# What is your primary web browser? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 21, 2019, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852 "2019-06-21T17:00:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/21 "2019-06-22T13:48:24Z")
FWIW. Relevant article in today’s Washington Post online: [**Goodbye, Chrome: Google’s web browser has become spy software**](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/21/google-chrome-has-become-surveillance-software-its-time-switch/?utm_term=.9971c0285824) > [@](#): > > _Our latest privacy experiment found Chrome ushered more than 11,000 tracker cookies into our browser — in a single week. Here’s why Firefox is better._ > > You open your browser to look at the Web. Do you know who is looking back at you? > > Over a recent week of Web surfing, I peered under the hood of Google Chrome and found it brought along a few thousand friends. Shopping, news and even government sites quietly tagged my browser to let ad and data companies ride shotgun while I clicked around the Web. > > This was made possible by the Web’s biggest snoop of all: Google. Seen from the inside, its Chrome browser looks a lot like surveillance software. > … > > My tests of Chrome vs. Firefox unearthed a personal data caper of absurd proportions. In a week of Web surfing on my desktop, I discovered 11,189 requests for tracker “cookies” that Chrome would have ushered right onto my computer but were automatically blocked by Firefox. These little files are the hooks that data firms, including Google itself, use to follow what websites you visit so they can build profiles of your interests, income and personality. > > Chrome welcomed trackers even at websites you would think would be private. I watched Aetna and the Federal Student Aid website set cookies for Facebook and Google. They surreptitiously told the data giants every time I pulled up the insurance and loan service’s log-in pages. > > And that’s not the half of it. > > Look in the upper right corner of your Chrome browser. See a picture or a name in the circle? If so, you’re logged in to the browser, and Google might be tapping into your Web activity to target ads. Don’t recall signing in? I didn’t, either. Chrome recently started doing that automatically when you use Gmail. > … > > I felt hoodwinked when Google quietly began signing Gmail users into Chrome last fall. Google says the Chrome shift didn’t cause anybody’s browsing history to be “synced” unless they specifically opted in — but I found mine was being sent to Google and don’t recall ever asking for extra surveillance. (You can turn off the Gmail auto-login by searching “Gmail” in Chrome settings and switching off “Allow Chrome sign-in.”) > > After the sign-in shift, Johns Hopkins associate professor Matthew Green made waves in the computer science world when he blogged he was done with Chrome. “I lost faith,” he told me. “It only takes a few tiny changes to make it very privacy unfriendly.” > … These are snippets from a long article. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/22 "2019-06-22T13:58:38Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > FWIW. Relevant article in today’s Washington Post online: > > [**Goodbye, Chrome: Google’s web browser has become spy software**](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/21/google-chrome-has-become-surveillance-software-its-time-switch/?utm_term=.9971c0285824) Yup. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/23 "2019-06-22T14:04:55Z")
Duck Duck Go It’s designed not to Spy and it deletes Cookies after closing. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/24 "2019-06-22T14:09:57Z")
I use at least two browsers on every device. I’d a website doesn’t seem to work, I switch to another browser. Work: default is explorer, but i also use chrome Home: default is Safari, but i also use chrome. I also have Firefox, and maybe i should switch to that. Phone: default is Firefox, but i also use chrome. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/25 "2019-06-22T14:33:52Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > FWIW. Relevant article in today’s Washington Post online: > > [**Goodbye, Chrome: Google’s web browser has become spy software**](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/21/google-chrome-has-become-surveillance-software-its-time-switch/?utm_term=.9971c0285824) > > These are snippets from a long article. You beat me to it. I just opened this thread to post a link to the same article. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/26 "2019-06-22T14:43:01Z")
I mostly use Firefox, but it’s been acting up in annoying ways lately, so I’m thinking of switching. I don’t use it on my phone (I use the phone version of Chrome, because that was the default, and I didn’t feel like changing it), but then, I do very little web browsing on my phone anyway, so I didn’t think I really qualified for “different browsers on different devices”. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/27 "2019-06-22T14:45:55Z")
I still miss my Netscape Navigator. But now Chrome is my default. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/28 "2019-06-22T14:55:49Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > FWIW. Relevant article in today’s Washington Post online: > > [**Goodbye, Chrome: Google’s web browser has become spy software**](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/21/google-chrome-has-become-surveillance-software-its-time-switch/?utm_term=.9971c0285824) > > These are snippets from a long article. It’s hard to say that I have a “primary” browser, but Firefox (version 56) comes closer than anything else. I use the big four – Edge, IE, Firefox, and Chrome – but I use them for different things. For instance, I use IE for Gmail, but Chrome for FaceBook. That helps defeat a lot of the spy efforts. > [@aceplace57](#): > > Duck Duck Go > > It’s designed not to Spy and it deletes Cookies after closing. That’s a search engine, not a browser. ---
