Compare / browsers

Chrome vs Brave

The same Chromium 155 underneath, two very different faces: Brave calls itself Chrome in the user agent but Brave in the client hints, randomises cores, screen and canvas, sends Sec-GPC, drops a TLS extension and switches off Google's Topics and Fenced Frames.

Google Chrome Brave

Brave and Chrome on the fleet are the same Chromium release — 155.0.8059.39 against .40, measured the same morning. What separates them is everything Brave adds on top: Shields (ad and tracker blocking, on by default), fingerprint "farbling", and a privacy stance that shows up in the headers. For a scraper that's a trade-off: fewer requests and a moving fingerprint, but a browser that announces itself as Brave to anyone reading client hints.

As a developer: driving them

	Google Chrome	Brave
Version on the fleet	Chrome 155 stable, with `beta` and `dev` channels and pinned previous majors.	Brave 1.97 on Chromium 155 (the same build week as Chrome), with a `beta` channel (1.98); no dev channel, no pinned majors.
Playwright client, options	`chromium` 1.60; `channel`, `version`, `cdp`, `live_view`, `screen_size`.	`chromium` 1.60; `channel`, `cdp`, `live_view`, `screen_size`.
Playwright features	Main-world evaluate, console events, init scripts, routing, screenshots, PDF, device emulation, tracing — all work (measured).	The same list, all working (measured).
Page weight	Loads everything the page asks for.	Shields (ad and tracker blocking) are on by default, but on a news front page (theguardian.com, two runs each) Brave made 65–70 requests against Chrome's 60–91 — within run-to-run noise. Don't count on traffic savings; block what you don't need with routing (bandwidth diet).
Web platform	Everything in Chromium 155, including Google's Topics API, Fenced Frames and `navigator.connection`.	Chromium 155 without the Topics API, Fenced Frames and `navigator.connection` (measured) — privacy features Brave removes. Code that relies on them behaves differently.

As a scraper: what the site sees

	Google Chrome	Brave
User agent	`Chrome/155.0.0.0` on Linux.	The identical string — Brave doesn't name itself in the user agent.
Client hints	Brands `Google Chrome 155`, `Chromium 155`; full version `155.0.8059.39`.	Brands `Brave 155`, `Chromium 155`; full versions reduced to `155.0.0.0`. Anything reading `Sec-CH-UA` sees Brave, not Chrome.
Headers	Chromium's order: … `accept`, `sec-fetch-site`, `sec-fetch-mode` …	Adds `sec-gpc: 1` (Global Privacy Control) before the fetch metadata — a header Chrome never sends.
TLS	JA4 `t13d1517h2_8daaf6152771_…` — 19 extensions.	JA4 `t13d1516h2_8daaf6152771_…` — 18 extensions; same ciphers, different full fingerprint.
HTTP/2	Chromium's SETTINGS and WINDOW_UPDATE.	Identical (measured).
Fingerprint values	The machine's own: 36 cores, a 1280×720 screen, one canvas hash for every site.	Farbled: 8 cores, a 1280×800 screen and a different canvas hash — plausible values that change between sessions and sites, so a fingerprint taken today won't match tomorrow's.
Languages, plugins	`navigator.languages` `en-US, en`; 5 plugins.	`en-US` only; 7 plugins.
Bot checks	bot.sannysoft.com: only "WebGL Renderer" flagged (SwiftShader on a GPU-less server).	The same single flag (measured).

Which to pick

Chrome when the site should see the most common browser on the web: the Google Chrome brand, full version numbers, no extra headers, a stable fingerprint that matches what millions of users send.
Brave when a moving fingerprint is worth more than blending in: sites that track devices across sessions get different cores, screen and canvas every time.
Don't expect Brave to pass as Chrome: its user agent says Chrome, but the client hints, the sec-gpc header and the TLS fingerprint all say Brave. Pick it for what it is.

Measured on the fleet (2026-10-09)

One headful launch of each through the same proxy, probed from inside a page and via tls.peet.ws.

Launch and cost

Single run; timings depend on the proxy and on fleet load.

