Most people use whatever browser came installed on their phone or laptop. On Android, that means Chrome. On iPhones and MacBooks, Safari. On Windows laptops, Edge until someone installs Chrome over it, which happens within the first week for about 70 percent of users if web surveys are to be believed.

The browser is the single piece of software that touches almost everything you do on the internet. Email, banking, shopping, news, social media, medical searches, late-night reading about random topics you would rather not explain to anyone. Every one of those activities generates data, and your browser decides how much of that data gets shared with advertising companies, analytics firms, and the browser maker itself.

So what does that mean in practical terms? It means that the privacy settings inside your browser probably affect your online exposure more than any other single choice you make on your device. Ten minutes of configuration can cut off a large portion of the tracking that happens in the background while you browse. I have gone through the settings for four browsers below and listed exactly what to change in each one, with the menu paths included so you can follow along.

A quick note before we get into the browsers. No browser setting makes you invisible online. Your internet provider can still see which websites you visit (unless you use a VPN or encrypted DNS). Websites you log into still know who you are. Browser settings reduce the passive tracking that happens without your knowledge, which is still a big deal, but it is not the same as anonymity. If you need actual anonymity, that is a different conversation involving Tor, and most people do not need to go that far.

Laptop screen showing browser privacy and security settings with shield icon

Chrome: Fixing Privacy on Google’s Browser

Chrome is built by Google. Google makes most of its money from advertising. So it should not surprise anyone that Chrome’s default settings are designed to collect as much browsing data as possible and feed it into Google’s ad targeting systems. That does not make Chrome a bad browser. It is fast, compatible with nearly every website, and has the largest extension library. But out of the box, it is working for Google’s interests more than yours.

Open Chrome on your computer. Click the three dots in the top right corner. Go to Settings > Privacy and Security.

Block third-party cookies. Click on Third-party cookies and select “Block third-party cookies.” Third-party cookies are the ones that tracking companies plant on your browser to follow you from website to website. When you browse shoes on one site and then see shoe ads on a completely different site, that connection happened through a third-party cookie. Blocking them breaks that chain. Almost all websites continue to work normally after this change.

Disable ad personalisation. Go to Privacy and Security > Ad privacy. You will see three toggles: Ad topics, Site-suggested ads, and Ad measurement. Turn all three off. These features let Chrome build an advertising profile based on the websites you visit, and share that profile with ad networks. Turning them off does not remove ads from websites. It just stops Chrome from actively helping advertisers target you.

Force HTTPS. Under Security, enable “Always use secure connections.” This tells Chrome to default to the encrypted version of every website. If a site does not support HTTPS, Chrome will warn you before loading it.

Clean up site permissions. Under Site Settings, review which websites have access to your location, camera, microphone, and notifications. You have probably been tapping “Allow” on notification prompts for years. News sites and shopping sites do not need to send you push notifications. Revoke access for anything that does not have a genuine reason.

On Android phones, open Chrome, tap the three dots, go to Settings > Privacy and Security. The same options are there. Also turn off “Preload pages” (this sends your browsing predictions to Google’s servers) and disable “Access payment methods” if you do not want Chrome storing your card details.

If you are signed into Chrome with your Google account, go to You and Google > Sync and review what you are syncing. History and open tabs sync means Google keeps a complete record of every page you visit. Turning those off while keeping bookmarks and passwords synced is a reasonable middle ground.

One more thing about Chrome that people get wrong. Incognito mode does not prevent Google from tracking you. Google settled a $5 billion class action lawsuit in 2024 because the company was collecting browsing data from users in Incognito mode through its advertising tools embedded on third-party websites. Incognito stops Chrome from saving your history locally on your device. That is all it does. Your internet provider, your employer, and websites you visit can still see what you are doing. Google itself was doing exactly that for years. The settlement required Google to delete billions of data records collected from Incognito users.

Why does this matter? Because I know multiple people who assumed Incognito meant “private browsing” in every sense of the word, and it absolutely does not. Use it when you want to hide your browsing from someone who shares your device. Do not use it expecting privacy from the companies whose websites you are visiting.

Firefox: The Best Default Choice

Firefox is made by Mozilla, a non-profit organisation. There is no advertising revenue model driving its design decisions, which is why its default settings are already better than Chrome’s on privacy. If I had to recommend one browser for someone who wants decent privacy without spending time tweaking settings, Firefox would be it.

