Puffin Browser has increased popularity among privacy-oriented customers looking for ways to improve their browsing experience. What are the main things that make a good browser? A combination of strong security or privacy, ease of use, and powerful features. Is Puffin Browser safe to use? This article has discussed what Puffin Browser is, what it does, is it safe to use, and how it can improve your privacy and security. Let's look at what you need to know about the Puffin browser.
What is a Puffin Browser?
Puffin browser may look like a regular browser, but many things are behind the scenes. When you enter a URL in a normal browser, the web browser server will send a folder containing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code to the customer's browser. The browser engine will translate these factors into the webpage you are trying to consider.
Puffin browser works differently, as it will serve websites on its cloud. This technical system benefits customers in a few ways:
- Since you're not downloading anything to your device, this reduces the risk of shady websites ending with malware or potentially unwanted programs.
- Your data is encrypted on Puffin Cloud.
- Data travels faster, and websites take less time to load.
The Puffin browser has been downloaded 150 million times by people. While that number lags far behind main browsers such as Google Chrome or Firefox, it has supporters worldwide. But the Puffin browser is not free, and you will need to pay for a subscription plan if you want to use it without ads.
What Does Puffin Browser do?
The Puffin browser has an isolation feature that uses a cloud service to protect you against malware and other online threats.
All content is presented in the cloud and sent to the browser, making browsing faster and less demanding on the hardware resources.
Thanks to this cloud sandbox feature, your PC is less likely to be infected with your browser.
Is Puffin Browser Safe to Use?
The Puffin browser is fairly safe to use. Your web browsing data is encrypted while traveling between your device and Puffin Cloud servers.
But safety is not the main concern you will need to address before you start using the Puffin browser. First of all, you should think about privacy because all of your web browsing data goes through Puffin's cloud systems. They keep regular weblogs, including information at the TCP layer (source port, source IP, destination port, destination IP) and the HTTP layer (URL, HTTP headers).
While the Puffin browser says this data is for statistical reports only, we can never be sure it is completely accurate. In the worst situation, they can collect your data and sell it to the highest bidder. Hopefully, it is not, but if someone owns your personal data information, it is always a risk that it will be in the wrong hands.
Since the Puffin browser does not hide your IP address, websites can collect any personal data about you, which is also a red sign for privacy-oriented customers.
How To Improve Your Privacy and Security?
Even the best browsers are not equal to a VPN for security and privacy, as it will hide the IP address and encrypt the internet traffic.
You can install NordVPN on your device and protect yourself online using an internet web browser or other application. If you are not a fan of the Puffin browser, you can install the NordVPN extension on Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
With a NordVPN account, you can protect up to 6 different devices: laptop, router, smartphone, tablet, and more. The app can be easy to use, and it only takes one click to connect to your VPN server.
When you enable NordVPN, no one can detect what you do online. It means no one can profile your browsing activities. Combine NordVPN with your Puffin Browser for improved privacy and security.
Also, NordVPN includes a Threat Protection feature that will help you identify files prone to malware, prevents you from landing on malicious websites, and block trackers and intrusive ads on the spot.
Conclusion
Puffin Browser is a powerful browser for browsing securely and privately. In-browser safety protection is no better than generating websites on a company's cloud servers rather than on your device. It is a VPN-like way to thwart cyber threats, and we expect to see such safety with other browsers in the future.
If you value other browser factors over safety, like features and speed, you may have difficulty using Puffin Browser. The feature it is known for is also the reason for its poor performance. Also, the desktop version of the Puffin browser can only be used to purchase a subscription plan.