	Google Chrome	Brave
Launch body	{"headless":false}	{"headless":false}
Threads used	2 (linux_headful)	2 (linux_headful)
Browser version	155.0.8059.39	155.0.8059.40
Launch request → browser ready	1.2 s	1.5 s
Playwright connect	0.1 s	0.3 s
Load example.com	2.9 s	0.5 s
Load tls.peet.ws/api/all	5.4 s	1.5 s

What the network sees

From tls.peet.ws/api/all, requested by the browser itself. JA3 hashes change between runs of the same build (GREASE), so compare JA4 and the HTTP/2 fingerprint.

	Google Chrome	Brave
HTTP version	h2	h2
JA4	t13d1517h2_8daaf6152771_cb7bf5808d99	t13d1516h2_8daaf6152771_806a8c22fdea
Peetprint hash	fc97c1cdfb1409c9a9326c1b726d1dee	8f568b2a409b82d0ec24cb84bf3bc3fc
Akamai HTTP/2 fingerprint	1:65536;2:0;4:6291456;6:262144\|15663105\|0\|m,a,s,p	1:65536;2:0;4:6291456;6:262144\|15663105\|0\|m,a,s,p
Cipher suites / extensions	16 / 19	16 / 18
Header order (first 12)	method, authority, scheme, path, sec-ch-ua, sec-ch-ua-mobile, sec-ch-ua-platform, upgrade-insecure-requests, user-agent, accept, sec-fetch-site, sec-fetch-mode	method, authority, scheme, path, sec-ch-ua, sec-ch-ua-mobile, sec-ch-ua-platform, upgrade-insecure-requests, user-agent, accept, sec-gpc, sec-fetch-site

What page scripts see

Read with page.evaluate on example.com. Cores and memory are the server's and vary between fleet nodes.

	Google Chrome	Brave
navigator.userAgent	Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/155.0.0.0 Safari/537.36	Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/155.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
UA-CH brands	Google Chrome 155 · Chromium 155 · Not(A:Brand 24	Brave 155 · Chromium 155 · Not(A:Brand 24
UA-CH full version list	Google Chrome 155.0.8059.39 · Chromium 155.0.8059.39 · Not(A:Brand 24.0.0.0	Brave 155.0.0.0 · Chromium 155.0.0.0 · Not(A:Brand 24.0.0.0
navigator.platform / vendor	Linux x86_64 / Google Inc.	Linux x86_64 / Google Inc.
Languages	en-US, en	en-US
Timezone / locale	UTC / en-US	UTC / en-US
Screen (w×h×availW×availH×depth)	1280x720x1280x720x24	1280x800x1280x800x24
Window outer / inner / DPR	1288x805 / 1280x720 / 1	1280x727 / 1280x720 / 1
hardwareConcurrency / deviceMemory	36 / 32	8 / 32
WebGL vendor	Google Inc. (Google)	Google Inc. (Google)
WebGL renderer	ANGLE (Google, Vulkan 1.3.0 (SwiftShader Device (Subzero) (0x0000C0DE)), SwiftShader driver)	ANGLE (Google, Vulkan 1.3.0 (SwiftShader Device (Subzero) (0x0000C0DE)), SwiftShader driver)
WebGL version	WebGL 2.0 (OpenGL ES 3.0 Chromium)	WebGL 2.0 (OpenGL ES 3.0 Chromium)
WebGPU (navigator.gpu)	yes	yes
Canvas hash	f5a94624	2025530b
navigator.webdriver	no	no
window.chrome / navigator.connection	yes / yes	yes / no
Plugins / PDF viewer	5 / yes	7 / yes
Notification.permission / permissions.query	default / prompt	default / prompt

Web platform features

Presence probes; a user agent that claims one version while exposing another's features is a detectable inconsistency.

