While we still think Google Chrome is the best Android browser for most people, other browsers place a greater emphasis on speed, privacy or readability and a few even offer their own VPN-like proxy services. Just like with Chrome, many of the Android browsers on this list can sync with their desktop counterparts to allow you to access your history, saved passwords or even send tabs open on your computer over to your phone. Whatever your needs and preferences, there’s likely an ideal Android browser for you among the best Android browsers we’ve thoroughly tested and used on our own Android devices.
The best Android browsers
If you’re happy living in the Google ecosystem and believe you’ve benefited from the company knowing everything about your online life, then it’s hard to justify avoiding the default browser on most Android devices. Syncing between mobile and desktop editions of Chrome is helpful, giving you the option to access passwords you’ve stored in Chrome (provided you don’t use one of the best password managers, that is). As the dominant browser on the market, Chrome is also the most reliable option, as every web developer considers Google’s browser when building a website. Chrome offers extensive additional features such as secure storage for payment methods, a “Lite” data-saver mode, automatic translation of dozens of languages, a malicious-ad blocker, a pop-up blocker and the ability to group tabs. This doesn’t quite match the abundance of features that you can get with Firefox or Opera, but Chrome definitely ticks most of the mission-critical boxes. A recent update to Chrome added the ability to detect when you’re using a compromised password as well as enhanced safe browsing. If you want a glimpse at what’s coming soon to Chrome, or you want to test out some features that may never make it to the main Chrome browser, there are three additional Chrome apps starting with Chrome Beta (opens in new tab), then Chrome Dev (opens in new tab) and finally, Chrome Canary (opens in new tab). Each step further into experimental territory is trading in a bit of reliability, so you will likely want to turn to the traditional Chrome browser for vital tasks. But it’s fun to try out upcoming features currently working their way through Chrome’s development cycle. And if you’ve been using Chrome for a while, you may want to check out our guide on how to speed up Chrome on Android. Opera is another mobile browser with a desktop counterpart that boasts all the benefits for users of both versions. Opera stands out from the rest of the best Android browsers with a data-saver mode that compresses videos as well as standard web pages. As a result, pages load faster thanks to the reduced data, and if you don’t have one of the best unlimited data plans, you won’t burn through your monthly data allotment as quickly. Opera also offers a built-in free VPN-like feature that gives you a virtual IP address, although notably, you can’t use both the VPN feature and data-saver mode in tandem. (Technically, the “VPN” is a proxy service for the Opera browser app only. To encrypt other apps’ communications, you’ll need one of the best Android VPN apps.) It also now blocks web trackers. Even with its many features, Opera was one of the fastest browsers that I tested, with only Chrome consistently outperforming it. One slight frustration with Opera is its convoluted interface: You may be distracted by the menus at both the top and bottom of the screen. Opera also offers a few variants of its browser. Opera Mini (opens in new tab) is focused on the data-saving side of things, while Opera Touch (opens in new tab) is geared toward a one-handed browsing experience. As with Google Chrome, there’s a strong incentive to carry over Firefox to your Android phone if that’s the browser in which you do the majority of your desktop browsing. Your passwords, history and bookmarks will sync if you create a Firefox account and sign into it on all your devices, and if you spend a lot of time on one tab on your desktop, Firefox on Android will highlight it for you on your phone. For better or for worse, you can customize Firefox to an astounding degree, with different themes and extensions that can tweak just about every aspect of the browser. If you are the sort of person who wants to decide how the tabs display in your browser, what color everything should be and exactly which features you want accessible, then Firefox is for you. If that sounds like a nightmare, however, you should look elsewhere, as even a basic setup of Firefox warrants some tweaking. Firefox fans who are particularly security-conscious should take a look at the newer Firefox Focus (opens in new tab). It drops some of the functionality of its elder sibling in favor of privacy protection. A recent Firefox update brought over the Firefox Focus feature to always open links in a private tab. Alternatively, there are more experimental versions of Firefox, Firefox for Android Beta (opens in new tab) and Firefox Nightly for Developers (opens in new tab). There’s also a separate app for a VPN run by Firefox parent company Mozilla (opens in new tab), although the VPN costs $5 a month. Speaking of that Firefox update, the browser now has a dark mode and a grid view for open tabs. The URL bar has been moved down to the bottom of the screen, which Firefox did to accommodate larger phones. (You can move the bar back to the top if you prefer.) A new Collections feature lets you organize and save tabs, which should help with research projects. DuckDuckGo, built around the DuckDuckGo search engine and based on Chromium (like Chrome and Brave), doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of the rest of the best Android browsers. Yet it makes up for this lack of features with its singular focus on keeping your activities private. A button to the right of the address/search