9 Reasons You Should Consider Ditching Google Chrome

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Google Chrome commands more than two thirds of internet browser market share, but it is becoming harder to recommend to any person keen on privacy and control, or skeptical about big tech. On both phones and computers, Chrome now feels a lot less like a neutral everyday tool and more like a point of contact for Google's advertising business. Besides all the privacy concerns, Chrome is also a resource hog and usually puts a strain on your device especially if you're operating an old or budget one.

That's not all. There are several reasons you should think about walking away from Chrome as your main browser. And it's not all doom and gloom, since there are better browser alternatives that we'll recommend along the way with decent privacy features, noticeably faster performance, and familiar interfaces if you are a long time Chrome user. Let's get into why you should consider ditching Chrome.

Chrome is a free browser. You've probably already heard the phrase, that if the product is free, then you're the product. That's true in this case, because Google's main source of revenue is advertising. The company has every incentive to collect as much information as possible about your online activities. Chrome is the perfect source to collect the info, considering it dominates the web traffic market. It wouldn't be far-fetched to conclude that Chrome is Google Ads' front-end rather than a neutral browser that cares about your privacy. There's a clear conflict of interest here, and many security experts have had the same opinion for a while now.

If that's not enough proof of Chrome being part of Google's ad business, the Manifest V3 update for extensions is. Before the update, you could use extensions like ad and tracker blockers to have more control over your privacy on Chrome. On both computer and mobile versions of Chrome, Manifest V3 makes it harder for such extensions to filter out invasive scripts before they load. For this reason, ads generally have a field day on your browser. The best solution in this case is that, if you want seamless ad blocking, you have to consider moving to a browser that does the blocking natively.

Besides storing cookies, Chrome does a lot more — like allowing ad systems and websites to build a fingerprint of your browser. It uses information such as graphics card behavior, screen size, the fonts you have installed, and time zone, among many other small quirks. Recent tests using the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Cover Your Tracks tool show that even in Incognito mode, Chrome still generates a unique fingerprint and exhibits abysmal protection against tracking.

What this means is that you'll look different from almost every other internet user, which translates to being easily traceable. To make matters worse, the generated fingerprint can still be tied to you, even if you use private tabs and clear cookies.

In July 2025, Forbes reported that Google warned its own users about the risk of third-party scripts misusing Chrome APIs to collect the parameters we mentioned above, consequently building tracking IDs behind your back. At the same time, back in 2024, Google decided to quietly walk back on an earlier decision to kill third-party cookies after ad industry backlash, thus keeping traditional browser tracking alive. Whether on your smartphone or laptop, these tracking methods will be with you as long as you keep using Chrome as your main browser. By contrast, we ran the Cover Your Tracks tool on the browser called Brave, and it passed the test quite well, with the browser generating randomized fingerprints.

With big corporations leaning towards AI, Google is no exception; now wiring Gemini AI directly into Chrome. This move comes with a big data grab, especially on smartphones. Surfshark's 2025 analysis of agentic AI browsers found that Chrome, alongside Gemini, collects a total of 24 different types of data from smartphones. This number is the highest of any other browser-AI combination that the study looked through. Some of the collected data points include your name, browsing and search history, location, device ID, and purchase history.

In other words, Chrome feeds Gemini a detailed picture of exactly who you are, what you like, what you do, and where you do it from. This is much worse if you're on an Android, where we can almost guarantee Chrome is tied to your Google account.

Competing browsers with integrated AI show that collecting all these data isn't necessary. For instance, Edge with Copilot — which we would still not recommend — collected fewer types of data in the same study. Brave's Leo AI was the most private in the Surfshark study, logging just two data types on smartphones — anonymous usage data and a user ID for app functions. These findings prove an in-browser AI tool can still be helpful without picking up almost every signal on your browser and device.

Independent browser tests, like the one by PrivacyTests.org, now show Chrome to be the worst among major browsers – as far as privacy is concerned. Chrome failed most privacy benchmarks, having minimal fingerprinting protection and failing to block third-party cookies by default. Chrome's biggest competitor, Firefox, blocked third-party trackers by default and managed to pass most state-partitioning tests and blocks. Brave turned out to be the most robust of them all, passing all tested privacy parameters thanks to fingerprint randomization and ad plus tracker blocking.

Brave has recently surpassed 100 million monthly users, which is a strong sign that people are able to move away from Chrome without having an inferior user experience. Think along the lines of syncing bookmarks and passwords seamlessly even after switching — even if we put aside the privacy benefits. Also, some long-term Chrome users now swear by open-source browsers like Mullvad, Firefox, DuckDuckGo, Brave, and LibreWolf after previously using Chrome.

For mobile browsers, you may want to switch from Chrome to Brave due to strong in-built ad-blocking, next to zero intrusive ads, and more control over other privacy settings. You can ditch Chrome today and land on an equally familiar or reliable alternative browser.