	Google Chrome	Brave
`Iterator.prototype.includes` (new in Chrome 154)	yes	yes
`FontFace.width` (new in Chrome 154)	yes	yes
CSS `text-decoration-inset` (new in Chrome 154)	no	no
`Iterator.prototype.join` (Chrome 153)	yes	yes
`Iterator.zip` (Chrome 153)	yes	yes
CSS `scroll-axis-lock` (Chrome 153)	no	no
`<camera>` element (Chrome 153)	yes	yes
`document.requestStorageAccessFor` (deprecated in 153)	no	no
Topics API (`document.browsingTopics`)	yes	no
Protected Audience (`navigator.joinAdInterestGroup`)	yes	yes
Shared Storage (`window.sharedStorage`)	no	no
Attribution Reporting (`window.attributionReporting`)	no	no
Private Aggregation	no	no
WebHID (`navigator.hid`)	yes	yes
CSS `margin-trim` (Chrome 155)	yes	yes
CSS `text-decoration-skip-spaces` (Chrome 155)	no	no
CSS `corner` shorthand (Chrome 155)	no	no
CSS `symbols()` (Chrome 155)	yes	yes
`Element.streamAppendHTML` (Chrome 155)	no	no
`WebTransport.reliability` (Chrome 155)	no	no
`window.maximize()` — Additional Windowing Controls (Chrome 155)	no	no
Canvas `srgb-linear` colour space (Chrome 155)	no	no
Permission policy `media-playback-while-not-visible` (Chrome 155)	yes	yes
CSS `random()` (Chrome 156)	no	no
CSS `scroll-snap-type: pair` (Chrome 156)	no	no
Fenced frames (`window.fence`) — removal starts in 157	yes	no
`rel=compression-dictionary` (Chrome 156 updates)	yes	yes

bot.sannysoft.com

The classic headless-detection test page; what it marks red.

	Google Chrome	Brave
Checks / failed	57 / 1	57 / 1
Failed checks	WebGL Renderer	WebGL Renderer

A plain-HTTP URL (http://ip-api.com/json)

Chrome 154 warns before loading insecure HTTP by default — does that reach an automated session?

	Google Chrome	Brave
Final URL	http://ip-api.com/json/?fields=status	http://ip-api.com/json/?fields=status
HTTP status	200	200
Content loaded / warning page first	yes / no	yes / no

Playwright over the remote connection

Which client features work on this side.

	Google Chrome	Brave
page.evaluate runs in the page's own world	yes	yes
addInitScript visible to page scripts	yes	yes
Console events	yes	yes
Request interception (page.route)	yes	yes
Screenshot	yes	yes
PDF	yes	yes
Mobile device emulation	yes	yes
Tracing	yes	yes

Rows where the two sides differ are highlighted. IP addresses are replaced with placeholders (203.0.113.x). The probe is compare/probe.mjs in our repository; the raw result is below.

