Best Gaming Browser In 2024

There is no shortage of capable desktop web browsers out there. While these web browsers focus on productivity, some offer gaming features to cater to a niche audience, too. As such, choosing an appropriate web browser for your particular use case is pretty important, and we’ve done the research to figure out which one is the best for gamers.

You shouldn’t settle with the default web browser on your laptop. There are plenty of capable options to play your favorite titles like a pro. Let’s glance over some of the top options.

1 Opera GX

A browser made specifically for gamers

Opera GX is arguably the only browser made for playing video games, and it shows. Not only in terms of features, but the browser’s minimalist aesthetic is also clearly geared toward the more edgy gamer audience, and it does look cool.

One of the primary selling points of Opera GX is performance, specifically the ability to limit the browser’s resources. With the built-in GX Control panel, you can limit the CPU, RAM, and even network usage of the browser, which is really important if you’re playing video games, especially online. If you’re using the browser to stream music while you play, the network limiter can also ensure that your game’s traffic will be prioritized over the background music.

In terms of CPU and RAM usage, Opera GX wasn’t the lightest browser we tested by default. However, since you can limit the resource usage yourself, you can make it so that it won’t exceed a certain amount (down to 1GB of RAM and 6% CPU usage). Setting these limits to the lowest did make it impossible to watch a YouTube video and have Discord open simultaneously. So you’ll be limited to more basic usage, which is probably a fine compromise if you only use it for basic tasks while gaming.

Opera GX has some other cool features. Out of the box, it includes side panels to access Discord and Twitch. You can easily stay in touch with your favorite gaming communities and other messaging services. There’s also GX Corner, a hub where you can find all kinds of info on the gaming world, and it’s actually neat. It has an upcoming release calendar that includes all major platforms, a selection of browser games to kill time, a deals aggregator, and more. Diehards may already have their sources to keep up with this information, but if you’re unsure where to start or want to try something new, the GX Corner is surprisingly interesting.

Opera GX

Opera GX is a browser made for gamers, first and foremost. It has a fast, snappy UI, and its built-in resource control makes it ideal for gaming. It also has some great features for gamers, like a release calendar and a dedicated space for the gaming world.

2 Microsoft Edge

Great for Xbox cloud gaming

Aside from Opera GX, you won’t find many browsers with specific gaming features, but Microsoft Edge does try to some extent. Performance-wise, Edge isn’t the lightest browser, but it’s not the most resource-hungry one, either. It’s fairly light, using 1.1GB to 1.4GB of RAM in our test while playing a YouTube video, and usually less than 10% of the CPU. That’s pretty solid, and when you consider Edge is already built into Windows, it means there’s not necessarily a big reason to go looking much deeper for a better one. It also comes with an efficiency mode enabled by default to ensure the browser doesn’t gobble up many resources.

As for gaming-oriented features, Edge does have a dedicated gaming homepage you can enable, which lets you see gaming-related news, recent videos, information about esports tournaments, and upcoming releases. However, this page isn’t nearly as fleshed out as Opera GX’s, so it’s not a huge selling point.

Perhaps the most interesting feature here is Clarity Boost, which might be a big deal if you’re into cloud gaming. Clarity Boost only works with Xbox cloud gaming, but it enhances the clarity of the image in games streamed through the cloud, bringing the experience that much closer to playing on an actual console. As far as gaming goes, that’s one of the most unique features around, making this arguably the best browser for cloud gaming.

Microsoft Edge

Microsoft’s Edge isn’t necessarily a gaming browser. However, it does have some interesting features, like the gaming homepage and a clarity enhancement for Xbox cloud gaming. Plus, it’s preinstalled on Windows 11, so why not?

3 Brave

A very lightweight browser

We’ve mostly moved past browsers with dedicated gaming features, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more good options. Brave has been quickly rising in popularity over the past couple of years, and it’s quickly apparent why. This is one of the lightest browsers we’ve tried, with memory usage often hovering around 1GB or less — we saw it go under 800MB at one point, even while playing a YouTube video — along with low CPU usage. That’s very impressive, and for the gamers who don’t want to risk compromising performance, it’s awesome news.

