Which internet browser should you use to protect your personal information?

Most people have a favourite browser they gravitate towards when surfing the net. It can be tricky to break out of your comfort zone and not realise there are better options out there to suit your browsing habits. For example, did you know that not all browsers handle your data optimally, and few are developed with privacy and security as a primary focus?

Check out our browser guide below so you can make the right browser choice for your needs.

Safari

If you’re a Mac user, Safari is already preinstalled, which saves you time having to research and download anything. Safari offers a built-in functionality to store your bookmarks and browsing history in iCloud, along with your usernames and passwords in iCloud Keychain. This makes it easy to log in and synchronise your browsing across all your Apple devices.

However, it is limited to Apple products, meaning security is an issue for many users who use Safari on Windows systems. As for all browsers, users should take extra precautions when browsing the internet as Safari is vulnerable to intrusion by malware, like any other program.

Chrome

Google Chrome is known for being a speedy web browser. One of the significant advantages of Chrome is to log in using your Google account and synchronise all bookmarks, history and other data across your devices.

Being a Google app means it is designed to collect your data and send it to Google’s servers so Google can give you targeted advertisements. Google often has privacy-related issues and has received many fines from European countries for processing information without the user’s concern. This is something you should consider when browsing on Chrome.

Firefox

Firefox allows private browsing helping the user to surf the internet without recording history or cookies. It offers fast web page downloads and safe browsing that gives added security against phishing attacks and malware.

This sounds like a winner, but sadly, a lot of websites are not compatible with Firefox and do not display correctly on the browser. This makes your surfing limited to a select number of sites.

Explorer

Explorer is the default browser with any version of Windows operating system. It’s also free, making it a popular web browser for users. However, with this popularity comes security issues. As it is a conventional web browser, phishing attacks and scam organizers target Explorer the most out of all the browsers. Meaning your data is potentially safer elsewhere.

All browsers have their weaknesses, and just because the browser is often targeted with malware, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it. One way to remain safer on the internet is ensuring all the websites you click onto have an HTTPS protocol, rather than HTTP.

Are you interested in a career creating security solutions for computers users? The University of Bolton offers a range of studies focusing on computing. To browse these courses, click here.