• User-friendliness: It is easy to use. You can also download bookmarks from other browsers installed on your computer, as well as voice control and integration with social networks.

1.2 Cons:

• Privacy: Apparently, Amigo browser has so many ads on its taskbar, this shows weak privacy. The browser is filled with different ads, which was a cause of distraction while working, apparently this is a drawback. Also you cannot change the search system and synchronization doesn’t work.
• Security: As it is a Russian based browser security is its weakest point and it doesn’t offer end-to-end encryption
• Open-source: It is not open source.
• Multi-platform: It supports only two platforms: Android and Windows.
• Zoho plug-in: Not Compatible.

02-Authentic8 SILO.

Website: https://www.authentic8.com

2.1 Pros:

• Privacy: It has one of the strongest privacy policies, their mantra is “Protecting your privacy is one of our top priorities “ and they mentioned that they never share any of your data with any third party.
• Security: Silo is very secure, as it is a cloud-based container. While users interact with a mild display of the web application; it keeps all web code off the device and when the browsing session ends it destroys all the browsing data along with all its temporary data, leaving the device and server stateless. With Silo, the web apps lives beyond the reach of the network, client-side or web borne exploits.
• Open source: It is open source.
• User friendly: It is very easy to use.
• Zoho plug-in: Compatible, as it is Mozilla based.
• Multi-platform: It support many platforms; iPad, Linux (Ubuntu), Mac OS, Windows but no mobile OS.

03-AVANT BROWSER.

Website: http://www.avantbrowser.com

3.1 Pros:

• Privacy: It offers privacy, so anybody else sharing the same computer with you cannot not see sites and pages you visited, neither can they see which files you viewed during your private browsing section. The encrypted stand-alone bookmarks file format can protect your privacy on a shared computer. There is also an ad blocker.
• Security: Patches are released often, once every month.
• User-friendliness: It is very easy to use. You can also take a screenshot of the entire screen or a certain part. The separate screen function also works fine.

3.2 Cons:

• Open-source: It is not open source.
• Multi-platform: It supports only one platform; Windows. Apparently, it has compatibility issues with some modern applications.
• Zoho plug-in: Not Compatible.

04-BRAVE.

Website: https://brave.com/

4.1 Pros:

• Open-source: It is open source.
• Multi-platform: It support only one platform: Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS , Windows.
• User-friendliness: It is very “easy” to use.

4.2 Cons:

• Privacy: It claimes it is offering privacy, which is misleading and deceptive. Source: https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/brave.html
• Security: Only the alpha version has been released so far, so I cannot vouch for the security of the browser at this time.
• New and has bugs: Developers are rapidly fixing bugs, but still, it occasionally suffers a glitch or two. Till the developers meet up to standards, it still feels like a brand new product.
• Zoho plug-in: Not Compatible.

05-CHROME.

Website: https://www.google.com/chrome/

5.1 Pros:

• Security: It’s one of the most secure browsers. Chrome is designed to keep you safer and more secure on the web with built-in malware and phishing protection, auto-updates to make sure you have all the latest security fixes and more. It introduces the Sandbox security system, which protects against burglary, there is integration with popular services like GoogleDisk, Gmail, GoogleMaps and others.
• Multi-platform: It supports various platforms like Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Windows. Though Google Chrome demands a lot of resources, machines with low RAM may potentially struggle. It Is considered a memory hog, which can be a problem if you do a lot of multitasking.
• User-friendliness: it is very easy to use. I liked the quick launch and quick loading of pages.
• Zoho plug-in: Compatible.

5.2 Cons:

• Privacy: Biggest disadvantage is privacy. In the “Privacy Statements” Google reserves the right to collect information about the user (visited sites, geolocation, advertising, which devices you use Google, your phone number and even your credit card number). Although the Google declares that all your data is strictly protected. Google chrome, though has its own pop up ad-blocker so you no longer have to keep cancelling pop up pages.
• Open-source: It is not open source.

06-COCOON.

Website: https://getcocoon.com/

6.1 Pros:

• Privacy: It offers privacy; while testing this browser, I found that it hides Internet activity and encrypts web traffic quite well, when trying to get the location of the user on the IP-browser, it did not show the users data but made-up data, which confirms the security of the browser. Keeps all browsing traces in the cloud and also encrypts web traffic, hides the users system IP.
• Security: It offers end-to-end encryption for bookmarks and favourites. When testing the password store, it did not work and the server or “cloud” these passwords are stored is not known. Because of the delay in encryption, the browser does not work well on weak computers. It seems like a very stable product as it is finished.
• Multi-platform: It support many platforms: Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS , Windows.
• User-friendliness: It is very “easy” to use.

6.2 Cons:

• Open-source: It is not open source.
• Zoho plugins: Not Compatible.

07-FIREFOX.

