How We Tested? We evaluated all the popular Internet Browsers primarily for their security and privacy features on our test system running Windows 10.
Security: How well does the browser protect you from hackers, vulnerabilities, and exploits?
Privacy: How the browser tries to protect your privacy? Does it try to collect data about you? If yes, then what does it do with it?
Further, we obtained data from trusted sources to come up with the most secure web browsers for Windows PC.
OS Compatibility – Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8, and Windows 7.
1. Brave Browser
Brave is truly the privacy and security-based browser for Windows and is at the top of our list.
Strong privacy-measures
Blocks all ads, scripts, and trackers
Good anti-malware and anti-phishing features
Controversial ad system
Open-Source: Brave is an open-source browser built on top of Chromium, which means it’ll feel pretty familiar already if you’re a Chrome user.
Blocks Ads, Scripts, and Trackers: Brave is a fast browser with default settings configured for privacy. It blocks all advertisements, scripts, trackers, and fingerprinting, making sure no one is spying on you. The browser especially blocks social media trackers and cookies that follow you across the web to collect your preference, likes, and dislikes.
Protection from Malware: Like many others on the list, Brave guards you against various cybercrime types, like malware or phishing.
HTTPS Everywhere: The built-in HTTPS Everywhere feature ensures you’re always connecting to the most secure version of the website you’re browsing. Brave settings provide plenty of ways to customize your browsing experience to be as secure as you want it.
Incognito Mode with Tor: Brave has an incognito mode with Tor and Duckduckgo as the search engine. This hides your IP and is almost complete privacy. Furthermore, there is a built-in password manager to handle all of your password woes.
Controversial: The browser’s advertising platform is a little controversial. However, it is optional, and you can as well not opt-in. On the downside, using Brave can lead you to perform numerous CAPTCHA verifications when you try to access larger sites.
A Chrome lookalike browser but offers numerous security and privacy enhancements.
Fast and secure
Pro privacy browser
Fully open-source
Doesn’t auto block ads
Fast: Iridium starts very fast. It loads and renders even complex websites quickly. You will appreciate the speed.
Secure Browsing: The browser has Google Safe Browsing enabled by default. This will protect you from malicious websites and phishing attempts.
Blocks Cookies and Trackers: By default, it blocks all third-party cookies. It always sends the “Do-Not-Track” header. It even displays a notification when it detects a tracker that is trying to retrieve information about you.
Pro-privacy Browser: Iridium respects your privacy. Hence, the Site data like cookies, cache, local storage, etc. are only kept until you exit the browser. Further, it inhibits the automatic transmission of partial queries, metrics, keywords, and other data to third parties without your consent.
Easy to Handle: Just anybody can use Iridium right away. It’s simple, easy to handle, and provides seamless navigation that does not get in your way. Also, since Iridium is based on Chromium, you can add more security extensions from the Chrome Web Store.
Fully Open-Source: Iridium is fully open-source. The entire source code is available for public view. Right now, Iridium is available for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.
If you’re looking for the ultimate in privacy, then Tor is what you need.
Layers of encryption
Blocks ads, trackers and browser-fingerprinting
Best in class privacy
Slower
Some websites don’t work
Best in class Privacy: Tor is arguably the best known privacy-focused browser. It is useful for anyone who wants to keep their Internet activities out of the hands of advertisers, ISPs, Government, and websites.
Layers of Encryption: Tor routes your Internet through a complex network of relays managed by its community. These layers encrypt the data multiple times, routing it through various locations. This makes your browsing session extremely safe.
Clears Site Data: At the end of each browsing session, all the site data gets wiped. This includes cookies left behind by sites, browsing history, cached content, and more. Also, be more careful when changing its settings as you could compromise its privacy.
Blocks Trackers & Browser-Fingerprinting: Tor blocks all ads and third-party trackers. It also blocks fingerprinting, a method where advertisers attempt to recognize your device’s unique characteristics across multiple sites, even if they can’t tell who you are.
Connect to .onion Sites: With Tor, you can also connect with .onion websites. Tor permits you to securely and privately access these sites that might not otherwise be feasible. For example, you can connect to Facebook.onion or DuckDuckGo.onion sites from within a country where access to these websites is blocked.