**Author:** ![Bayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bayaker/32/3454_2.png) [@Bayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/29 "2019-06-22T16:46:28Z")
I’ve been using Firefox for years, and I don’t even remember why I switched from Explorer. I just checked my cell phone and it uses Chrome, but that doesn’t count because I almost never use the internet on it. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/30 "2019-06-22T21:43:10Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > That’s a search engine, not a browser. There is a full-on DDG browser for iOS and Android. It’s extremely minimal: just a search box, a bookmarks button, a new tab button, and a “burn” button, which instantly closes all your tabs and erases everything (except your settings and bookmarks). I’ve been using it for a few days now. I dig it. Probably won’t work for people who like a feature-rich browsing experience, but on my phone internet browsing is purely utilitarian. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/33 "2019-09-14T11:10:50Z")
I’m Apple at home and out-and-about and use Safari for the sake of simplicity. But at work we’re strictly a PC shop. We have a weird browser tradition. Lots of our job functions involve web apps on our intranet, and many of these do not work both on Explorer and Chrome. Earlier, they were all Explorer. But for some weird reason Explorer grew so bad that people started describing its use as a deprecated practice, something good people don’t do, and the like. Our IT department started telling people “you didn’t hear it from me, but you should mostly use Chrome, and if you quote me I’ll deny it”. Then they got more open about it. Now I think about a third of our apps require Explorer, a third require Chrome, and a third can work on either. It’s a pain to remember which app requires which browser – and this changes from time to time, too. Newer users may find this amusing, but earlier in the history of computing, the idea of a browser was that one browser could run every website or web app… ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/34 "2019-09-14T12:09:04Z")
I use Waterfox, a branch of Firefox that doesn’t break all the extensions I have grown to love and rely on. I can’t keep this up forever, eventually the no-longer-maintained extensions will fail, and there is already a terrible memory leak coming from somewhere, but I’ll stick with it for a couple more years I hope. I really like the customisation features that Firefox uniquely seemed to have, and other browsers couldn’t compete with, so it was disappointing when they just decided they were going to interfere with some of my favourites. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/35 "2019-09-14T13:17:41Z")
If one uses Gmail (no matter what browser you use to get there), is Google still spying on you? ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/36 "2019-09-14T14:19:49Z")
Firefox. I **hate** the lame semi-menu that Chrome and Edge have. I understand that Chrome broke the menu so that you cannot use extensions to rebuild a menu. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/38 "2019-09-14T14:39:20Z")
I’ve recently installed and started testing Brave. Not esp. excited about it. Esp. the tab handling thing. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/39 "2019-09-14T15:15:38Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Esp. the tab handling thing. How is it different? ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/40 "2019-09-14T15:15:57Z")
> [@philsabraham](#): > > Google can only track your Gmail activities, not your browsing activities or anything Thanks. Just installed Brave and all is well, so far anyway. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/41 "2019-09-14T15:43:55Z")
Safari on iDevices and Chrome elsewhere ---
**Author:** ![Razncain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@Razncain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Razncain)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/42 "2019-09-14T16:02:28Z")
I’ve been pleased with Firefox as of late. Before that, Chrome, but every time on a fresh start with that browser on my computer, there are about 5-6 fairly good sized annoying pop-ups, one after another in the lower right hand corner of my screen, that wouldn’t allow you to get rid of any of them until you clicked through the whole sha-bang. Only reason I had switched to Chrome, was being forced to check my yahoo account on mail, since it wasn’t going to be compatible with IE. But Firefox is able to still check my yahoo mail. Chrome has gotten too big for my tastes, it’s amazing how invasive they are. Before Chrome, I tried IE. It has the continuing problem of having to recover webpage every 5-10 minutes or so. Supposedly, everyone has easy fixes for this problem, I’ve tried several of them, none worked, just don’t have the time and patience anymore to keep it running. I do appreciate DuckDuckGo as a search engine, and have used it for many years. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852/43 "2019-09-14T20:14:43Z")
I’d love to switch to Safari on my Mac, but there’s no Safari for Windows, so it’s much easier to use Chrome on Mac and sync all my stuff to Chrome on Windows. I run Windows in a VM at home for the pure purpose of syncing bookmarks to Safari, so at least I have my bookmarks available on my phone. I won’t use Chrome on my phone because, well, I don’t remember because. Maybe… javascript performance? I need to revisit that decision; it’s been a few years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-primary-web-browser/835852.md?page=3)