Website: https://www.mozilla.org/

7.1 Pros:

• Privacy: It offers privacy; Firefox’s strongest point is its privacy. In fact, it’s their mission. Mozilla collects very little data and does not trade information on its users. Not to mention that Firefox is completely open source, which none of the other browsers here can claim, that means anyone can open up the source code and make sure there’s nothing shady inside.
• Open-source: It is open source.
• Multi-platform: It supports many platforms: Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, and Windows. It is also very heavy and consumes lots of Memory.
• User-friendliness: This is very “easy” to use. Also text do documents can be viewed within the browser itself, for example: PDF, TXT, RTF, FB2, DOC and others, there is an automatic spell check and it has the largest number of free extensions. Though It’s interface remains cluttered — all of its competitors have since opted for a slicker, cleaner and minimalist design, not Firefox.
• Zoho plug-in: Compatible.

7.2 Cons:

• Security: It does not offer end-to-end encryption for bookmarks and favourites. You have to use a third party solution like Zoho plug-in. Regarding security, it’s fair enough as patches are released often.

08-GLOBUS BROWSER (dead).

Website: http://www.vpnbrowser.org/

8.1 Pros:

• Privacy: It offers privacy; for this purpose, it also offers anonymity by hiding your IP. Full anonymity on visited sites, there is an encryption function in Wi-Fi networks and built-in protection for scanning your IP-address with embedded firewall.
• Security: It doesn’t offers end-to-end encryption for bookmarks and favourites.
• Multi-platform: It supports many platforms: Android, iOS, Mac OS, Windows. It also has full access to all VOIP carriers including Skype.

8.2 Cons:

• Open-source: It is not open source.
• User-friendliness: It is not user friendly, there isn’t an official URL where you can download this product. It doesn’t seem like a very stable product though it’s done. Another concern is that this browser is not able to display whether the network one is connected to is secured or not (whether connected to a proxy server or not).
• Zoho plugins: Not Compatible.

09-IRIDIUM.

Website: https://iridiumbrowser.de

9.1 Pros:

• Privacy: It offers privacy, testing the browser showed that it perfectly encrypts keywords used in the search engine. There are no flashy adverts. The built-in source code blocks ads and requests for user data that works very well.
• Security: This is one of the most secure applications, regarding security it is fair enough as there are patches release often as it is Chromium base.
• Open Source: It is open source.
• User-friendliness: This is very “easy” to use. Supports all Google chrome features; synchronization between devices, automatically updates. Installs extension but requires a restart, excellent HTML compatibility.
• Zoho plugins: Compatible.

9.2 Cons:

• Multi-platform: It does not support many platforms: Linux, Mac OS, Windows, it does not support any mobile platform though it has high demand for RAM usage; It consumes a lot of RAM which might be a huge problem for machines with small RAM.

10-K-MELEON.

Website: http://kmeleonbrowser.org/

10.1 Pros:

• Privacy: It offers privacy as it is based on Mozilla.
• Open source: It is open source.
• User-friendliness: It is very “easy” to use.

10.2 Cons:

• Security: Regarding security, it is weak because the last update was in 2015. More so, it does not offer end-to-end encryption for bookmarks and favorites. I also found that when you clear the browser history, the browser sometimes hangs and does not always block pop-up ads from extraneous sites.
• Multi-platform: It does not support many platforms, just Windows and It also has stability issues.
• Zoho plugins: Not Compatible.

11-MAXTHON.

Website: http://www.maxthon.com/download

11.1 Pros:

• Privacy: It offers privacy as it blocks ads.
• Multi-platform: It does support many platforms: Android, iOS, Mac OS and Windows.
• User-friendliness: It is very “easy” to use. There is also an extra feature, on this browser, I first tried the function “gestures with the mouse”. At first, it is unusual, but it saves considerable time when working in the browser. Now often I use during work. There is a utility “Cloud Notepad” (for saving text) and viewing simultaneously two tabs on a split screen.

11.2 Cons:

• Security: Regarding security this browser is weak because the last update was in 2012. Unfortunately, the browser does not often receive new updates, which is why Windows 7 found a font error on web page though it does offers end-to-end encryption for bookmarks and favourites.
• Open source: It is not open source.
• Zoho plugins: Not Compatible.

12-OPERA.

Website: http://www.opera.com/

12.1 Pros:

• Privacy: It offers privacy and anonymity as it has built-in VPN and also a built-in ad blocker.
• Security: With regards to security from the table upper it comes is too secure. It does offers end-to-end encryption for bookmarks and favourites, but you have to create an account.
• Multi-platform: It does support many platforms: Android, iOS, Linux, Windows.
• User-friendliness: It is very “easy” to use. There is also a “Turbo Mode”, which significantly speeds up the load time of pages that has slow Internet connection speed, there are many available HTML-modules and a very adaptive panel of frequently visited sites called “Speed Dial”.

