A search for a car can pay for a search engine. Does it really need to become a dossier on the driver? DuckDuckGo has built its business around that question.
Arc made browser tabs feel new, then became too novel for the audience it needed. The company’s second act - a simpler AI browser called Dia - attracted Atlassian, a $610 million deal, and a harder test: turning taste into a business.
Brave is a privacy-first technology company that makes a fast, open-source, Chromium-based web browser that blocks ads and trackers by default. Founded in 2015 by JavaScript creator Brendan Eich and engineer Brian Bondy, Brave has grown into a full privacy suite: an independent search engine (Brave Search), a built-in AI assistant (Leo), a Web3 crypto wallet, a VPN, and an opt-in advertising model powered by the Basic Attention Token (BAT) that pays users and creators. In 2025 the browser passed 100 million monthly active users.
Mozilla builds Firefox and a family of privacy-first internet products with a single, stubborn goal: keep the web open, private, and not owned by anyone. Spun out of Netscape in 1998 and run by a for-profit corporation wholly owned by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, Mozilla competes with the largest companies on earth while answering to a mission instead of shareholders.