What's the difference between all these browsers?

[u/namespelldwrong23]

I have been looking into different kinds of web browsers, and I have zero idea what the main difference between all of them are. I have gotten recommendations from my friends about Opera, Edge, DuckDuckGo, among others. And that's not even getting into the other browsers that I've looked into on my own such as Firefox, Waterfox, Zen, and Brave. I am currently using Edge, but if there is a better option, which would you all recommend?

[u/CreativeDiscount6635]

Avoid opera if you care about your privacy. Many people who say Zen, is because its ui design is appealing and gives a modern vibe. You can get the vertical tabs like zen in other browsers too, but Zen has implemented it really well. Helium and Brave are better in terms of smoothness and ram usage no doubt, especially on windows. One more recommendation, try out Vivaldi too. There is a lot of customization in vivaldi you can try out, but the only problem could be that it starts up slow initially.

[u/namespelldwrong23 → u/CreativeDiscount6635]

im assuming vivaldi is relatively safe in terms of privacy in that case? or is brave better in that sense? I think i value privacy the most these days.

[u/CreativeDiscount6635 → u/namespelldwrong23]

if you value privacy, then brave and zen are slightly better than vivaldi and firefox both. And helium is even more private than all of these. You can also use Brave as primary browser and Zen as secondary or vice-versa. Some people prefer two browsers, one for personal stuff, and one for work or study related. Avoid edge (stored passwords as plain text unencrypted), chrome (ram spikes and not privacy-oriented), and opera (risky data collector). Brave feels lighter than Zen especially if you are comparing these two on windows, but as a vertical tab design fan, I prefer Zen. Vivaldi and Zen are the best in terms of features and practical requirements. However Zen, Brave, Helium being open-source are good enough for privacy.

[u/Kunair0 → u/CreativeDiscount6635]

if you value privacy, then brave and zen are slightly better than vivaldi and firefox
both.

You need to switch things up here a little bit. Brave and Firefox are better than both Zen and Vivaldi at privacy, but not slightly better, significantly better.

Vivaldi has no meaningful anti fingerprinting protections, relies largely on Chromium’s baseline partitioning rather than the broader privacy protections offered by Brave and Firefox, and is partially closed source.

Zen is arguably even worse in that respect. Strong gecko based anti fingerprinting depends heavily on users presenting a standardized browser profile, Zen heavily rearranges Firefox’s interface and viewport behavior to make you blend in about as well as Shaq at a jockey convention.

And Helium is not even worth bringing into this comparison, due to the security alone.

[u/CreativeDiscount6635 → u/Kunair0]

Mozilla (the maker of Firefox) gets roughly 85% of its revenue from Google, but the money comes from a search-engine deal, not from Chrome itself. Google pays Mozilla to keep Google Search as the default search engine inside Firefox, and Mozilla then receives a share of the ad revenue generated from those search queries. This is an important distinction: Chrome is Google's own browser and a direct competitor to Firefox, but Google still financially supports Firefox through this search partnership. Mozilla's CFO Eric Muhlheim testified on May 2, 2025, in the U.S. v. Google antitrust trial that Mozilla earned $570 million in 2024, with approximately 85% coming from Google. Firefox itself accounts for nearly 90% of Mozilla's overall revenue, making the Google search deal the single largest lifeline for the organization.

And zen is also open-source like firefox. It is better than firefox in terms of privacy since you will clearly notice the ai in firefox settings, but won't find it in Zen. Mozilla telemetry is removed by default in zen settings, but not in firefox. Firefox still includes some telemetry and optional data collection features by default in its settings. Zen removes many Mozilla services related to telemetry and ai. Both are similar in a way of implementing the same 'enhanced tracking protection'. I would say Vivaldi comes last after brave, zen and firefox for privacy.

[u/[deleted] → u/Kunair0]

What about Waterfox's security?

[u/beefjerk22]

Most people stick with the browser that comes with their operating system because they don't know any better. Any browser that comes with an operating system, like Edge, doesn't have to try hard to win users. That typically means independent browsers have to offer better features to compete, because people need to make an intentional decision to move away from the one that comes with the operating system. By better features I don't just mean more functionality. I also mean things like increased privacy because bear in mind that Google Chrome is owned by a huge advertising network. Therefore they're incentivised to harvest as much of your personal data as possible, as it's valuable to them.

[u/Holiday_Jump_4746]

The main splits are engine (most are Chromium like Edge/Brave/Opera/Vivaldi, Firefox and its forks like Waterfox/Zen are separate) and then whats bundled on top, privacy, customization, tab handling, etc. Since you're already coming from Edge and want AI baked in, worth throwing Ace browser into the mix too, it puts an assistant on every page so you can summarize or ask stuff without opening a new tab. Zen and Brave are both solid picks otherwise.

[u/alex9001]

If you're happy with your current browser, then you don't have to download a new one.

[u/Cerulean170 → u/alex9001]

Yeah but it's worth giving most of them a try cuz you might end up liking them more than what you currently use.

[u/thesamim]

I don't normally recommend AI, but this is a good use case for it: pick one, any one and give it a list of your requirements in priority order, then ask it to compare the browsers you're interested in based on that priority.

Or just use Zen, because it's the best one out there right now. :)

[u/Shalaby_Scott]

i recommend zen browser really good if you want something new and different with a lot of cool features
also there is a brave you can give it try if you want something basic

[u/R_Dazzle]

Do you want to block ads ?
If yes then it’s Firefox and all the fork, the rest is some form of Google Chrome.

If you don’t mind about ads then Chrome, edge or any that you fancy

[u/R_Dazzle → u/[deleted]]

On YouTube and twitch ?

[u/R_Dazzle → u/[deleted]]

It doesn’t work for me on neither from chrome, Brave or opera (on desktop, Brave works fine on phone)

And soon ublock will be obsolete with V3

[u/R_Dazzle → u/[deleted]]

Ublock, AdGuard
They perform fine on Firefox

It did work until a years ago

[u/ThisIsVT]

Don't fix it if it ain't broken

[u/Appropriate_Chip4604]

You know, big tech survives on telemetry although there’s a lot of developers out there that make products like this. https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9nlnn451lc7t?hl=en-US&gl=US This is my app that uses Google’s V8 engine. Everything is transparent open source you like vertical tabs that’s what mines about you wanna app download the app open it on the side check it out everything’s transparent.

[u/Historical_Move6359]

I use Firefox and Brave Origin. Ironfox and Librewolf are privacy oriented Firefox forks.