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X-RAY · 14 SEPTEMBER 2026

Five browsers, four websites: how much tracking each one let through

Chrome, Brave, Firefox, Safari and DuckDuckGo on a Mac with its DNS going through GUARDIANA: the same four websites, two minutes, freshly created profiles and the Mac's DNS cache emptied before each one. Out of 223 advertising and tracking names seen, Chrome let 188 through and DuckDuckGo 7.

How to read this. GUARDIANA writes down every name the machine asks to resolve (DNS). It sees names, not content, and it sees the machine, not the program. Only these names are published and counted here: the ones some page asked for in a browser measured from the inside, the ones a browser blocked, and the makers’ own; whatever other apps on the test machine resolved during that time is left out. Browsers change every month: this holds for the date above.

The record

Scoreboard

Out of the 223 advertising, tracking and telemetry names seen across the whole test, how many each browser let through and how many it kept in.

BrowserLet throughKept inThe maker's own servicesLet through the least
Chrome1883527
Brave158659
Firefox1171064
Safari681550
DuckDuckGo72164yes

In this test, the one that let least through was DuckDuckGo (7 advertising and tracking names against 188 for the one that let most through). It is a result of these four sites on this day, not a general verdict.

What it says

None of the five is a wall, but the difference between them is enormous: DuckDuckGo let 7 advertising and tracking names through on the same four sites where Chrome let 188 through. Safari, Firefox and Brave sit in between, in that order. And the four measured at rest (not Safari) talk to their own maker the moment they open.

What only a guardian on the machine sees

Each browser's “blocked” counter counts requests inside the browser. GUARDIANA counts what leaves the machine, which is a different thing:

Detail

MeasureChromeBraveFirefoxSafariDuckDuckGo
Distinct names that left the machine32829320614042
· advertising15313195514
· trackers342722173
· telemetry10000
· on no list that knows them137135877235
Advertising + trackers + telemetry188158117687
The maker's own domains279404
Requests the pages made (distinct names)316290201——
Names the browser blocked016———
Blocked names that reached the DNS anyway09———
The machine's other services in that time (other apps; not published)40401186952
Attempts to use someone else’s encrypted DNS (the “DNS evasion” signal)00100
Measured from the inside (DevTools)yesyesyesno, opened by handno, opened by hand
Of the 223 advertising, tracking and telemetry names seen in the test
Left with every browser6
Chrome avoided35
Brave avoided65
Firefox avoided106
Safari avoided155
DuckDuckGo avoided216

Chrome

Chrome looks up Google on its own; that is to be expected in a Google browser. Blocking trackers is not part of its default settings.

What it does on its own

With a freshly created profile, without any website asking for it:

Doing nothing

Empty profile, no site open, 239 seconds. What it asked for on its own, with the second at which it did:

Advertising, tracking and telemetry that went out (188)

The twenty with the most queries; the rest is in the data.

What it blocked (0)

None.

Of those, these reached the DNS anyway (0): it resolved the name before stopping the request, so whoever answers the DNS sees them.

None.

Brave

Brave's idle test is the one at 14:43 the same day (four minutes).

What it does on its own

With a freshly created profile, without any website asking for it:

Doing nothing

Empty profile, no site open, 240 seconds. What it asked for on its own, with the second at which it did:

Advertising, tracking and telemetry that went out (158)

The twenty with the most queries; the rest is in the data.

What it blocked (16)

Of those, these reached the DNS anyway (9): it resolved the name before stopping the request, so whoever answers the DNS sees them.

Firefox

Browsing measured from the inside with WebDriver BiDi, DNS cache emptied just beforehand. Its tracking protection blocks silently, so there is no list of what it blocked. The idle test was run by hand on a profile Firefox created itself, with every default left alone.

What it does on its own

With a freshly created profile, without any website asking for it:

Doing nothing

Empty profile, no site open, 240 seconds. What it asked for on its own, with the second at which it did:

Advertising, tracking and telemetry that went out (117)

The twenty with the most queries; the rest is in the data.

Safari

Opened by hand in an ordinary window, with the machine's profile (Safari does not allow creating an empty one from outside) and the DNS cache emptied just before. It cannot be measured from the inside: it counts only what GUARDIANA saw, over the set of names the browsers measured from the inside asked for. Apple's domains are not attributed to it, because the Mac itself talks to Apple all the time.

What it does on its own

With the machine’s own profile, without any website asking for it:

None.

Advertising, tracking and telemetry that went out (68)

The twenty with the most queries; the rest is in the data.

DuckDuckGo

Opened by hand (it cannot be driven from the inside), after going through its welcome screen without changing any setting, with the DNS cache emptied just before. It counts only the names that one of the browsers measured from the inside also asked for.

What it does on its own

With a freshly created profile, without any website asking for it:

Doing nothing

Empty profile, no site open, 240 seconds. What it asked for on its own, with the second at which it did:

Advertising, tracking and telemetry that went out (7)

The twenty with the most queries; the rest is in the data.

What can be claimed

What cannot be claimed

What you can switch off

Data and method

Full data: cinco-navegadores-2026-09-14.csv. Method: each browser opened with a freshly created profile and the Mac's DNS cache emptied just before, then the same four sites for two minutes; Chrome, Brave and Firefox driven from the inside, Safari and DuckDuckGo by hand because they cannot be driven; names taken from the machine's GUARDIANA ledger for each time window. The tools are in the program's repository (site/src/radiografia/); anyone can repeat the test with GUARDIANA installed.

Brands named as the names of their owners. If you are the owner and something here is inaccurate, write to hola@guardianagroup.com: it is corrected, with the date.

All x-rays

See it with any website. In the ZERO browser, the X-ray shows you who each page talks to, with no account. Enter →