The main feature is Enhanced Tracking Protection. Open Firefox, go to Settings > Privacy & Security, and set it to “Strict.” This blocks social media trackers, cross-site tracking cookies, tracking content in all windows, cryptominers, and fingerprinters. On rare occasions a website might display incorrectly or a login might not work. If that happens, click the shield icon in the address bar and disable protection for just that one site. I have had to do this maybe three or four times in over a year of daily use.

Delete cookies on close. Under Cookies and Site Data, check the box for “Delete cookies and site data when Firefox is closed.” You can add exceptions for sites where you want to stay logged in, like your email or your bank. Everything else gets wiped every time you close the browser. This is one of the most effective things you can do against tracking, because it means third-party cookies never survive longer than a single browsing session.

Firefox on Android has something no other major mobile browser offers: full extension support. Install uBlock Origin from the Firefox add-ons menu. It blocks ads, trackers, and malicious scripts. Indian news websites are notoriously heavy with ad scripts and trackers. The Times of India, NDTV, India Today, and similar sites load twenty to forty tracking scripts on a single page. With uBlock Origin running, those pages load in two or three seconds instead of ten. The difference is dramatic and immediate.

On desktop, Firefox also supports Multi-Account Containers, an extension that isolates websites from each other into separate containers. You put Facebook in one container, your online shopping in another, and your banking in a third. Cookies from one container cannot be read by websites in another container. Facebook will not know you were browsing shoes on Amazon five minutes ago. It is a clever system that gives you compartmentalised privacy without needing to open separate browser windows.

For advanced users: type about:config in the Firefox address bar, search for privacy.resistFingerprinting, and set it to true. Browser fingerprinting is a tracking method that identifies you based on your screen resolution, installed fonts, time zone, operating system, and dozens of other technical details. Even without cookies, a fingerprint can identify you with high accuracy. Enabling this setting makes Firefox report generic values for many of these properties, making your browser harder to distinguish from others. Fair warning: it can cause some websites to display at odd resolutions or behave slightly differently. Most people will not need this, but if you want to go further than the standard settings, it is there.

DNS over HTTPS can be enabled directly in Firefox. Scroll to the bottom of Privacy & Security and look for the DNS settings. Enable DNS over HTTPS and pick Cloudflare or NextDNS as your provider. This encrypts the website name lookups that your browser makes, preventing your internet provider (Jio, Airtel, Vi, BSNL, or whoever you use) from seeing which websites you visit. They can still see that you are connected to a server, but they cannot see the specific pages you are loading.

Brave: Good Browser, Weird Company

Brave is the browser that blocks ads and trackers by default, right out of the box, without needing to install any extensions or change any settings. On that front alone, it delivers. Pages load fast, trackers get blocked, and you see a counter on the new tab page telling you how many ads and trackers Brave has stopped since you installed it. The number gets large quickly.

Brave is built on the same Chromium engine that powers Chrome, so it is compatible with all the same websites and supports most Chrome extensions. If you are used to Chrome and want something that works the same way but with privacy turned on from the start, Brave is the easiest switch you can make.

The settings to check: open Brave and go to Settings > Shields. Set Trackers & ads blocking to “Aggressive.” Set Upgrade connections to HTTPS to enabled. Under Fingerprinting protection, set it to “Strict.” This can occasionally cause websites to malfunction, so if something breaks, try dropping it back to “Standard” for that specific site by clicking the Brave shield icon in the address bar.

Block third-party cookies under Privacy and Security > Cookies. Select “Block third-party cookies.”

Under Search engine, switch from whatever is default to DuckDuckGo or Brave Search. Brave has its own search engine now that does not track queries. DuckDuckGo is the more established option and works well for Indian searches.

Now, the weird part. Brave has done some things over the years that make privacy-minded people uncomfortable. In 2020, it was caught auto-filling affiliate referral codes when users typed in certain cryptocurrency exchange URLs, which meant Brave was earning commission from user visits without telling anyone. The company apologised and removed the behaviour. Brave also has a built-in cryptocurrency wallet and a token system called BAT (Basic Attention Token) that pays users for viewing ads. You can ignore all of this. Turn off Brave Rewards in settings if you do not want the crypto and ad features. With Rewards off, Brave functions as a clean, fast, privacy-first browser without any of the cryptocurrency baggage.