bar will wipe all your tabs and browsing history at any moment with a tap. DuckDuckGo also eliminates any ad-trackers that may be trying to follow you around the web and automatically will default to the highest encryption available on the site you are visiting. It even gives each site you visit a “privacy grade” ranging from A to F. While the browser itself isn’t reporting any of your activity back to the DuckDuckGo search engine, this protection still falls far short of a VPN. If you are looking to keep your activity secure from even your carrier or the Wi-Fi network you are connected to, then you will need a separate VPN app for that purpose. (You can check out our list of the best VPN services if you’re looking for a VPN.) DuckDuckGo doesn’t have a corresponding desktop browser, or any way to set up a DuckDuckGo account, so you won’t be able to sync across devices. But that’s kind of the point of this privacy-minded service. Microsoft has delivered a compelling Chromium-based browser in the second version of Edge. The Android version has undergone a snazzy revamp to match the desktop browser (although you can customize its look and feel), and it’s a decent option that syncs up with your Microsoft account. Microsoft Edge has finally added extension support, and it also offers several extras that are extension-based in other apps, such as an ad blocker, translation services, password manager, tracking blocker, price checker, voice search and something called NewsGuard. That latter feature assesses news websites based on their “journalistic standards of credibility and transparency.” Sadly, Edge has killed its reading-list feature, which delivered the full-page version of an article rather than an abbreviated or text-only version of an article. Unlike the desktop version of Edge, the mobile browser lets you swap out the default search engine easily, so you can use Google instead of Bing in your Microsoft browser if you want to — but we’ve found that Bing works pretty well too. The Vivaldi desktop browser, developed by the original Opera team, offers extensive customization options, but its Android counterpart is more focused on delivering unique features. Vivaldi’s Speed Dial is your main view, which is a visually appealing and easy-to-use quick launcher for bookmarks. When conducting online research, you may appreciate the built-in rich text Notes tab, the native full-page screen capture, the Clone tab option that pulls up a duplicate of your current tab to avoid losing it, and the translation tool that can handles web pages in 108 languages. There’s even a QR code reader to take you to websites without having to open a dedicated barcode-reading app, a fun built-in 2D shooting game, and a way to adjust the width of your tabs. Regardless of your default search engine, you can do a quick switch to another search tool — eight popular options are supported — by just clicking in the address bar. The search icons will appear below; tap on one to use it. Vivaldi’s overall performance was quick, though I would often see the placeholder for an image or whitespace for a video or ad as I scrolled, even a minute or more after I loaded a longer article. I appreciate this preference for delivering the text as quickly as possible, but waiting until I scroll to load the rest of the page’s content is taking this too far and ultimately a worse experience. While it lacks extension support or more powerful ad-blocking features found in some of the other best Android browsers, Vivaldi offers a compelling feature set that I hope to see its developers continue to build upon. Since I last tested the browser, an update has added support for custom ad-blocking lists, and you can now move the address and tab bars to the bottom of your screen if that’s how you roll. Brave was one of the first browsers to offer a built-in mobile ad blocker, which is left on by default. The Chromium-based browser provides users with the ability to pay websites for their content using the company’s Basic Attention Token (BAT) system, and Brave’s own privacy-minded search engine is now the default. I found that that only a few sites that I read regularly were registered with Brave’s BAT tokens, but this will obviously vary greatly from user to user. There’s no official list of Brave publishers, but a small checkmark appears on the Brave logo in the upper-right corner of the browser when you are on a supported site. The browser itself covers all of the basics and adds a couple of nice touches, such as the ability to set different preferred search engines on standard versus private tabs and some fairly granular privacy settings. There aren’t many options to customize the look or feel beyond turning on a dark theme or moving the address bar to the bottom of the screen, but Brave does let you group tabs. There are other features that cater to privacy, including forcing secure HTTPS connections when possible, blocking cookies and browser fingerprinting, and even blocking JavaScript, which will cripple many websites. However, the option to easily use the Tor anonymizing protocol hasn’t carried over from the desktop version of Brave. As far as browsing goes, the initial load times on Brave are comparable to our other top options, which is odd given that Brave strips out ads and trackers which should in theory be slow components to load. Despite the claimed “estimated time saved” on the home screen for the app, I found no perceptible advantage even on sites with extensive ads and trackers. If you use the Brave desktop browser, you’ll no doubt enjoy the Android version as well, as it will sync over your content and carries over your Brave Rewards. (In fact, a recent update looked to bolster Brave’s syncing features.) As a standalone option, though, there’s little to recommend Brave over the other best Android browsers higher on this list.
