Hold the front page and take the kettle off the boil, dears: the browser fight is settled. Brave has beaten Mozilla Firefox for the crowd's affection, and I had to sit down in my good chair when I saw it. When I last checked the oven on this squabble, the fox had sneaked ahead and the lion was puffing out its chest. Well, the lion has stopped puffing and started eating.

For those of you who just click whatever little picture is on the screen, here is what's in the pot. According to Wikipedia's entry on the browser, Brave is made by Brave Software, came out in 2016 and runs on the Chromium engine. Its Shields feature, which blocks ads and trackers and resists fingerprinting, is switched on from the moment you open it. It even earned a top protection rating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Cover Your Tracks tests. That's a guard dog that comes already trained.

Firefox still had some good cards to play. The developer of uBlock Origin has said the famous ad blocker works best on Firefox, because it runs into technical limits on Chromium browsers like Brave. But Mozilla dropped a plate in 2025: its revised terms of use for Firefox were criticised over a broad licence clause, and Mozilla later reworded its privacy FAQ after the backlash. When you sell yourself as the honest neighbour, people remember the day you changed the locks.

Where the crowd stands
  • Brave60%
  • Firefox40%

So here's how the crowd voted. On Morfi's opinion markets, where people put real money behind their opinions, Brave finished at 60% consensus and Firefox at 40%. That's 31 traders putting $120,993 on the line, all in less than a day. Mind you, those numbers measure how strongly the crowd believes, not how many people sat at each end of the table. And over the course of the day the conviction clearly swung from the fox to the lion.

Consensus over time
0%25%50%75%100%12 Oct, 09:5912 Oct, 18:19
  • Brave 55.5%
  • Firefox 44.5%

Now, this is only Grandma's opinion, so take it with a pinch of salt. I think you young people picked the browser that does the washing up without being asked. Firefox is the lovely old casserole dish: independent, sturdy, best with the right add-ons. But it wants you to know your way around the kitchen, and you lot want the dinner already on the table. Brave serves it hot, blocking switched on, no recipe card needed. Still, a word from someone who has buried a few fads: whatever comes switched on can be switched off by whoever made it. Keep an eye on who's holding the spoon.

Pixel-art kitchen with a lion in an apron serving pie while a fox holds leftovers and a grandmother watches from a rocking chair
The lion brought the pie; the fox brought a fine excuse and a doggy bag.

What to watch next: whether Firefox's add-on advantage wins back the tinkerers, and whether Mozilla can patch things up with users after its terms-of-use trouble. Verdicts at the dinner table never stay settled for long. If you think the crowd got it wrong, or right, come and join the market on Morfi and put your money where your mouse is. Grandma will be keeping the pie warm.