- Browser benchmark battle January 2020: Chrome vs. Emil Protalinski @EPro January 15, 2020 10:43 AM Dev. Transform 2021 Join us for the world’s leading event about.
- Join us for this tense Opera vs Firefox battle in which the rounds get close, but there is an ultimate winner. Brave, and Edge all have the same dull, lifeless design/color schemes.
- Brave is built on the chromium which was specially developed for efficiency and speed. Firefox is not based on the chromium so it lags a little bit on opening the new tab or loading the new page.
While there’s no shortage of web browsers on Android, the list shortens when we bring privacy into the picture. Out of the few, Brave and DuckDuckGo are the flagship Chromium-based privacy-friendly browsers. So, how do they stack up against each other? Well, this is an in-depth breakdown of the Brave vs DuckDuckGo Privacy browser and which one to choose.
While Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Brave and Opera work on all major systems and are easy to install, Internet Explorer and Safari only work on Microsoft and Apple’s own systems. The mobile version of Safari is pre-installed on Apple’s mobile devices, and most Android devices come with a pre-installed browser modified by the manufacturer for the. The ongoing saga of brave vs Firefox has already taken over the internet city but still, the question remains that which browser is best? Brave has already shaken the floor by its lightning speed but is brave worth more than the browser conqueror Firefox? Download Brave Browser.
Brave Vs DuckDuckGo
1. User Interface & Experience
Brave and DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser is based on Chromium. But, comparatively, they still look quite different. Starting off, Brave is the fancier one. It will pop-up a new wallpaper every time you create a new tab. This can be disabled in the settings, though. Additionally, on the new tab, Brave also shows the total number of trackers blocked, Data saved, and Est. time saved. Good flex!
My favorite thing about the Brave browser is the bottom toolbar. Scribd tamil stories pdf. With the ever-growing size of mobile displays, it’s about time apps bring the menu bar, settings, options at the bottom. I use a huge Galaxy Note 9 and Brave’s bottom bar is a lot more accessible than any other browser.
On the other hand, DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser has a more minimalistic approach. It does privacy right and doesn’t concentrate on other stuff. The new tab page is blank with a DuckDuckGo logo. Sadly, it doesn’t have a bottom facing toolbar and you’d have to stretch your fingers to get to the Omnibox.
In terms of appearance customization, apart from light and dark theme, DuckDuckGo also provides you the option to change app color. Blue’s my favorite.
2. Ad & Tracker Blocking
Being a privacy-friendly browser, both browsers have in-built tracker blocking. Additionally, Brave also features ad-blocking, fingerprinting protection, and cookie-blocking. With Brave, you wouldn’t have to use an additional ad blocker. On a regular day of browsing articles or watching videos, both Brave and DuckDuckGo felt quite similar. However, to give you a perspective, I tried to compare the number of ads/trackers blocked on the same set of websites. Below are the numbers.
Ads/Tracker Blocked | ||
Website Name | Brave Browser | DuckDuckGo |
NYTimes | 32 | 8 |
Washington Post | 29 | 14 |
Times of India | 14 | 15 |
Amazon | 9 | 0 |
2 | 0 | |
3 | 2 | |
YouTube | 2 | 0 |
7 | 2 |
The website load time and experience on both the browsers were more or less the same. However, you would see an inflated number of trackers blocked on Brave because Brave doesn’t provide a separate number for ads and trackers blocked. Bc c128 hd wide font styles. So, the number combines both ads as well as trackers blocked.
A small point that I would like to add is that due to strict ad-blocking and tracker prevention from Brave, a few of the website’s functionality tend to break. At such times, you have to turn off everything and retry. t
3. Privacy Features
The highlight of both these browsers is privacy and you would expect a load of options here. Well, you won’t be disappointed. Foremost, Brave blocks a number of things like ads, trackers, cookies, fingerprinting, etc by default. In terms of additional options, you have the ability to have separate search engines for normal and incognito i.e. private mode. Moreover, you also get the option to allow or deny location and notification permissions to separate search engines. Apart from that, you also have the option to deny payment method access to websites and clear data/cookies on a click.
