The best alternative web browsers for Windows, Mac and Linux

One can undoubtedly load with a few milliseconds in advance a web page compared to a competitor-before he passed a few months later thanks to an update. Another may have a particular option that does not exist elsewhere. Finally, one will possibly have a little more advanced compatibility in one area, where another will shine elsewhere.

Firefox, Opera or Chrome: which browser to choose after the end of the Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer, it’s over. For the 4 Internet users who were still on it, we will have to go to another web browser. The choice is available to you according to your expectations: Edge, Chrome, Firefox … and even Vivaldi or Opera Crypto Browser.

Here, a page turns. Internet Explorer now belongs to history and we will remember more about this browser for the memes which he has been the subject that for his merits in terms of navigation experience. You probably know the joke saying that the only interest of IE as a web browser is to be used to download another browser.

But precisely, which other browser to choose, now that Internet Explorer is six feet underground ? This question obviously does not concern many people. You have certainly already opted for a browser for a long time. This question would only arise for a tiny minority – 0.64 % of Internet users, according to StatCounter measures.

Web browsers are more and more the same

This question could come back to decide that aimed at determining the best browser, but it may not be the most relevant question to ask. Because after all, the differences between the major web browsers on the market (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi) are perhaps no longer as pronounced as in the past.

One of the reasons is due to the fact that the majority of the available solutions in fact share the same technical base, with chromium. This is a free web browser on which Google Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, Brave, Edge, but also a string of more modest projects were built. They use the same rendering engine for HTML (Blink) and the same JavaScript (V8).

They are able to manage your passwords. They are available on the main operating systems. They are also found on mobile. They manage private navigation as synchronization of the profile. They offer tabs, favorites and extensions. We can pre -fulfill forms, check your spelling or change search engine.

All are free and promise a quick and secure navigation experience. They support all the rules of HTML5, which is the most recent version of language to interpret web pages. They manage HTTPS secure links with websites. And everyone strives to display the pages as quickly as possible when they are requested.

Choose the best browser or choose the browser that suits you ?

It would be excessive, of course, to affirm that there is no longer any difference between web browsers today.

One can undoubtedly load with a few milliseconds in advance a web page compared to a competitor-before he passed a few months later thanks to an update. Another may have a particular option that does not exist elsewhere. Finally, one will possibly have a little more advanced compatibility in one area, where another will shine elsewhere.

The real gaps between browsers are in fact essentially nestled in themes that are not really those who jump to the general public – where they use to make their choice. Tests and technical comparisons do not seem to be criteria if determining. In short, it may be on individual expectations that it is better to reason.

What is preferable ? A faster browser, but which does not have an integrated screenshot tool, or its competitor a bit slower, but which includes this default utility ? Do you have to favor pure performance at the expense of the rest ? What about conviviality, ergonomics, web experience ? The answer will vary from person to person.

Rather than establishing a ranking of the best browsers, we invite you to choose according to the expectations you may have. Because establishing a top is a little vain and complicated exercise. What criteria to take ? Pages display speed ? Respect for privacy ? The degree of personalization ? There are as long as each browser can certainly get the gold medal at one time or another.

If you come from the Internet Explorer

Edge. It is perhaps to the natural successor of the Internet Explorer that you could turn. Microsoft, aware that his browser then trained too heavy a technical debt, preferred to start again on healthy bases with a whole new proposal: Edge. The navigator took his first steps in 2015. It evolved in 2018 to adopt the same basis as Chrome.

Unlike the Internet Explorer, Edge is a good web browser. However, those who come from IE will have an adaptation time to observe, because the interface has changed. The program even includes a children’s mode, in order to prevent the youngest from falling on sites that are not their age. Edge makes a globally equal game with his rivals. It changes.

If you want to go to the simplest

Chromium. This is the browser mainstream. It is the most used in the world and probably among your loved ones. This is Google’s browser. So to speak, this is the new IE in terms of market share (it is increasingly hegemonic), but not compatibility and respect for web standards – in this area, the American company tool.

Google Chrome is a browser that evolves quickly and well, which is efficient and which inevitably integrates without difficulty in the rest of the ecosystem of the Mountain View firm. It is also a browser that attracts criticism, given the economic model of its owner. Google is thus accused of maneuvering with Chrome to influence the web.

If you get some idea of ​​the web

Firefox. Firefox is an almost political browser. This is the only one today, in any case one of the only ones, not to use the same technical base as many of its rivals. He thus uses his own rendering engine to display web pages. He is a browser who fights for a certain idea of ​​the web, which leads him to sometimes be in opposition to Google orientations.

The story of Firefox is deeply rooted in that of free software – and navigators in general. He was one of the great players and one of the big challengers of the Internet Explorer during the war of navigators. Firefox has known for a few years an erosion on its market share. It is hardly delightful for those who cares about the diversity of the web.