Like any software, every browser comes with its fair share of bugs — but Chrome's recent run of actively exploiting flaws raises eyebrows. Google confirmed eight different zero-day vulnerabilities in the browser in 2025 alone, per Forbes. A zero-day vulnerability is a bug that bad actors were already taking advantage of before the necessary security patches became widely available. Sure, Google always moves quickly to have such issues fixed, but the sheer number of them in one calendar year makes us question using Chrome. It seems it's a long-term risk, given its complexity and massive attack surface.

A zero-day exploit is one of the worst things that could happen to you on the internet. It may mean a silent attack on your device via ads, compromised extensions and malicious websites. All these might affect you without you having to click on anything. You may update Chrome regularly or set it to auto-update on your phone and think you're always safe from such exploits — but there's always a small window of time for malicious actors to attack unpatched versions.

Other browsers also face security issues. However, ditching Chrome for another alternative means you're moving your risk factor away from a browser that is more likely to be hit by a mass attack. When you combine this with good app update habits and in-built tracking protection, you'll significantly reduce the risk of being a victim of most zero-day exploits.

Extension availability is one of the things that makes Chrome tick, but it's a major security issue at the same time. An example that proves this is the 2024 phishing attack on Chrome Web Store Store developers, leading to the attackers taking over at least 25 popular extensions. More than two million Chrome users were affected. The compromised extensions exposed sensitive private information such as cookie data. There was also another case where malware was able to quietly install hidden extensions on at least 300,000 browsers on Windows computers by modifying system settings and patching DLL files. The hidden extensions were able to prolong their attack of collecting user data by blocking Chrome's automatic update feature.

That's not all. Another case also documented at least 100 Chrome extensions posing as VPNs and productivity tools requesting high-level permissions. Once users granted them these permissions, the extensions could access and steal the victim's personal information. You may think only computer users need to worry about this supply-chain risk — but Chrome's syncing feature can share settings and information from smartphones under the same Google account.

Google always gets rid of compromised extensions as soon as they're discovered, but there's always that window large enough to do significant harm. Reducing the number of third party add-ons translates to a smaller chance of using compromised ones.

Chrome has grown into a resource hog over time, especially on budget or older devices. One of the main reasons behind this is the fact that Chrome runs each tab you open as a separate process for stability. Also, each extension you use at any given time also demands more resources to run. As a result, it ends up consuming lots of RAM and CPU whenever you open an additional tab. Under sustained use, your device, especially computers, will crash more often than it — in addition to being annoyingly slow. Resource hogs like Chrome are some of the things we recommend changing to give old laptops a new lease of life.

By contrast, browsers like Brave and Firefox feel much smoother and less intrusive in everyday use. Others like Mullvad dwell on skipping unnecessary background scripts that put unnecessary load on your computer's resources. Most pages on these alternative browsers load with significantly less junk than they would on Chrome — also helping if you're working with slow internet or an old device. The same applies to using Chrome on mobile devices. When you decide to switch to the leaner options, you'll notice less memory usage, giving you a smoother scrolling experience and being able to squeeze a couple of more hours out of your battery without having to change your browsing habits.

Incognito mode on Chrome isn't as private as it seems, but this is mainly due to a misunderstanding of how the feature works among users. According to a U.S. class-action lawsuit filed in 2023 against Google, per Fortune, this misunderstanding seems to have been propagated by the company itself. It made people think that their activity on Chrome wouldn't be tracked. But in the background, the browser continued logging user actions in Incognito mode. Google agreed to settle the lawsuit, which initially sought $5 billion without admitting to any wrongdoing.

If you decide to run Chrome in Incognito mode right now and check it against the Cover Your Tracks tool mentioned earlier, your browser will still produce a unique fingerprint around your activities and offer zero tracking protection. So what's the point of this feature, then?

Incognito will merely just stop saving your browsing history. Everything else about your browsing activity will still be visible to sites you visit and your internet service provider. The takeaway here is that Incognito is just a quick tool to hide your browsing history from someone you share your device with. Another possible use case is if you just want to do a Google search without the bias of your browsing history.

We mentioned that Chrome takes up more than two thirds of the planet's browser usage. Safari is a distant second, and every other browser is in percentage share single digits. When you combine all types of devices that can run browsers, Chrome takes up about 69% of the market share, notes Statcounter. That's not all. Chromium, the engine that powers Chrome, covers roughly 70% of all browsers, including Chrome's rivals.

The problem here is that one engine's design, decisions, and bugs are shaping how we access the internet, thus creating a monoculture. As a result, many, if not most, sites will prioritize Chromium first and leave alternative engines struggling to compete. Even worse, one weakness or security flaw can hit most internet users all at once. One other thing to note is that Chromium's codebase is a bit too complex, making getting things done next to impossible for smaller teams interested in building independent alternative browsers.

For ordinary users, this situation is also unfavorable because Google can steer browsing standards in whichever direction it likes to match business goals. Other browsers will have to follow along — unless they want to risk breaking sites. Going for a non-Chromium browser, like Firefox, at least as a secondary option is a small but meaningful way of helping the world from going back to the Internet Explorer era — where one company made the final decision on what the web could or could not do.