A new privacy-first browser can replace Chrome on all your devices

 You're almost certainly reading this story through Google's Chrome web browser. It is, by far, the world's most popular browser – according to stats from June 2019, Chrome is used by more than 70 per cent of desktop users around the world.

And it's growing. Analytics firm Statista reports that Google's dominance has increased by 13 per cent in the last three years alone. But there are plenty of privacy-first Chrome alternatives out there for you to try.

One of them, Brave, has just launched its first full version. Built by Brendan Eich, who co-founded Mozilla (the creator of Firefox), it's one of the most interesting browser competitors to have emerged in recent years. This week, Brave came out of beta and launched its first stable release. With version 1.0 comes its own private advertising network and a reward scheme which lets its users pay websites that they like.

Even though Brave is only just out of beta, it already has eight million people using it every month. (There are iOS and Android versions for your mobile devices, plus those for Windows, Linux and Mac). Its user base is still tiny when compared to Firefox, which has more than 100 million monthly users and Chrome which has more than a billion. But size doesn't matter. Here's a few reasons why you should consider ditching Chrome for the first version of Brave.