How to choose the best Android browser for you
For most people, the best Android browser will be the one that comes pre-installed on their phones. If you have no problems with Google Chrome when surfing the web on your smartphone, you should probably keep using it and not really worry about having to find another option. However, if you don’t use Chrome on your desktop or laptop, you may find it more useful to switch to the mobile version of the browser you do use. Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Opera,Brave and Vivaldi all have Android versions and they’re worth checking out if any one of these is your preferred desktop browser. You’ll also want to consider privacy and ad-blocking features when deciding between the best Android browsers. Many of the mainstream browsers offer some version of these features but for an extra layer of privacy, you may want to turn to a browser that specializes in keeping your online activity safe from prying eyes. Don’t forget to check out our other guides on the best Android apps, the best ad blockers and the best Android antivirus apps.
How we test Android browsers
We conducted our initial browser testing using a Pixel 3 running Android 9 Pie, though your experience won’t differ all that much from phone to phone. During our testing, we looked at more than half a dozen browsers and focused on ones that are regularly updated. We also periodically go back and check the browsers we’ve reviewed for new features to ensure that the experience hasn’t significantly changed with subsequent android updates. Our testing process involves using each browser as our primary way to surf the web on one of the best Android smartphones until we get an overall impression of current features and user experience. We also test loading speeds and see how well each of the browsers on this list handles websites that aren’t suited to mobile devices like those for banks or local restaurants. At the same time, we also visit websites that feature a lot of ads to see how each browser performs when it comes to stopping pop-up ads.
title: “Best Android Browsers In 2023” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-06” author: “Gregory Lytle”
While we still think Google Chrome is the best Android browser for most people, other browsers place a greater emphasis on speed, privacy or readability and a few even offer their own VPN-like proxy services. Just like with Chrome, many of the Android browsers on this list can sync with their desktop counterparts to allow you to access your history, saved passwords or even send tabs open on your computer over to your phone. Whatever your needs and preferences, there’s likely an ideal Android browser for you among the best Android browsers we’ve thoroughly tested and used on our own Android devices.
The best Android browsers
If you’re happy living in the Google ecosystem and believe you’ve benefited from the company knowing everything about your online life, then it’s hard to justify avoiding the default browser on most Android devices. Syncing between mobile and desktop editions of Chrome is helpful, giving you the option to access passwords you’ve stored in Chrome (provided you don’t use one of the best password managers, that is). As the dominant browser on the market, Chrome is also the most reliable option, as every web developer considers Google’s browser when building a website. Chrome offers extensive additional features such as secure storage for payment methods, a “Lite” data-saver mode, automatic translation of dozens of languages, a malicious-ad blocker, a pop-up blocker and the ability to group tabs. This doesn’t quite match the abundance of features that you can get with Firefox or Opera, but Chrome definitely ticks most of the mission-critical boxes. A recent update to Chrome added the ability to detect when you’re using a compromised password as well as enhanced safe browsing. If you want a glimpse at what’s coming soon to Chrome, or you want to test out some features that may never make it to the main Chrome browser, there are three additional Chrome apps starting with Chrome Beta (opens in new tab), then Chrome Dev (opens in new tab) and finally, Chrome Canary (opens in new tab). Each step further into experimental territory is trading in a bit of reliability, so you will likely want to turn to the traditional Chrome browser for vital tasks. But it’s fun to try out upcoming features currently working their way through Chrome’s development cycle. And if you’ve been using Chrome for a while, you may want to check out our guide on how to speed up Chrome on Android. Opera is another mobile browser with a desktop counterpart that boasts all the benefits for users of both versions. Opera stands out from the rest of the best Android browsers with a data-saver mode that compresses videos as well as standard web pages. As a result, pages load faster thanks to the reduced data, and if you don’t have one of the best unlimited data plans, you won’t burn through your monthly data allotment as quickly. Opera also offers a built-in free VPN-like feature that gives you a virtual IP address, although notably, you can’t use both the VPN feature and data-saver mode in tandem. (Technically, the “VPN” is a proxy service for the Opera browser app only. To encrypt other apps’ communications, you’ll need one