Raw output

{
  "ran_at": "2026-10-09T01:48:56.848Z",
  "sides": [
    {
      "label": "Google Chrome",
      "engine": "chrome",
      "body": {
        "headless": false
      },
      "launch": {
        "browser": "chrome",
        "resource_class": "linux_headful",
        "weight": 2,
        "launch_ms": 1240,
        "connect_ms": 132,
        "example_ms": 2891,
        "peet_ms": 5401
      },
      "network": {
        "http_version": "h2",
        "ja4": "t13d1517h2_8daaf6152771_cb7bf5808d99",
        "ja3_hash": "84b0f69cba23976c531c60f56f17aeea",
        "peetprint_hash": "fc97c1cdfb1409c9a9326c1b726d1dee",
        "ciphers": 16,
        "extensions": 19,
        "akamai_h2": "1:65536;2:0;4:6291456;6:262144|15663105|0|m,a,s,p",
        "akamai_h2_hash": "52d84b11737d980aef856699f885ca86",
        "header_order": [
          "method",
          "authority",
          "scheme",
          "path",
          "sec-ch-ua",
          "sec-ch-ua-mobile",
          "sec-ch-ua-platform",
          "upgrade-insecure-requests",
          "user-agent",
          "accept",
          "sec-fetch-site",
          "sec-fetch-mode"
        ]
      },
      "page": {
        "user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/155.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
        "platform": "Linux x86_64",
        "vendor": "Google Inc.",
        "languages": [
          "en-US",
          "en"
        ],
        "hardware_concurrency": 36,
        "device_memory": 32,
        "max_touch_points": 0,
        "webdriver": false,
        "plugins": 5,
        "pdf_viewer": true,
        "ua_data": {
          "brands": [
            {
              "brand": "Google Chrome",
              "version": "155"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "155"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Not(A:Brand",
              "version": "24"
            }
          ],
          "mobile": false,
          "platform": "Linux",
          "architecture": "x86",
          "bitness": "64",
          "formFactors": [
            "Desktop"
          ],
          "fullVersionList": [
            {
              "brand": "Google Chrome",
              "version": "155.0.8059.39"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "155.0.8059.39"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Not(A:Brand",
              "version": "24.0.0.0"
            }
          ],
          "model": "",
          "platformVersion": "",
          "uaFullVersion": "155.0.8059.39",
          "wow64": false
        },
        "screen": "1280x720x1280x720x24",
        "window": {
          "outer": "1288x805",
          "inner": "1280x720",
          "dpr": 1
        },
        "timezone": "UTC",
        "locale": "en-US",
        "webgl": {
          "vendor": "Google Inc. (Google)",
          "renderer": "ANGLE (Google, Vulkan 1.3.0 (SwiftShader Device (Subzero) (0x0000C0DE)), SwiftShader driver)",
          "version": "WebGL 2.0 (OpenGL ES 3.0 Chromium)"
        },
        "canvas_hash": "f5a94624",
        "webgpu": true,
        "chrome_object": true,
        "chrome_runtime": false,
        "notification_permission": "default",
        "notification_query": "prompt",
        "has_focus": true,
        "connection_api": true,
        "stack_read_by_debugger": false,
        "features": {
          "iterator_includes": true,
          "iterator_join": true,
          "iterator_zip": true,
          "fontface_width": true,
          "css_text_decoration_inset": false,
          "css_scroll_axis_lock": false,
          "websocket_options_bag": null,
          "camera_element": true,
          "topics_api": true,
          "protected_audience": true,
          "shared_storage": false,
          "attribution_reporting": false,
          "request_storage_access_for": false,
          "webhid": true,
          "private_aggregation": false,
          "css_margin_trim": true,
          "css_text_decoration_skip_spaces": false,
          "css_corner_shorthand": false,
          "css_symbols": true,
          "stream_append_html": false,
          "webtransport_reliability": false,
          "window_maximize": false,
          "canvas_srgb_linear": false,
          "policy_media_playback_while_not_visible": true,
          "css_random": false,
          "css_scroll_snap_pair": false,
          "fenced_frames": true,
          "compression_dictionary": true
        }
      },
      "page_main_world": null,
      "sannysoft": {
        "checks": 57,
        "failed": 1,
        "failed_names": [
          "WebGL Renderer"
        ],
        "passed": 30
      },
      "plain_http": {
        "final_url": "http://ip-api.com/json/?fields=status",
        "status": 200,
        "title": "",
        "loaded": true,
        "warning_page": false,
        "page_text": "{\"status\":\"success\"}"
      },
      "playwright": {
        "evaluate_in_main_world": true,
        "console_events": true,
        "init_script": true,
        "route": true,
        "screenshot": true,
        "pdf": true,
        "mobile_emulation": true,
        "tracing": true
      },
      "browser_version": "155.0.8059.39"
    },
    {
      "label": "Brave",
      "engine": "brave",
      "body": {
        "headless": false
      },
