I’ve been on a bit of a Brave trip recently, and that’s not about to end now, as I really am liking it as my primary browser.

Recent research by a professor at Trinity College at the University of Dublin, Professor Douglas Leith, tested a number of browsers to see how much they “phone home” with the default settings.  This included Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, the Brave browser, the new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge, and the Yandex Browser.

The automated tests involved collecting data during a number of stages of browser use, including:

• When the browser is first started up after installation
• When the browser is closed and restarted
• When an address is pasted into the address bar
• When an address is typed into the address bar
• When the browser is sitting idle

Professor Leith says that in their default settings, Brave is by far the most private browser, sending back the least amount of information.

We did not find any use of identifiers allowing tracking of IP address overtime, and no sharing of the details of web pages visited with backend servers

This isn’t a big shock, as the Brave browser is very privacy focused, but it’s nice to have this backed up by some independent research.

If you’re interested, here’s a link to the research paper: Web Browser Privacy: What Do Browsers Say When They Phone Home.