I benchmarked and tested 8 browsers so I could find ‘the one’ I could settle with in 2024

I started my internet browsing journey with Chrome, as many others do. Back then, it was just better than IE, looked better and was faster than Firefox. Time went on, Edge was released, and I hopped on; it was a strong competitor and felt like a good change. Later, I came to know about Brave, with great performance and an immaculate adblocker; I switched again. I finally tried to settle with Opera, but despite the beautiful UI, a few hickups kept me in a fix. As 2024 approached, I wanted to decide on a browser I could finally settle with, so I tried and tested various browsers, and here are the results.

(This article is not sponsored at all, it was just a quest to quench my curiosity)

6. Opera

I have been an Opera fan for a long time, and even though I’d love to stick with it, I put it at the last place on this list since some websites seem to be loading considerably slower on this browser. It scored 648 on the benchmarks.

Pros:

• Looks beautiful, animations make the UX better.
• Integration of their AI assistant, Aria.
• A sidebar feature with the ability to use mainstream music players and messengers directly through the sidebar.

Cons:

• Slower than other browsers on this list, though faster than Firefox. Some websites seemed to take about 1–2 seconds longer to load on Opera, and even though it doesn’t make a huge difference, makes the browser feel sluggish.
• The AI integration is complete bloat for anyone who doesn’t need it.
• Privacy concerns surround Opera, though there is a lack of conclusive evidence regarding the same, depends on how much you care about it though.
• Closed Source.

5. Librewolf

Librewolf is basically Firefox minus the telemetry and features like Pocket. For some some benchmarking tests failed to run on Librewolf, so it ended up with no score.

Pros:

• All features that come with Firefox, no telemetry and Pocket.

Cons:

• All cons that come with Firefox, minus Pocket.

4. Firefox

Mozilla Firefox comes in 4th place! Though I love the UI refresh it had, it feels kinda sluggish when compares to Brave, or Chrome. It scored 485.02 on the benchmarks.

Pros:

• Open source, great in terms of privacy and security! :)
• Looks absolutely beautiful and can be heavily customized.

Cons:

• It’s not based on Chromium, so the number of addons i.e. extensions is somewhat limited. Popular chrome extensions like Shazam have no Firefox port.
• Slower than all browsers on this list, even though its performance feels fine in day to day usage on modern day machines.
• The Pocket integration is bloat for anyone who prefers not to use it.

3. Edge

Edge takes the 3rd place. I would personally rank this at 4th, but objectively speaking, it clutches the 3rd place. It scored 874.21 on the benchmarks.

Pros:

• Copilot in Windows 11 can refer to currently open PDFs in the Edge browser, and answer questions based on it or summarize it for you.
• Really good PDF reader & editor out of the box.

Cons:

• The sheer amount of optional features including news, the sidebar, AI integration, and icons around the search bar makes it look cluttered, and might also be unnecessary bloat for many users.
• Closed source.

2. Chrome

The good old Chrome, coming in 2nd place. It scored 880.58 on the benchmarks.

Pros:

• The UI looks beautiful.
• Integration with your google account makes syncing your history, bookmarks and open tabs with other devices very easy.
• No seemingly unnecessary bloat.
• 2nd fastest Chromium based browser.

Cons:

• Privacy concerns, since everything you search is essentially being shared with google, depends on how much you care about it though.
• Closed source.

1. Brave

Brave topped the benchmarks with a whopping score of 1072.52, nearly 150 more than other chromium browsers.

Pros:

• The inbuilt adblocker works flawlessly.
• Though the crypto additions are unnecessary and unwanted to many, those can be easily disabled.
• Being a chromium based browser, all extensions from the chrome web store can be installed.
• Feels blazing fast in day to day usage as well.
• Open Source :)

Cons:

• The crypto features and the inbuilt paid VPN can be considered bloat.

Conclusion ->

Being a programmer, speed matters to me more than features or looks. Hence, in my opinion, Brave is the clear winner! Brave seemed to be the fastest, and doesn’t look too shabby either.

The rankings are based on the POV of a general user, priorities can be subjective, and you may choose the best browser for yourself based on which features matter the most to you.

Honorable mentions ->

• Tempest -> It’s a relatively new and non-mainstream browser based on Chromium. It feels like Brave with absolutely no bloat, however scores along the lines of Chrome & Edge, scoring 813. It’ll be interesting to see how it places itself among other browsers.
• Chromium -> It’s the MVP itself, completely open source and the driving power behind all Chromium based browsers. However, it’s not very accessible when it comes to installing it since there’s no officially compiled build, and getting a safe build is key. It scored 853 on the benchmarks.
• Arc -> Another new browser, with a complete redesign and many out-of-the-box features. It’s still in beta for Windows, and I’m yet to get access to it, but seems interesting nonetheless.

Some details ->

The benchmarking tests were performed on Basemark with UBlock Origin installed on all browsers, on a device with AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS with 8GB DDR4 RAM and a 512 GB M.2 SSD, running Windows 11.

Thanks for reading!