Safety & privacy

Will they mask your digital footprints?

Falkon will enable you to kerb the various privacy-invading functions of JavaScript and HTML5. It also includes an XSS Auditor to block cross-site scripting attacks.

Internet users are as obsessed with online advertisements as the websites and advertisers themselves, albeit for different reasons. Brave has a unique approach in that it identifies and then strips all advertisements that track users from all pages that you visit. However, should you feel the need to support the websites, the browser provides a mechanism to do that with the Rewards programme. Its entire gamut of security and privacy offerings include do not track, built-in password manager, encrypted sync, and much more. You can get many of these on the other browsers as well, but not out of the box. Anonymity-conscious users will especially appreciate the built-in support for Tor network.

Although Slimjet also features an incognito mode, and the ability to thwart trackers, its offerings are limited and you must resort to installing extensions if you want additional security features. Vivaldi is comparable in that it also provides these features, together with an ad-blocking service.

Opera ships with an ad-blocker and a tracker blocker. But the free VPN service sets it apart from the others. Although you might still need to cough up for a premium VPN service, depending on your requirements, if all you need to do is occasionally access websites blocked in your region, Opera’s VPN service should suffice. The browser claims that the correct use of the ad-blocker, which also provides cryptojacking protection, also results in the faster loading of web pages.

VERDICT BRAVE

FALKON

OPERA 4.5/5 4/5 4.5/5

SLIMJET

VIVALDI 4/5 4/5

Opera’s free VPN service is impressive, as is Brave’s Tor integration.