I am struggling to choose a web browser (or, rather, three) for use on my phone (running GrapheneOS). I have tried all of the options below, but each had a different and slight issue that led me to jumping ship several times.
In my setup, there would be three browsers:
One for general browsing (Mullvad on desktop)
One for fussy websites (Vivaldi on desktop)
One for PWAs (I clear my cookies, but I want my PWAs to stay signed in)
So, what do you use? And what settings do you use? If you use extensions, which ones? And how are they set up?
Well, Vanadium is nice, and I do have DNS-level ad and tracker blocking, but the experience is far better in Cromite (ABP), Brave, and IronFox (UBo), not to mention more effective.
I have read both this poll and the one on Techlore, and I have put together a new stack:
Vanadium as my main browser. By simply disabling JS and using a half-decent ad-blocking DNS, I can get a decent experience. In theory, the browserās similarity to vanilla Chrome should also help me blend in with other Android users, though I should probably test this. As for difficult and unavoidable sites, I can just enable JS or use the Internet Archive; no secondary browser needed.
Brave as my main browser. Basically, Vanadium doesnāt have any sort of āforget me when I close this siteā function, or even a āclear data on closeā function. I could just use incognito mode for everything, but Iād definitely forget quite often. So, as the runner-up, Brave now takes Vanadiumās place.
IronFox for PWAs. I could probably get away with something simpler, but I am using Instagram as one of my PWAs (an unfortunate necessity, as my old friends do not use any other social media and the group chat has been fairly dead since 2024), so the presence of uBlock Origin and Greasemonkey are quite handy. I also find that Invidious works a little better under Gecko, but thatās probably just me.
Tor Browser for extra privacy and hidden services. I will rarely, if ever, be using this on my phone unless something quite bad happens, or if someone gives me a .onion link.
Privacy Browser for eepsites. I use I2P even less often than Tor, and I mainly just explore it rather than use it. Privacy Browser, while WebView-based, does a better job of linking up with i2pd than other browsers Iāve tried.
Why not XYZ?
Brave - I was prepared to use this if there were enough people saying I should, but between Eich, their AI, and their crypto, Iām not in any great rush.
Cromite - It has no place in my stack. Vanadium Brave is a better fit for general browsing, IronFox is better at restricting Instagram, and the Tor Project doesnāt recommend using anything other than Tor Browser to access the network.
Firefox - Mozilla are, in my opinion, moving away from the privacy-centric user-first company I used to know with their increased telemetry and AI features. As such, I donāt want to use Firefox; although in the case of Firefox forks, itās quite the opposite.
Iāll be leaving this poll open, because data is beautiful and my preferences will probably change over time.
I use Brave on desktop, with multiple profiles: one for random browsing, one for logins/pwa, etc
For regular browsing on Android I use monocles Browser/Privacy Browser because it has Javascript disabled by default and removes everything after you close the app, which is very strong for privacy. I also use Brave on Android as and sync it with the logins profile on desktop, as well as using it as a backup browser.
I donāt use many extensions (only ProtonVPN and ProtonPass).
Only if youāre able to (and comfortable with) self host. Or willing to pay 3-4$/month, which is absurd if all you want is to sync bookmarks between your devices.
Last time I tried Vanadium it could easily be fingerprinted on fingerprint[.]com/demo. Vanadium is a good recommendation for security but not for privacy so Iām surprised to see so many people here using it. I tested it with different VPN connections, clearing Vanadiumās app data and waiting between tests.
