Chrome vs Vivaldi vs Brave vs Sphere

I use five browsers pretty much non-stop: Chrome, Vivaldi, Brave and Sphere. In this post I’ll review how I use them – and why.

I’m old enough to remember that there was really only one player in town: Internet Explorer. Then came along Mozilla Firefox – and then Chrome.

I don’t need to tell you this but Google Chrome is the most popular browser, followed by Safari and then the rest. In fact, if you want to get specific, here are the stats for the end of 2020:

Browser	Percentage %
Google Chrome	66%
Safari	17%
Internet Explorer (“Edge”)	5.3%
Firefox	4.5%
Opera	1.5%

Growth (Computer) Hacking Browser Purposes

I do two things to earn a living:

• Growth Hacking (in the “Automation” and White-Grey-Black-Hat sense of the term)
• Penetration Testing and WordPress Hacking

Both of these disciplines require a ton of different hacking software and growth hacking tools. Aside from the multitude of tools out there – one “tool” remains utterly indispensable and ubiquitous: and that my friend is the trusty browser.

I use the following browsers everyday:

• Google Chrome (sometime Chromium)
• Brave
• Vivaldi
• Sphere

Let me explain what I do with each one and what I consider to be their benefits, advantages, and uses.

Google Chrome

My Google Chrome Uses
#1 SEO: dozens of other SEO Extensions (for example, SEO Minions)
#2 Growth Hacking: “BuiltWith, LemPod, Download All, Linkclup – and dozens of other useful extensions.
#3 Proxy Accounts: using the “Adding Other People/Profiles”)
#4 General Web Browsing

This hardly needs an introduction. I’m sure I am right by saying that for most of us Google Chrome is the “default” browser we all use.

Vivaldi

My Vivaldi Chrome Uses
#1 Site Testing: interesting to see how fast sites load
#2 Research: the browser uses less RAM than Chrome or Brave, making this browser good if you need to have multiple tabs open

The Vivaldi Browser is probably not as well known as Brave but it’s definitely an interesting option to use.

One of the things I like about this browser is that you can heavily customize the experience. Vivaldi uses Chrome’s enormous library of browser-extensions and that’s a major plus for obvious reasons.

It is also fast-loading and that’s a major plus for the obvious reasons.

It also does very well with both privacy and security.

Vivaldi, according to my tests, used less RAM consumption compared to Chrome, Brave, or Sphere.

Brave

My Brave Chrome Uses
#1 Site Testing: interesting to see how fast sites load
#2 Zero-Ad-Privacy: the browser has a lot of inbuilt features that prevent ads from loading. If I need to search anonymously without using a program like Tor, then Brave and DuckGoGo are your tools for choice.
#3 Developing: when coding, most of the time I am tweaking a WordPress theme – mostly GeneratePress – then I will typically view the admin pages in Chrome and use Brave as the “client view”.

I was one of the first people to use Brave in my office and quickly the entire floor started using this browser.

In fact, many of my colleagues ditched Brave over Chrome.

Brave is hands-down the fastest browser I use during my daily work day.

I use it on my desktop, laptop and I even have the mobile version installed and I can’t fault its’ speed. My testing showed that the Brave browser compared to Vivaldi used slightly more RAM, and the site-loading speed of these two is virtually identical.

What makes Brave different in my list is its zero-tolerance to advertising.

Brave, compared to Chrome (especially) was designed to strip all tracking and advertising. Instead, Brave prefers to monetize the browsing experience by showing their own advertisements.

So, Brave basically strips out the ads and replaces them with their own.

Sphere

My Brave Chrome Uses
#1 Proxy Accounts: strictly only used to access all my fake (social media) accounts
#2 When Anonymity Is A Must: clearly this is the selling proposition of Sphere.

The Sphere Browser has the most “black hat” feel to it – primarily because its’ focus is on helping Internet Marketers use multiple accounts and proxies.

Sphere connects every session via the Tor Network; at least that’s what it says when you load the browser. I’m not entirely clear on how the exit node works but I would imagine that your exit node is the IP that you set. The reason I suspect that is because Tor exit nodes are well known and always flag extra login measures when trying to access Social Media accounts for example.

The Sphere browser is the “odd one out” from my list of browser reviews, but the uses that I can see are twofold:

• For those that need anonymity for marketing, (i.e. data scraping, accessing proxy social media accounts, etc)
• For those that really need total protection, perhaps you’re in a censored country?

The thing I love about Sphere is that you create accounts so that you can keep track with all your dummy Social Media accounts.

Anonymity has become one of the most important parts of browsing, and with this regard I’d say that Sphere clearly leads the way.

Also, this resource is more geared towards Growth Marketers. For the Cybersecurity folk (Ethical Hackers) amongst you, sure, you have plenty of other more secure options to use when wanting to be anonymous such as Tails, or Tor, or even Whonix. For those that are interested, you might enjoy this article.

Wrapping Up

Each of these browsers has its pro’s and con’s.

In order of preference for SEO and Growth Marketing stuff I’d say my order would be:

• Chrome;
• Sphere
• Brave;
• and then, Vivaldi

They are all excellent and frankly, you can’t have enough browsers!

I haven’t mentioned Firefox. I’ve been a huge user of Firefox ever since it was launched way back in circa 2002 era (I believe?) but I haven’t listed it because I just don’t use it very much at the moment, not because I don’t like it, just simply because I’ve found myself using the browsers listed in this resource.

Let me know what you think!