Unlike Brave, the DuckDuckGo browser isn’t that feature loaded. However, it does the bare minimum pretty well. First of all, there’s no Incognito or Private mode in DuckDuckGo. The default is the private mode. The browser doesn’t save your history or provides URL suggestions when you type. Additionally, you have a fire button beside the Omnibox. Once you tap on it, all your data and tabs are cleared in a single go. It’s similar to the “Close Incognito tabs” option you get on the Android notification shade when you are using Incognito mode.
As soon as you open a website under DuckDuckGo, it provides a rating to the particular website to denote the level of privacy on the site. For instance, A+ is the best while D is the least.
On a side note, since DuckDuckGo doesn’t have a dedicated Incognito mode, the browser misses on a couple of things.
- You can take screenshots within the normal mode
- The browser content is visible in the Recents Apps menu
Both these problems are because DDG doesn’t use Android’s SECURE_FLAG. The SECURE_FLAG blocks both screenshot and app preview in the Recent Apps page. Of course, DuckDuckGo might not have implemented it intentionally in order to enable people to take screenshots but it does expose it a bit.
4. PWA
Although DuckDuckGo is based on Chromium, it runs on quite an older version of Chromium, possibly Chromium 4.0. Hence, it doesn’t support Progressive Web Apps (PWA). In case you don’t know what PWAs are, it’s a web app behaving like a native Android app. Here are some of the PWA you should be using. Brave does support PWA and even “chrome://flags“. Hence, if you are coming from Chrome, things would be more familiar.
5. Desktop App & Sync
DuckDuckGo doesn’t have a desktop app. It’s only present on Android and iOS. On the other hand, Brave does have a desktop browser and it covers all the platforms like Windows, macOS, and Linux. Brave, lets you sync bookmarks, password, autofill data, open tabs, extensions, themes, etc across devices. As of now, these sync options are available only between Android and Windows 10.
6. Revenue Generation
It’s equally important to understand the revenue model of these companies because this is what keeps them afloat. Privacy companies are akin to claim huge at the start and disappear after some time due to a lack of money. So, Brave has a unique model called Brave Rewards. It brings in its own set of advertisers and provides generic ads. You get paid in terms of cryptocurrency for watching these ads. This is totally optional and can be turned off right away. Another source of income for Brave is search engines. Brave, by default, has Google as the default search engine in the browser.
DuckDuckGo is a search engine more than a dedicated web browser. So, the apps are kind-of branding for themselves. DuckDuckGo primarily earns from ads and affiliate marketing. These show up when you search for certain keywords. For instance, if you search “cars”, you might see the first 3 links as ads of car companies. The companies pay DDG to show up those links on certain keyword searches. In case you purchase from these links, DuckDuckGo also gets a small percentage out of the sale. For a more detailed answer, go ahead and read this Quora answer from DDG Founder, Gabriel Weinberg, describing the revenue generation model.
Closing Words
I have been using Brave for about a year now due to my helplessness of being a long-term Chrome user. I am spoilt by the Chromium choices and I can’t live outside the Chromium territory. And, if that’s the case with you, Brave is definitely the most private and complete option. For everyone else, try DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser.
Also Read: Brave vs. Vivaldi: Which Browser Is Better and Why
Just like the Firefox browser, the Brave browser is free, open source and focused on protecting users’ privacy. Brave is a relative newcomer to the world of browsers: its maker, Brave Software, first debuted the browser in January 2016. In this article we’ll compare our Firefox browser with the Brave browser in three categories: privacy, utility and portability.
Security and Privacy |
---|
Private Browsing mode |
Blocks third-party tracking cookies by default |
Blocks cryptomining scripts |
Blocks social trackers |
The Brave browser, like so many others, is built on the open-source Chromium code by Google. Open-source means anyone can use the source code and piggy-back on top of it to build whatever they want — like the Opera and Edge browsers. But it doesn’t mean that all Chromium-based browsers are equal or are themselves open source.
Brave differentiates itself from the other Chromium browsers by focusing on user privacy — specifically by blocking trackers, scripts, and ads by default. So when you use the Brave browser, the areas of a website that would normally display ads appear as blank spaces. In some instances, pages don’t load properly, which will require you to either choose a different browser or flip the ‘Shields Up’ setting to ‘Shields Down’ which turns off the privacy and security protection.