Slow and CAPTCHAS: Well, Tor is not your regular browser and hence lacks certain conveniences you take for granted in other browsers. Tor is slow as it optimizes for privacy, at the cost of speed. Using Tor can also mean performing multiple CAPTCHA verifications when you try to access larger sites.
Sites Break: The vast majority of built-in plugins and scripts are disabled or stripped out. That being the reason, many sites fail to work in Tor. Note that some countries do not allow using Tor and have banned it. Don’t use Tor to commit crimes.
Firefox is a great all-around browser offering strong privacy with many customization options.
Non-profit and open source
Many security extensions
Frequent updates
Firefox Telemetry and startup profiling
Non Profit and Open Source: Firefox is developed by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. As a non-profit, Mozilla doesn’t care about making huge dollars by selling your browsing habits to advertisers. Besides, it is the only mainstream open-source browser. So, anyone can get into its source code and ensure there are no tracking scripts included.
Detects Deceptive Websites and Malware: Firefox is also quite secure. Like other major market players, it can detect deceptive websites and malware in general. It includes an excellent pop-up blocker and can protect you from adware.
Customizable Privacy & Security settings: There are many useful customization options for different levels of privacy and security. It includes features like the ability to block cookies, third-party trackers, and Firefox Telemetry. The browser also gives you a ton of information on each website you visit.
Protection from WebRTC Leak: Firefox has an inbuilt setting to disable and prevent WebRTC leak problems from exposing the public IP address. It now comes with an anti-fingerprinting feature too. This makes it harder for advertising companies to build a profile around your habit.
Excellent Extensions: Firefox offers a vast menu of extensions that further enhance your browser’s security. For example, you might want to add the uBlock Origin, HTTPS Everywhere, Privacy Badger, and No Script extensions. These will help you make your Internet communications encrypted, untrackable, and ad-free.
Anti-Crypto mining: Firefox has started implementing the anti-crypto mining feature in its recent releases. This stops specific malicious sites that try to harvest your system resources to make meager profits.
Best Overall: With privacy settings slightly tweaked and a few security add-ons installed, Firefox is the best private browser solution among mainstream browsers. It is frequently updated and has an active development team.
Pale Moon is a lightweight and open-source fork of Firefox, which aims for privacy and efficiency.
Safe and secure browser
Many customization options
Add-ons
Design feels dated
Goanna Engine: Pale Moon runs on its own browser engine called Goanna. This is a fork of the Gecko Engine used by Firefox. The browser is released as a community project and aims for open and collaborative development. So, everyone is welcome to become involved in its development and improve the browser.
Safe Browser: Forked from the mature Firefox code, Pale Moon is regularly updated with the latest security patches. It’s security-aware development, and many additional security features make it a very safe browser to use. Pale Moon gathers absolutely no data from the user.
Customization Options: Pale Moon offers many options for configuration and customization with a purposeful exclusion of a number of features. This also includes support for a wide range of custom themes and skins.
Supports Many Add-ons: The browser offers support for many legacy Firefox extensions. It now has a growing number of Pale Moon exclusive extensions.
DuckDuckGo Search: Pale Moon defaults to a welcoming and very customizable start page in collaboration with Start.me. It uses DuckDuckGo as its default search engine instead of Google or Bing. Further, it uses IP-API service and not Google’s geolocation engines.
Dated Design: The design of the browser feels a bit dated in comparison to modern browsers. However, it’s also not overly-cluttered and is pretty much functional. Pale Moon is currently available on Windows and Linux operating systems.
We believe you have the right to privacy on the Internet. After all, the web is your home away from home.
Using one of the above mentioned safe Internet browsers comes with perks such as private browsing, protection against browser fingerprinting, ads, trackers, and more.
Which is your favorite secure browser for Windows? Do let us know.
Author:Nik is an experienced author with 14 years in software and tech, holding an IT Engineering degree and a Data Science Master's from Liverpool University. Disclaimer: This website's content is created by humans and refined by AI for better grammar, flow, and clarity.
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