If you want advanced customization

Vivaldi. The browser has made the choice since 2015 to put the package on personalization. Lately, he has integrated everything you need to manage all his emails from the same interface, but also an agenda and an RSS feed reader. This is the kind of browser to offer two rows of tabs if you open too much.

Vivaldi is a still relatively modest browser compared to tenors in the sector, but its name is more and more regularly in chrome alternatives. If it is the interface and the personalization that matter to you to make the navigation as comfortable as possible, Vivaldi has a whole paraphernalia to activate – until excess, if you wish.

If you are sensitive to all the ramdam around the web3

Opera Crypto Browser. All the delirium around the web3, NFT, blockchain and crypto speaks you ? So Opera has a proposal for you: rather than using his usual web browser, he launched a slightly special browser at the start of the year, called Opera Crypto Browser. This one aims to give access to web services while integrating a cryptocurrency portfolio.

Opera Crypto Browser’s project dates back to 2018. Since then, there have been announcements such as “Opera for Android has joined Direction 2 of Ethereum, giving access to Defi”, “Opera Crypto Browser joins the BNB channel and opens access to its Dapps ecosystem” or “opera for Android incorporates the FIO protocol ». If this jargon speaks to you, this browser should fill you.

If you swear by Apple

Safari. This is Apple’s house browser. We also assume that you are already on it if you have a product of the American brand: indeed, Safari only exists in the Apple ecosystem (iOS, macOS and iPados). There is no version for Android and the version that had been developed over time for Windows ended up being abandoned.

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The best alternative web browsers for Windows, Mac and Linux

The writing has selected the best alternative web browsers for Windows, Mac and Linux for you.

Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer and Edge are the most used web browsers in the world. If everyone makes their choice according to rather subjective criteria such as the availability of a particular extension or even the arrangement of the various menus and buttons, other criteria could push you to change the creamy. There are indeed many alternative web browsers sometimes offering new features, or meeting specific needs. To help you make your choice, we have selected the best alternative web browsers for Windows, Mac and Linux.

1. Vivaldi

Created by Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, an Opera Software former, Vivaldi plays the card of modernity by giving great freedom to its users. Offering the promise of a browser to your image, Vivaldi Pushes the personalization card to the extreme. Almost everything can be changed in this chameleon browser.

The browser interface is configurable as desired: from the wallpaper of the speed dial to the main color of the theme, including the adaptation of the colorization of the interface as a function of the dominant color of the site visited, way ” Ambilight “, Vivaldi adapts to your greatest wishes. The personalization of the browser is the battle horse Vivaldi, which even pushes the defect until allowing the keyboard and personalized gesture shortcut configuration.

But Vivaldi, which relies on chromium, also draws its power in its way of letting the user organize, especially in the management of tabs. If it is possible to display them next to each other at the top of the window, the tabs of Vivaldi can be moved below, or in a column grafted to the left or right of the navigation window. Even better, all open tabs can be grouped in a stack of tabs from which it is possible to easily go from one page open to another but also to display the contents of each tab in a single window.

Finally, Vivaldi To this particularity of power almost is enough for itself. The browser incorporates so many features that it makes browser extensions almost obsolete. The most practical of them is undoubtedly the “notes” function which, as its name suggests, allows you to annotate the sites to which you go. This module, integrated into the discreet toolbar hidden on the far left of the window, allows you to write a note attached to the page visited and illustrate it with a screenshot or an attachment stored locally on your computer.

2. Ur Browser

Google Chrome users should not be disoriented by the interface of Ur Browser. And for good reason, the browser, developed by the French firm AdaptiveBee, is based on the Open Source Chromium project, itself at the origin of Google Chrome. He therefore largely takes up the navigation system, the menus, etc.

The particularity of Ur Browser, In addition to taking advantage of the good chromium performance, is to offer navigation respecting your privacy. At the first opening of the program, you are asked to choose the search engine to be used by default. The choice is wide, and for each actor represented, Ur Browser displays a note for the quality of the results provided, and another for respecting personal data and privacy. The software also secures your navigation thanks to automatic redirection in HTTPS and the integration of an antivirus scanner capable of countering malicious sites. Depending on your needs, the browser offers several confidentiality levels.

In low confidentiality, Ur Browser Activates automatic redirection to HTTPS and reduces your online footprint by randomly modifying your machine’s material information in order to be perceived as a different user when you visit the same site several times. In “average confidentiality”, natively activated by Ur Browser, the browser adds the blocking of cookies, advertisements and third -party cookies. Finally, in “high confidentiality”, Ur Browser Add a “ninja mode” offering the possibility of opening tabs in private navigation next to the classic tabs, in the same window.