      "launch": {
        "browser": "brave",
        "resource_class": "linux_headful",
        "weight": 2,
        "launch_ms": 1542,
        "connect_ms": 286,
        "example_ms": 504,
        "peet_ms": 1463
      },
      "network": {
        "http_version": "h2",
        "ja4": "t13d1516h2_8daaf6152771_806a8c22fdea",
        "ja3_hash": "38839c09cb2e2b08b44c991a1b255c5f",
        "peetprint_hash": "8f568b2a409b82d0ec24cb84bf3bc3fc",
        "ciphers": 16,
        "extensions": 18,
        "akamai_h2": "1:65536;2:0;4:6291456;6:262144|15663105|0|m,a,s,p",
        "akamai_h2_hash": "52d84b11737d980aef856699f885ca86",
        "header_order": [
          "method",
          "authority",
          "scheme",
          "path",
          "sec-ch-ua",
          "sec-ch-ua-mobile",
          "sec-ch-ua-platform",
          "upgrade-insecure-requests",
          "user-agent",
          "accept",
          "sec-gpc",
          "sec-fetch-site"
        ]
      },
      "page": {
        "user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/155.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
        "platform": "Linux x86_64",
        "vendor": "Google Inc.",
        "languages": [
          "en-US"
        ],
        "hardware_concurrency": 8,
        "device_memory": 32,
        "max_touch_points": 0,
        "webdriver": false,
        "plugins": 7,
        "pdf_viewer": true,
        "ua_data": {
          "brands": [
            {
              "brand": "Brave",
              "version": "155"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "155"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Not(A:Brand",
              "version": "24"
            }
          ],
          "mobile": false,
          "platform": "Linux",
          "architecture": "x86",
          "bitness": "64",
          "formFactors": [
            "Desktop"
          ],
          "fullVersionList": [
            {
              "brand": "Brave",
              "version": "155.0.0.0"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "155.0.0.0"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Not(A:Brand",
              "version": "24.0.0.0"
            }
          ],
          "model": "",
          "platformVersion": "",
          "uaFullVersion": "155.0.0.0",
          "wow64": false
        },
        "screen": "1280x800x1280x800x24",
        "window": {
          "outer": "1280x727",
          "inner": "1280x720",
          "dpr": 1
        },
        "timezone": "UTC",
        "locale": "en-US",
        "webgl": {
          "vendor": "Google Inc. (Google)",
          "renderer": "ANGLE (Google, Vulkan 1.3.0 (SwiftShader Device (Subzero) (0x0000C0DE)), SwiftShader driver)",
          "version": "WebGL 2.0 (OpenGL ES 3.0 Chromium)"
        },
        "canvas_hash": "2025530b",
        "webgpu": true,
        "chrome_object": true,
        "chrome_runtime": false,
        "notification_permission": "default",
        "notification_query": "prompt",
        "has_focus": true,
        "connection_api": false,
        "stack_read_by_debugger": false,
        "features": {
          "iterator_includes": true,
          "iterator_join": true,
          "iterator_zip": true,
          "fontface_width": true,
          "css_text_decoration_inset": false,
          "css_scroll_axis_lock": false,
          "websocket_options_bag": null,
          "camera_element": true,
          "topics_api": false,
          "protected_audience": true,
          "shared_storage": false,
          "attribution_reporting": false,
          "request_storage_access_for": false,
          "webhid": true,
          "private_aggregation": false,
          "css_margin_trim": true,
          "css_text_decoration_skip_spaces": false,
          "css_corner_shorthand": false,
          "css_symbols": true,
          "stream_append_html": false,
          "webtransport_reliability": false,
          "window_maximize": false,
          "canvas_srgb_linear": false,
          "policy_media_playback_while_not_visible": true,
          "css_random": false,
          "css_scroll_snap_pair": false,
          "fenced_frames": false,
          "compression_dictionary": true
        }
      },
      "page_main_world": null,
      "sannysoft": {
        "checks": 57,
        "failed": 1,
        "failed_names": [
          "WebGL Renderer"
        ],
        "passed": 29
      },
      "plain_http": {
        "final_url": "http://ip-api.com/json/?fields=status",
        "status": 200,
        "title": "",
        "loaded": true,
        "warning_page": false,
        "page_text": "{\"status\":\"success\"}"
      },
      "playwright": {
        "evaluate_in_main_world": true,
        "console_events": true,
        "init_script": true,
        "route": true,
        "screenshot": true,
        "pdf": true,
        "mobile_emulation": true,
        "tracing": true
      },
      "browser_version": "155.0.8059.40"
    }
  ]
}

Bottom line

Brave is Chrome's engine with Brave's opinions: the same rendering and Playwright support, but its own name in the client hints, a privacy header, one TLS extension fewer and fingerprint values that refuse to hold still.

Both cost the same thread on the fleet; choose by what the site should believe about its visitor.