People tell us they are becoming increasingly wary of using third-party browsers such as those from Opera, Chrome and Firefox. It might come as a surprise, but your average punter will stick with their OS browser, Edge, and a powerful security suite to keep themselves secure.

The question is, is this the most secure way of surfing the internet in 2019? Could your connection between your computer and the internet be made more rock solid. Well, Avast certainly thinks so.

Avast has launched ‘Aspen’ which is a codename for the latest version of its Secure Browser, based on Chrome 73. On startup, it looks identical to Chrome and ships with its own extensions, most exclusive to Secure Browser. You receive an adblock extension, an anti-phishing module, an extension guard to stop you installing add-ons which may access your data and much more.

The latest version 73 includes a Webcam Guard, which offers the web user complete control over the websites that can access your computer camera. The new Anti-Fingerprinting extension will stop people being followed by trackers as they browse the web. A Hack Check module will check to see if your data has been compromised.

The problem is that you really need an Avast framework to make full use of Secure Browser. For example, you need minimum of Avast Free Antivirus installed for the password manager and you’d need the commercial Avast SecureVPN to turn on/off the VPN extension.

In addition, although Avast Secure Browser is based on Chrome, you can’t just move across your regular extensions. Most of our favourite extensions we have running in Chrome simply won’t load or will be blocked for, you’ve guessed it, security reasons.

You can’t even install a new theme, either. The Chrome account management system doesn’t work, so you can’t synchronise your data across browsers – indeed, there isn’t an Avast Secure Browser for other devices such as your Mac or iPhone. Avast Secure Browser is Windows-only.

Is Avast Secure Browser for you? If you use Avast security software, then possibly, yes. But you’ll surf the internet within the limitations we’ve listed above.

Download the latest Avast Secure Browser ‘Aspen’ yourself.