On Android, Brave works well and blocks ads and trackers out of the box without needing extensions. For people who do not want to spend time configuring Firefox, Brave on mobile is probably the lowest-effort option for better privacy. Install it, set DuckDuckGo as your search engine, make sure Shields is set to Aggressive, and you are done.

I will say this about Brave honestly: the browser itself is good. The company behind it has a history that gives some people pause. If that bothers you, Firefox is the safer bet from a trust perspective. If you just want something that works with minimal configuration, Brave delivers on the technical side.

Safari: If You Are on Apple

Safari is the default browser on iPhones, iPads, and Macs. If you own Apple hardware, you are probably already using it, and Apple has actually been more aggressive about privacy than Google or Microsoft when it comes to browser defaults.

Safari has a feature called Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) that is enabled by default. It uses machine learning to identify and block cross-site trackers. Unlike Chrome, where you have to manually go in and block third-party cookies, Safari does this automatically. It also limits the lifespan of first-party cookies set by tracking scripts, which is a more nuanced protection that most other browsers do not attempt.

To check your settings on iPhone: open Settings > Safari. Make sure “Prevent Cross-Site Tracking” is turned on (it should be by default). Turn on “Hide IP Address” and set it to “Trackers and Websites” if you have an iCloud+ subscription, or “Trackers Only” if you do not. This feature routes some of your traffic through Apple’s servers to mask your real IP address from known trackers.

Under Privacy & Security, make sure “Fraudulent Website Warning” is on. This checks URLs against a list of known phishing sites. Also toggle on “Block All Cookies” if you want the strictest setting, though be aware that this will log you out of most websites and can break some login flows. A better middle ground is to leave it off and let ITP handle tracking cookies while keeping functional cookies alive.

On Mac, open Safari and go to Safari > Settings > Privacy. Check “Prevent cross-site tracking” and “Hide IP address from trackers.” Under the Websites tab, review which sites have permission to access your camera, microphone, and location. Revoke anything you do not recognise or no longer use.

Safari’s main limitation is that it does not support the same range of extensions as Chrome or Firefox. uBlock Origin, which I recommended for the other browsers, is not available on Safari in its full form. There is a version called uBlock Origin Lite that works on Safari but with reduced functionality. For a more capable alternative, install AdGuard for Safari from the Mac App Store. It blocks ads and trackers and works within Safari’s extension framework.

On iPhone, Safari extensions have been available since iOS 15. Go to Settings > Safari > Extensions to manage them. Install AdGuard or 1Blocker from the App Store for tracker blocking on mobile Safari. These cost a small amount but they work well and the developers have a track record of regular updates.

A note about too many extensions: Installing more than three or four browser extensions, even privacy-focused ones, can actually make your browser more identifiable through fingerprinting. Each extension changes your browser’s behaviour in ways that trackers can detect. A browser with a unique combination of seven privacy extensions is, ironically, easier to fingerprint than a browser with one or two well-chosen ones. Pick uBlock Origin (or AdGuard on Safari) as your main blocker, and add one more if you have a specific need. Do not install everything you find.

Why does this matter? Because I see people install five ad blockers, three cookie managers, two VPN extensions, and a fingerprinting blocker, and then wonder why some websites behave strangely. More is not better with browser extensions. Each one adds code that runs on every page you visit, slowing things down and potentially creating conflicts. One good content blocker does 90 percent of the work. The remaining 10 percent is not worth the trade-off of a slower, less stable browser.

Browser address bar showing HTTPS lock icon with privacy shield protection

Any of these browsers, properly configured, is a massive improvement over whatever you are running with default settings. If you only change one thing, switch your search engine to DuckDuckGo. If you change two things, also install uBlock Origin (or AdGuard on Safari). Beyond that, pick whatever feels comfortable and keep using it. The best browser for privacy is the one you actually stick with, configured with the settings listed above, rather than the theoretically perfect option you install once and then abandon because it felt unfamiliar. I have watched people install Tor Browser, use it for three days, get frustrated that some websites did not work, and go back to Chrome with zero settings changed. That is worse than just configuring Chrome properly in the first place.