12.2 Cons:

• Open source: It is not open source.
• Zoho plug-in: Not compatible and the browser has also been known to be incompatible with certain sites, which could result in the web content not working properly or even inability to load content.

13-ORBITUM.

Website: http://orbitum.com/

13.1 Pros:

• Multi-platform: It does support many platforms: Android, iOS, Linux, Windows.
• Zoho plug-in: As it is Chromium based it is compatible.
• User-friendliness: It is very “easy” to use… the browser integrates social networks including Facebook chat, as well as a sufficiently fast page load speed. It also has a high level of protection, for confidential information. There is a “quiet mode” which hides social networks activities. It is very easy to import bookmarks from other browsers. There is a built-in “Google translator” button for quick text translation.

13.2 Cons:

• Privacy: It is a weak point too as in their privacy statement they have the right to collect user information.
• Open source: It is not open source.
• Security: Regarding security, it doesn’t seem too secure as they don’t offer frequent updates. It does not offer end-to-end encryption for bookmarks and favorites, but you have to use third party extension like Zoho extension plug in for chrome.

14-SECURE BROWSER.

Website: https://www.securebrowser.com/

The only advantage of this browser is that it has a built-in download button that allows downloading videos from different resources.

14.1 Pros:

• Zoho plug-in: As it is Chromium based it is compatible.
• User-friendliness: It is very “easy” to use. Generally, this is almost a copy of Google Chrome, only much simpler, but with the basic number of required functions. The “Settings” section is similar to that of Google Chrome.

14.2 Cons:

• Privacy: It is a weak point too as in their privacy statement they have the right to collect user information.
• Security: Regarding security, it doesn’t seem too secure as they don’t offer update frequency of its product. It does not offers end-to-end encryption for bookmarks and favorites, but this feature will be released soon as they say, but for the moment you can use Zoho extension plug-in.
• Multi-platform: It supports only one platform: only Windows.
• Open source: It is not open source.

15-SLIMBROWSER.

Website: https://www.slimbrowser.net

For this browser, i will not rate it like i did others, as it is suit our purpose, but I’ll give a brief description for your information. I often use this browser when I need to download videos from the YouTube. It’s safer than using different plug-ins. High performance of the browser: I had to open more than 30 tabs to make the browser work slowly. Most browsers begin hanging after opening 10 tabs. I recommend that you frequently check for updates, since notifications about them do not always work and it has a very weak support. After the last update, I found that the Bookmarks were not saved. It works badly on Windows x32 bit. After the program is uninstalled, «Internet Explorer» becomes the default browser.

16-TOR BROWSER.

Website: https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en

16.1 Pros:

• Privacy: It offers privacy, as it is based on Mozilla, but it doesn’t offer end-to-end encryption, you have to use a third party tool. It also encrypts sites visited by the user. For an average user this will be enough, but for the professional user there are many more advantages and settings.
• Security: A very reliable browser, it really is one of the safest in the world. The main advantage is that the browser will never give out your exact location and patches are released often.
• Open-source: It is open source.
• Multi-platform: It supports many platforms like Linux ,Mac OS and Windows but not mobile OS.
• User-friendliness: It is very “easy” to use. It supports .onion sites which is impossible to open on other browsers other than Tor.
• Zoho plug-in: Compatible, as it is Mozilla based.

17-VIVALDI.

Website: https://vivaldi.com/

17.1 Pros:

• Zoho plug-in: Compatible as it is Chromium based.
• User-friendliness: It is a very “easy” to use. It also has a built-in reader mode so you can remove all the clutter on the news pages and read only the content. You can also customise the reader mode, like font size, style and colours. It also has another feature that allows navigating to the next page without searching for the link; a feature called fast forward puts a dedicated button before the address bar that is designed to help you navigate to the next page of a multi-page article, forum thread or search results without having to search for the link.

17.2 Cons:

• Privacy: It offers privacy; as it is based on Chromium, but it doesn’t offer end-to-end encryption. You have to use a third party tool. Regarding privacy they state “Protecting your privacy is one of our top priorities”.
• Security: As it is a new product nobody knows how secure it is.
• Open-source: The software is a freeware type with many open-source components, and it was created by former Opera employees who wanted to express opposition to the direction the Opera browser was heading but the platform itself is not open source.
• Multi-platform: It supports many platforms like Linux, Mac, Windows but no mobile OS, though they are still working out a few things. It is not entirely optimized yet so it can be a little slow or resource intensive. The latest versions have much improved performance.

Change Log:

06 February 2021:

• Brave: Removed “privacy” as a pro and put it as a con, from information found on this source: https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/brave.html

• Globus Browser: Project is dead. Removed links.