CLIQZ 1.38

CLIQZ is a fork of Firefox oriented to protect your online privacy. Therefore, it inherits some of the advantages of Mozilla’s web browser as well as much of its appearance. In terms of usability, it is quite the same as Firefox, except perhaps that it allows searching the Internet directly from its address bar. It uses its own search engine, which had the initial intention of making Europe technologically independent from some major engines based on other geographical regions.

The main difference comes from its privacy-oriented features. In this regard, it has anti-tracking and ad-blocking mechanisms, which serve to block aggressive advertisement, avoid explicit contents and protect you from phishing. Similarly, the browser can also reroute your searches through proxy networks and force all sites to use encrypted connections via the HTTPS protocol. However, it is ironical that Ghostery, its anti-tracking extension, has been accused of collecting personal data.

Due to security reasons, CLIQZ does not allow installing add-ons, except when they have been strictly reviewed by their teams. Still, this comes with a disadvantage: it is quite likely that your favorite Firefox add-ons are not supported.

All in all, CLIQZ incorporates state-of-the-art privacy protection mechanisms to such a popular web browser as Mozilla Firefox. Bad news is the CLIQZ project is closing. In this respect, the browser is still available for downloads but the search engine may be no longer working at the time you read this review. The product is free and available not only as a standalone desktop browser but also as a mobile browser and a Firefox extension. So, it is for you to decide which one to use.