For the rest of the functions, Ur Browser Allows you to access your websites more quickly from your home page by grouping them in “moods”, customizable categories organized by place or by activity. It is also from this home page that you can organize your widgets and access the latest news published on the Web. Finally, the download manager, which offers you to quickly access your files by sorting them by format, is also capable of accelerating the download of your files by cutting them into small pieces which are then downloaded simultaneously.

3. Opera Neon

Published by Opera Software, Opera Neon, which is also based on chromium, is a real test laboratory. The Norwegian firm explains that it is necessary to see each function ofOpera Neon as “an alternative reality of the Opera browser”. Behind this mysterious sentence, understand that the company uses this project to test the concepts that could one day be integrated into Opera.

Visually opposite what Opera is, Opera Neon Be futuristic by sporting an interface in transparency revealing the native wallpaper of your machine, and where the last pages consulted in the form of floating bubbles are suspended. This home page is to be seen as a “internet window” dixit the editor since the tabs, represented by bubbles, are grouped in a column located on the right and react naturally when you move them. Their management is at first sight quite confusing since the opening of a new tab automatically leads to a return to the home page.

Among the experiments that deserve the detour, you will find a detachable reader that allows you to watch a video while continuing your navigation. The column located on the far left ofOpera Neon groups together several tools, starting with a reader in which all the media (audio and video) are grouped in the open tabs. You also find a screenshot tool as well as a gallery bringing together all the screenshots and recorded images. Finally, as at Vivaldi, Opera Neon offers you to share your screen to display two tabs simultaneously in the same window.

4. Tor Browser

Unique browser of this selection to be based on Firefox, Tor Browser offers you to navigate the canvas anonymously, through the decentralized Tor network. To put it simply, each connection to a website established since Tor Browser, Transit by several servers before arriving on your screen, to prevent your tracing, and to anonymize your surfing session. Thus, you can consult the websites potentially blocked in your geographic area, and above all, you prevent sites from knowing your surf habits.

To complete the security of your online wanderings, Tor Browser natively incorporates https Everywhere and Noscript extensions. The first allows you to navigate only by using the HTTPS secure protocol, while the second allows you to deactivate all the javascript scripts of the sites visited. To verify that you are not identifiable once it is wrong via Tor Browser, The browser allows you to check the circuit you take, by displaying the countries and the IPs of the servers by which your request transits.

Several levels of security are offered in Tor Browser. By default, the browser adopts a level of security called “low”. At this stage, all the features of the browser are activated, and your connection always transits by the Tor network. At the “medium” level, Tor Browser Disable JavaScript by default for all sites not using the HTTPS protocol, and all audio and video content in HTML5 are replaced by the mention “Click to read”. At the “high” security level, Tor Browser Disable JavaScript for all sites, which can alter the display, blocks certain images and only allows access to HTML5 audio and video content that after clicking on “Click to read”. Note in passing that the more you choose high safety options, the more the loading of websites can take time, the more the display of pages may be visually impacted.

5. Sushi Browser

Based on the Open Source Chromium project, Sushi Browser is a resource web browser. The main concept of the program is based on its ability to use the maximum display area of ​​your screen to display the websites you visit. To succeed, Sushi Browser offers many functions, the most important of which is the modularity of the display of pages and tabs. Sushi Browser Allows you to display all open tabs in a side column for simplified navigation, but also offers to display side by side two separate windows.

Other features are directly attached to this multi-Panne display. You can for example open a link in the opposite panel by clicking on the dial, synchronize the scrolling of open web pages or even quickly access your favorites or history from the sidebar.

Sushi Browser also incorporates a terminal, a file explorer, a text editor and a video player to allow you to open your documents without having to leave your browser.

6. Epic Privacy Browser

If respect for privacy is for you when you sail on the web, Epic Privacy Browser is undoubtedly the most suitable solution. This web browser which is based on chromium performance makes it a point of honor to secure your web browsing and protect your private data.

To succeed, Epic Privacy Browser blocks all tracking and advertising scripts. Thanks to this, the browser is able to load the 25% web pages faster than conventional browsers. None of your data is kept: research and your browsing history are deleted from your computer, just like the web cache and the DNS cache. The browser does not include an automatic filling option, does not synchronize your data with Google, does not make an automatic suggestion and does not propose to save your identifiers and connection passwords. Only the address bar is capable of suggesting links, from a database stored locally on your computer.

Clear, Epic Privacy Browser offers you a continuous private navigation system which, once the browser is closed, automatically deletes navigation data. To top it all, Epic Privacy Browser offers to encrypt your navigation by having it transit it through a secure proxy. Thus, your IP address is hidden and navigation from a public wireless access point is secure. The use of proxy in Epic Privacy Browser also allows you to overcome any regional restrictions which can prevent you from preventing certain content reserved for certain countries.