of the best Android VPN apps.) It also now blocks web trackers. Even with its many features, Opera was one of the fastest browsers that I tested, with only Chrome consistently outperforming it. One slight frustration with Opera is its convoluted interface: You may be distracted by the menus at both the top and bottom of the screen. Opera also offers a few variants of its browser. Opera Mini (opens in new tab) is focused on the data-saving side of things, while Opera Touch (opens in new tab) is geared toward a one-handed browsing experience. As with Google Chrome, there’s a strong incentive to carry over Firefox to your Android phone if that’s the browser in which you do the majority of your desktop browsing. Your passwords, history and bookmarks will sync if you create a Firefox account and sign into it on all your devices, and if you spend a lot of time on one tab on your desktop, Firefox on Android will highlight it for you on your phone. For better or for worse, you can customize Firefox to an astounding degree, with different themes and extensions that can tweak just about every aspect of the browser. If you are the sort of person who wants to decide how the tabs display in your browser, what color everything should be and exactly which features you want accessible, then Firefox is for you. If that sounds like a nightmare, however, you should look elsewhere, as even a basic setup of Firefox warrants some tweaking. Firefox fans who are particularly security-conscious should take a look at the newer Firefox Focus (opens in new tab). It drops some of the functionality of its elder sibling in favor of privacy protection. A recent Firefox update brought over the Firefox Focus feature to always open links in a private tab. Alternatively, there are more experimental versions of Firefox, Firefox for Android Beta (opens in new tab) and Firefox Nightly for Developers (opens in new tab). There’s also a separate app for a VPN run by Firefox parent company Mozilla (opens in new tab), although the VPN costs $5 a month. Speaking of that Firefox update, the browser now has a dark mode and a grid view for open tabs. The URL bar has been moved down to the bottom of the screen, which Firefox did to accommodate larger phones. (You can move the bar back to the top if you prefer.) A new Collections feature lets you organize and save tabs, which should help with research projects. DuckDuckGo, built around the DuckDuckGo search engine and based on Chromium (like Chrome and Brave), doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of the rest of the best Android browsers. Yet it makes up for this lack of features with its singular focus on keeping your activities private. A button to the right of the address/search bar will wipe all your tabs and browsing history at any moment with a tap. DuckDuckGo also eliminates any ad-trackers that may be trying to follow you around the web and automatically will default to the highest encryption available on the site you are visiting. It even gives each site you visit a “privacy grade” ranging from A to F. While the browser itself isn’t reporting any of your activity back to the DuckDuckGo search engine, this protection still falls far short of a VPN. If you are looking to keep your activity secure from even your carrier or the Wi-Fi network you are connected to, then you will need a separate VPN app for that purpose. (You can check out our list of the best VPN services if you’re looking for a VPN.) DuckDuckGo doesn’t have a corresponding desktop browser, or any way to set up a DuckDuckGo account, so you won’t be able to sync across devices. But that’s kind of the point of this privacy-minded service. Microsoft has delivered a compelling Chromium-based browser in the second version of Edge. The Android version has undergone a snazzy revamp to match the desktop browser (although you can customize its look and feel), and it’s a decent option that syncs up with your Microsoft account. Microsoft Edge has finally added extension support, and it also offers several extras that are extension-based in other apps, such as an ad blocker, translation services, password manager, tracking blocker, price checker, voice search and something called NewsGuard. That latter feature assesses news websites based on their “journalistic standards of credibility and transparency.” Sadly, Edge has killed its reading-list feature, which delivered the full-page version of an article rather than an abbreviated or text-only version of an article. Unlike the desktop version of Edge, the mobile browser lets you swap out the default search engine easily, so you can use Google instead of Bing in your Microsoft browser if you want to — but we’ve found that Bing works pretty well too. The Vivaldi desktop browser, developed by the original Opera team, offers extensive customization options, but its Android counterpart is more focused on delivering unique features. Vivaldi’s Speed Dial is your main view, which is a visually appealing and easy-to-use quick launcher for bookmarks. When conducting online research, you may appreciate the built-in rich text Notes tab, the native full-page screen capture, the Clone tab option that pulls up a duplicate of your current tab to avoid losing it, and the translation tool that can handles web pages in 108 languages. There’s even a QR code