I used Brave for 3 to 4 years after I ditched Chrome for it. This year, however, I got tired of the crypto integration, unwanted AI features, and its limitless hunger for RAM. The bloat was becoming too much to ignore, so I started trying alternatives like Zen Browser. I thought I had found my new daily driver, but then I discovered Helium, an open-source browser that’s still based on Chromium, but has managed to be what Brave should have been all along — simple, fast, and without needless bloat and privacy violations. Helium is very new, but it’s promising. I just tried it, and it seems to have something for everyone.

It takes privacy very, very seriously

It’s not just words

We’re living during a wave of privacy-focused browsers. In a time when the likes of Google Chrome and Edge don’t even hide their intentions of harvesting user data and tracking their every move, people are increasingly looking for genuine alternatives for their digital lives. Brave launched with the promise to be the best Chrome alternative, claiming to put the user first, remove all kinds of tracking, and block ads by default. While it did a pretty good job of the latter, every other claim was found to be false. Brave was found appending its referral links to URLs, and forcing users to perform KYC checks on a third-party exchange, defeating its much-touted privacy-focused mission.

Helium, on the other hand, is a Chromium-based browser that’s genuinely walking the talk. Since it is based on Chromium, everything you expect from Chrome and Brave works on Helium as well. That’s where the similarities end, though. Helium is aggressively de-Googled, refusing to share your online behavior with the global giant. All your requests to the Chrome Web Store are proxied, so Google can’t track which extensions you’re downloading, and can’t use that data to show you ads. Helium also has uBlock Origin (UBO) by default, blocking all kinds of ads without prejudice. Any UBO filter lists that you download are also proxied to protect your digital footprint from Google’s eyes.

Helium doesn’t have a password manager to protect your credentials from falling into the wrong hands. It’s highly recommended to use other password managers like Bitwarden anyway. When setting up the browser, it recommends using DuckDuckGo as the default search engine instead of Google, Bing, or other alternatives, so that none of your searches are tracked or used for ads. Helium also includes an interesting feature called “!bangs”, a set of over 10,000 shortcuts that you can use to browse faster compared to traditional searching. For instance, you can add “!chatgpt” before your query to directly search on ChatGPT without sending your data anywhere else. I’ve been having fun with this feature lately, using instant shortcuts for Google Images (!gim), Wikimedia Commons (!wim), Perplexity (!ppx), and Amazon (!az).

Helium lacks some features that you might expect on a modern browser, such as DRM support. While vertical tabs are about to come to Chromium, the Helium team plans to implement DRM down the line. I don’t know about you, but I watch all my movies and shows on my TV, not my PC. Lastly, automatic updates aren’t available on Windows yet, but they’re coming soon.

It’s simple, beautiful, and snappy

Minimalistic UI and great performance

Privacy is important, but you also want a browser to perform well on speed and UI parameters. I’m so glad that the Helium devs have taken a simplistic approach in terms of the UI instead of going overboard in an effort to make the browser stand out. When you download Helium and launch it for the first time, you’ll be greeted with an uncluttered and soothing setup screen. With a few clicks, it lets you in to begin your journey. The “New Tab” page is a blank screen with a single “Add shortcut” button that’ll start populating your favorite sites once you visit them (or you can manage them yourself). The toolbar has the absolute minimum number of buttons possible, with the option to add more if you prefer.

Customization is limited to choosing between light and dark themes, and picking the accent colors. For more options, you can use extensions to tweak the appearance the way you want. I like this simplistic approach, focused on the basics, yet allowing everyone to modify the look of the browser with advanced extensions. As for the performance, I have no complaints. Searches using DuckDuckGo, visiting websites, and opening new tabs feel snappy. During the time I’ve spent with it, it never felt sluggish during writing, watching YouTube, editing images, or browsing articles.

There’s no crypto or AI bloat like Brave

Brave never hid its crypto integration and native ads from the users, but this stuff tends to get to you after a while. Earning BAT for watching a bunch of ads didn’t feel like such a bad deal, but that novelty wore off pretty soon when the price of BAT crashed (possibly forever). Brave joined the AI push with an integrated chatbot called Leo AI. I never touched it, but that doesn’t mean it disappeared from the search bar whenever I started typing a query. I disabled all the Leo AI options from the settings, but couldn’t remove this one. Needless to say, Helium feels like a breath of fresh air compared to Brave.

There are no needless AI features or crypto bloat, and opening a new tab doesn’t display a new ad or random news. I always prefer my browser to work the way I want, not dictate what features I should and shouldn’t use. If I want to use ChatGPT or Perplexity, I’ll use the websites, or maybe one of those new AI browsers that are cropping up (just kidding). If I need news on my feed, I’ll find a way to get it. I want my browser to be clean and dedicated to my work and private browsing alone, and Helium does a pretty great job of that. It doesn’t harass me with things I don’t, and will never care about, doesn’t share my data with Google, and runs fast without hogging my system resources.

I hope Helium has a bright future ahead

Helium is managed by a small team of two developers, so it’ll be a sizable task to challenge the monopoly of Chrome and other big names. Nevertheless, new features are constantly being developed, and the team has done a phenomenal job in terms of the UI, performance, and privacy features for a project so young. I sincerely hope Helium gains more ground and makes even more people realize the importance of a true privacy-focused browser that keeps their data free from the clutches of Google.