Many free and paid browsers are available, making it difficult to determine which one will keep you the safest. One combination of effective browsers is Firefox and Tor. This browser combination can help you stay more anonymous online by encrypting your information, bouncing your connection around through different servers set up for this purpose, and restricting access to specific websites.
How to strengthen your online security?
We don’t have to stick to one browser! We recommend using two or three browsers instead, as none is ideal in every situation. This will protect your data and keep you safer online.
We don’t want to complicate things unnecessarily, but the truth is that one browser is not enough to be perfect in every situation. Especially from a privacy point of view, it is better to switch between browsers, as no single service provider has a complete picture of you, and cross-site tracking methods are less effective in such circumstances. But it’s also good to have several legs to stand on if a website doesn’t display correctly in one browser or a service is not available through it. If privacy and security are your only concerns, then, as the previous pages have shown, Tor Browser is the best choice.
Choosing the optimal browser combination
Tor Browser is very secure, but you will quickly notice its limitations if you use it a lot. First, it’s slow, and many services won’t run on it. Firefox and Brave make an excellent pair, their strengths and weaknesses complementing each other almost perfectly. So our recommendation is to install all three – but if you want to stick to one program, you’ll have to choose between Brave and Firefox.
The Tor Browser
Make the Tor Browser your everyday browser! For browsing news, choosing products, finding information, this expertly preconfigured, super-secure software is the best choice for privacy. It may take a little longer to load pages, but be patient because onion routing, which runs in the background, is a time- and resource-consuming method that sends untraceable requests to the target server via several randomly selected nodes.
Since the Tor Browser is based on the Firefox ESR, it is relatively easy to use, but few settings are to watch out for. One of these is the automatic use of the Tor network after startup. Two necessary add-ons are pre-installed, HTTPS Everywhere and NoScript.
The former ensures that a secure connection is used whenever possible, while the latter prevents JavaScript from running from unsecured sources. No other add-ons should be installed because any additional elements will reduce the security offered by the program. This also means using the browser in English, which the installer recommends anyway.
Of course, the Tor developers are aware that overly locked-down software is unusable, so the factory settings cannot be considered secure. However, you can change this by clicking on the shield icon next to the address bar and selecting Change. The default setting is Standard, which is the one that causes a minor inconvenience. If you want to increase the security level for some reason, you can choose from the alternatives More secure or Most secure.
Firefox and Brave
Firefox and Brave are excellent choices for web services, for example, if the Tor Browser is malfunctioning when displaying a page. For Firefox, under Privacy and Security in the Settings, you can choose to change the default level from “Normal” to “Strict” or “Custom”. Scrolling down the page will take you to the Firefox Data Collection section; turn everything off here.
Another strength of the software is that privacy is very customizable. To do this, type “aboutconfig” in the address bar.
In the Brave browser, we can turn off the data collection in the Security & Privacy section of the Settings.
In the Block Social Media section, we can disable the login features offered by Facebook and Google. Users of “uBlock Origin” can turn off Google’s Secure Browsing, but the two can work parallel.
It’s also a good idea to customize your search engine and choose Startpage or DuckDuckGo instead of Google. You can also try HTTPS-only mode, which is automatically enabled in Brave but needs to be activated in Firefox.
Turn off password management built into browsers; it’s better to store them outside the browser, using cloud-based Bitwarden or the fully offline, open source KeePassXC.
What can you know about these browsers?
Firefox browser
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation, available on Windows, OS X, and Linux. It’s one of the most popular internet browsers today – with an estimated 500 million downloads since 2003.
In the past, people were hesitant to use it because of its speed and lack of features, but it became one of the best browsers to use over time. Today, Firefox is an excellent browser with various features, including tabs that you can customize, built-in privacy protection, and the latest security standards.
Tor browser
Tor is an anonymity network that helps to protect your privacy online.
The Tor browser is a one-stop solution for those who want to surf the internet privately and anonymously. With the Tor browser, users can avoid the risks of being hacked by avoiding giving away their data like emails and other identifying information.
Brave browser
Brave is an open-source, privacy-focused browser that protects your privacy and security.
Just like Firefox, it offers you the option to block trackers and ads by blocking all scripts, cookies, and fonts from loading automatically. Brave also blocks all third-party content (YouTube videos, social media buttons, etc.).
Bitwarden
Bitwarden is a free, open-source password manager. It stores your username/password combinations in an encrypted vault that can only be accessed with a master password. This vault can be stored locally on your computer or online at either of two cloud providers: Dropbox or Google Drive. If you’re looking for an easy, free, and open-source password manager to use on your computer or other devices, Bitwarden is an excellent option.
Keepass
Although modern security concepts such as 2FA and passwordless logins are becoming more common, passwords will be with us for some time. However, no one can remember more than a handful of truly secure passwords. We, therefore, recommend using a password manager such as Keepass.
The open-source software is an encrypted database that keeps your access data secure. With its built-in password generator, you can create secure passwords for all services that are almost impossible to crack. To ensure that no one else can access your passwords, Keepass protects them with a master password – the only password you’ll ever need to remember.
Keepass can even alert you if a password is leaked. It does this by comparing password hashes against an online database.