reader to take you to websites without having to open a dedicated barcode-reading app, a fun built-in 2D shooting game, and a way to adjust the width of your tabs. Regardless of your default search engine, you can do a quick switch to another search tool — eight popular options are supported — by just clicking in the address bar. The search icons will appear below; tap on one to use it. Vivaldi’s overall performance was quick, though I would often see the placeholder for an image or whitespace for a video or ad as I scrolled, even a minute or more after I loaded a longer article. I appreciate this preference for delivering the text as quickly as possible, but waiting until I scroll to load the rest of the page’s content is taking this too far and ultimately a worse experience. While it lacks extension support or more powerful ad-blocking features found in some of the other best Android browsers, Vivaldi offers a compelling feature set that I hope to see its developers continue to build upon. Since I last tested the browser, an update has added support for custom ad-blocking lists, and you can now move the address and tab bars to the bottom of your screen if that’s how you roll. Brave was one of the first browsers to offer a built-in mobile ad blocker, which is left on by default. The Chromium-based browser provides users with the ability to pay websites for their content using the company’s Basic Attention Token (BAT) system, and Brave’s own privacy-minded search engine is now the default. I found that that only a few sites that I read regularly were registered with Brave’s BAT tokens, but this will obviously vary greatly from user to user. There’s no official list of Brave publishers, but a small checkmark appears on the Brave logo in the upper-right corner of the browser when you are on a supported site. The browser itself covers all of the basics and adds a couple of nice touches, such as the ability to set different preferred search engines on standard versus private tabs and some fairly granular privacy settings. There aren’t many options to customize the look or feel beyond turning on a dark theme or moving the address bar to the bottom of the screen, but Brave does let you group tabs. There are other features that cater to privacy, including forcing secure HTTPS connections when possible, blocking cookies and browser fingerprinting, and even blocking JavaScript, which will cripple many websites. However, the option to easily use the Tor anonymizing protocol hasn’t carried over from the desktop version of Brave. As far as browsing goes, the initial load times on Brave are comparable to our other top options, which is odd given that Brave strips out ads and trackers which should in theory be slow components to load. Despite the claimed “estimated time saved” on the home screen for the app, I found no perceptible advantage even on sites with extensive ads and trackers. If you use the Brave desktop browser, you’ll no doubt enjoy the Android version as well, as it will sync over your content and carries over your Brave Rewards. (In fact, a recent update looked to bolster Brave’s syncing features.) As a standalone option, though, there’s little to recommend Brave over the other best Android browsers higher on this list.
How to choose the best Android browser for you
For most people, the best Android browser will be the one that comes pre-installed on their phones. If you have no problems with Google Chrome when surfing the web on your smartphone, you should probably keep using it and not really worry about having to find another option. However, if you don’t use Chrome on your desktop or laptop, you may find it more useful to switch to the mobile version of the browser you do use. Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Opera,Brave and Vivaldi all have Android versions and they’re worth checking out if any one of these is your preferred desktop browser. You’ll also want to consider privacy and ad-blocking features when deciding between the best Android browsers. Many of the mainstream browsers offer some version of these features but for an extra layer of privacy, you may want to turn to a browser that specializes in keeping your online activity safe from prying eyes. Don’t forget to check out our other guides on the best Android apps, the best ad blockers and the best Android antivirus apps.
How we test Android browsers
We conducted our initial browser testing using a Pixel 3 running Android 9 Pie, though your experience won’t differ all that much from phone to phone. During our testing, we looked at more than half a dozen browsers and focused on ones that are regularly updated. We also periodically go back and check the browsers we’ve reviewed for new features to ensure that the experience hasn’t significantly changed with subsequent android updates. Our testing process involves using each browser as our primary way to surf the web on one of the best Android smartphones until we get an overall impression of current features and user experience. We also test loading speeds and see how well each of the browsers on this list handles websites that aren’t suited to mobile devices like those for banks or local restaurants. At the same time, we also visit websites that feature a lot of ads to see how each browser performs when it comes to stopping pop-up ads.