The Internet as a whole is largely paid for by display advertisements, which keeps the actual content you want to view free. Brave has attempted to upend this model by encouraging its users to opt into Brave’s own reward system, which in reality, is its own ad platform. Once a user has opted-in, Brave will display what they call “privacy-respecting ads” for which you can view and earn what they call a Basic Attention Token a.k.a. a BAT. From this point Brave users can choose to spend their BATs on supporting the sites or individual contributors they love, who in turn can convert the BATs into actual currency.
Whether this sounds complicated or like a great idea, probably depends on your level of contempt for the display advertising on the Internet. Most Internet users understand that good content costs money, and are okay with the fact that the money comes from advertising. Excel product key crack.
On the other side of the coin, with the Firefox browser, we prefer to keep things simple. Firefox blocks many third party trackers, cryptominers and fingerprinting trackers from following you by default. However, Firefox, outside of Private Browsing Mode, chooses not to block display ads from appearing. That is, unless you install one of the extensions specifically designed for that purpose.
There are a few security features in Brave worth highlighting, such as its automatic HTTPS connection upgrades (which Firefox also offers by extension). Brave and Firefox both offer users a native password manager and the ability to check their security statistics anytime. Brave displays stats like the number of trackers it has blocked whenever you open a new tab. Firefox displays similar information when you view your privacy report which can be accessed anytime by clicking the shield in the address bar.
The bottom line is that even though Brave’s revenue model with the Basic Attention Tokens may be too complex for a lot of users, overall both Brave and Firefox browsers offer a variety of ways to enjoy a safe and private browsing experience.
Utility
Utility |
---|
Autoplay blocking |
Tab browsing |
Bookmark manager |
Automatically fills out forms |
Search engine options |
Text to speech |
Reader mode |
Spell checking |
Web extensions/Add-ons |
In-browser screenshot tool |
What might surprise some new Brave users is just how fast pages tend to load in the browser. The reason for these speedy load times is that pages load much quicker when you block all of the advertising on them. There’s simply less to load so it takes less time.
In terms of actual precious RAM usage, the Brave browser is much heavier than Firefox. Brave comes pre-loaded with various features and “add-ons” which can be attributed to its usage of more RAM. Firefox, on the other hand, lets you decide which add-ons and extensions you want to bolt on.
Customization of UI elements and themes have been a favorite feature of Firefox users for years and our avid community of developers have created a vast library of open source add-ons and extensions allowing for even more personalization and functionality. Features that come with Firefox when you download include our powerful screenshots tool, accessibility features and integration with Pocket — a resource that lets users quickly save an article for later reading on any device.
Brave also supports the huge library of extensions available in the Google Chrome web store and offers a variety of in-browser features like the aforementioned Brave Rewards program, and support for downloading torrents in the browser.
Download Firefox Browser
Portability |
---|
OS availability |
Mobile OS availability |
Syncs with mobile |
Password management |
Primary password |
The ability to sync your passwords, extensions, form data, add-ons and other preferences across all your devices and operating systems is a feature that’s been available for years with Firefox. The synced data is also encrypted, which means no one can access it from the outside.
The Firefox browser also gives users the ability to sign up for a free Firefox Account. Having a Firefox account is the key to unlocking syncing across devices, plus you get the added benefit of products like Firefox Monitor which monitors your email addresses and alerts you if any of your information has been involved in any known data breaches.
Brave also recently gained the ability to sync data across most popular operating systems and devices as well with the added capability of syncing your Basic Attention Tokens.
Overall Assessment
When comparing the two browsers, both Firefox and Brave offer a sophisticated level of privacy and security by default, available automatically from the very first time you open them.
Brave’s advertising replacement idea is a twist on the current model of paid ad placement and paid search. But again, some busy Internet users will probably not want to get too involved with the management of micro payments to sites in exchange for their time and attention.
Overall, Brave is a fast and secure browser that will have particular appeal to cryptocurrency users. But for the vast majority of internet citizens, Firefox remains a better and simpler solution.
Brave Vs Firefox
The comparisons made here were done so with default settings and across browser release versions as follows:
Firefox (81) | Brave (1.14.81)
This page is updated semi-quarterly to reflect latest versioning and may not always reflect latest updates.
Firefox (81) | Brave (1.14.81)
This page is updated semi-quarterly to reflect latest versioning and may not always reflect latest updates.