What the Tech: Safe browsers
CHARLOTTE – Most of us browse the internet the same way: we hop on our favorite web browser. For the past decade or so, that’s been Google Chrome. It is the most popular web browser in the world, and it isn’t even close. Well over half of all web traffic is on Chrome on both computers and mobile devices.
As users have become more concerned about their privacy and what personal information is being shared with third-party companies, they’ve begun exploring other options.
Millions of people are realizing that the web browser they use daily might be revealing TMI, or too much information about them.
If privacy is important to you, it’s worth taking a look at how the major browsers work and what information they share. Google Chrome is known for its speed and seamless integration with other Google services like Gmail. Like many people, I use Google Chrome for those reasons but primarily because it’s what I’ve always used. I have over a decade of bookmarks in Chrome along with extensions to make it easy (and fast) to get where I usually go.
However, it might not be the best choice if privacy is your top priority. Google’s primary revenue source, about 77%, comes from targeted advertising. This means Chrome often allows
third-party cookies that track your online activities to provide advertisers with valuable data. When you search for dress shoes in Google Chrome, you can expect to see ads for dress shoes anytime you open any Google product. The cookies placed in the browser are shared with third-party companies that pay Google for targeted advertising opportunities. That’s fine if you don’t mind seeing ads for things you are interested in, but it does get creepy at times.
On the other end of the spectrum, Apple’s Safari takes a different approach. Since Apple’s business revolves around selling iPhones, watches, computers, and other hardware, not ads,
Safari blocks most third-party trackers by default. This significantly limits the amount of data advertisers can collect about you, making it a more privacy-focused option. Another strong contender for privacy is Firefox. Run by a nonprofit organization, Firefox prioritizes user privacy over advertising revenue. It effectively blocks hidden trackers and employs a unique “cookie jar” method, assigning a separate space for cookies for each website.
This prevents advertisers from piecing together your entire browsing history across different sites. In summary, Chrome provides advertisers with more access to your data, while Safari and
Firefox are designed to block tracking cookies and prevent fingerprinting, a technique used to identify you even without cookies. Fingerprinting gathers specific details about your browser and
device configuration to create a unique identifier.
A drawback for Safari is that it only works on Apple devices (Mac, iPhone, and iPad). There is no option to use Safari on PCs or Android devices. When it comes to compatibility, Chrome and Firefox work on virtually every device, including Windows, Mac, Android, and iPhone.
There are other browser options. Microsoft Edge, Opera, and now DuckDuckGo have their own privacy-focused browsers. It will take time to get comfortable with a new browser, but if privacy has become more important to you, reconsidering which browser you use can make a big difference. If the Department of Justice is successful in forcing Google to sell off Chrome, it will dramatically
change how we use the internet and how advertisers reach us.
