APRIL 2020 MACWORLD 9Firefox is focused on blocking trackers and providing privacy features.
resurgence lately thanks to rapid updates
and a renewed focus on improving speed
and reliability.
Recent updates have improved battery
life on Mac laptops (often a sore spot for
non-Safari browsers). Firefox is also greatly
concerned about privacy—it’s got pretty
good built-in tracker blocking, and it’s
password syncing relies on locally-
encrypted files.
Firefox enjoys a large collection of
extensions (go.macworld.com/frxt), though
not nearly as many as Chrome. They’re
less about “turn your browser into its own
OS” and more about just customizing your
web experience.
Firefox has an iOS version (go.
macworld.com/frio) that works well if you
want to sync bookmarks and saved login
information. Of course it can’t use the
Gecko rendering engine that the desktop
client uses (due to Apple’s rules), but it’s a
good mobile experience that supports
Dark Mode and gives you all the tracking
prevention and privacy of the desktop
version.OPERA
Another ancient browser still getting
regular updates, Opera (go.macworld.com/
opra) has gone through a lot of changes
over the years. While it once ran its own
web rendering engine (called Presto), it
transitioned to the Chromium engine years
ago and never looked back.
Opera’s biggest claim to fame is its free
built-in VPN. While
not everyone needs
such a thing, it’s
probably good to
have on public
networks like those
in coffee shops.
There are no data
limits but
performance can
vary widely, so while
it may reduce your
vulnerability to
snoops on public
Wi-Fi networks, it’s
not necessarily a