Brave also has a beautiful UI that’s simple and straight to the point, and the built-in ad blocker means you don’t have to worry about ads on the internet. There’s also a built-in VPN if you’re willing to pay for it, plus more niche features like a crypto wallet, a rewards program, and a built-in video chat tool.

While there aren’t any crazy features for gamers, Brave is worth it for its lightweight footprint alone, and it manages to be light without huge compromises.

Brave Browser

The Brave browser is made for the more privacy-conscious users, with a built-in VPN and ad blocker. It’s also light on resources, making it great for use while gaming and multitasking.

4 Firefox

An all-rounder

Firefox strikes the perfect balance between speed, privacy and performance. The company’s WebRender technology ensures better graphics performance, reduced input lag, and deliver an overall better gameplay experience. Up until the introduction of OperaGX, Firefox used to be the darling of the gaming community.

Firefox is right up there with Chrome in offering rich add-ons and theme support. You won’t have a hard time customizing Firefox to match your gaming setup. You can also explore these extensions to improve your gaming experience further. The possibilities are endless here, and it’s up to you to utilize these add-ons as per your needs.

Firefox is light on CPU and RAM usage, too. We opened several tabs in Firefox and measured only 700MB RAM (compared to 1.2GB on Chrome) and 5% CPU usage.

Firefox has also covered privacy aspects. The standard protection balances protection and performance and blocks social media trackers, cross-site cookies, cryptominers, and tracking content in private windows. You can also select custom protection and choose which trackers and scripts to block. Overall, Firefox has all the ingredients to become your ideal option to play games and browse the web.

Firefox

While Firefox isn’t entirely designed for gamers, it offers enough features to become your go-to web browser. That, coupled with WebRender tech, comes in handy for a smooth gameplay experience.

5 Iridium browser

Like Chrome, but light

Google Chrome is the most popular web browser in the world, but there’s a reason you see all those jokes about how much RAM it uses. It can be a bit of a resource hog, and is’s one of the heavier browsers we tested. So what if there was a lightweight version? That’s where Iridium comes in.

Developed by a team in Germany, Iridium is mostly an attempt to de-Google Chrome. The UI is nearly identical but stripped of almost all Google features, making this a more privacy-oriented experience. It also makes it a much lighter experience, as Iridium was up there with Brave as one of the lightest browsers in terms of CPU and RAM usage in our test. It usually hovered around 900MB to 1GB of RAM, and the CPU usage was impressively low, too. It can feel a bit unfinished at first since there’s no home page (the browser just boots to a blank page by default), but that helps save resources, and if that’s your focus, it does the job.

There isn’t much to Iridium in terms of features, though; it’s just a more privacy-conscious and lightweight version of Google Chrome. It does lack the ability to sync your browser history with Google, and by default, it clears your cookies when you close the browser, so it won’t remember that you signed into any websites.

Iridium Browser

Iridium is a browser based on Chrome, but it’s focused on privacy. It strips out all Google-related features to remove as much bloat as possible, making for a very light, yet familiar experience.

6 Vivaldi

The best general-purpose browser

We’re onto our last pick, and we’ve really moved beyond gaming-specific browsers at this point. That said, Vivaldi deserves to be on this list simply because it’s great overall.

Vivaldi doesn’t particularly stand out when it comes to performance, but it’s not super heavy out of the box. It hovered around 1.2 to 1.4GB of memory usage during our test and usually under 10% CPU usage, which is helped by the fact that it has a built-in tracking and ad blocker that can lighten the load. But truth be told, that’s not why you’ll want this browser.

Vivaldi is great because it’s so feature-packed, yet many of the features are optional, so you don’t have to lose out on performance. One of my favorites is the sidebar, which gives you access to browser basics like bookmarks, history, and downloads, but also more unique features, like notes, a translator, workspace manager, and even an email, calendar, and RSS feed client.

We wouldn’t necessarily recommend this one if you want a good browser for gaming, but Vivaldi is a fantastic browser overall. It’s the Swiss knife of browsers, making it great for everyone.

Vivaldi Browser

Vivaldi is one of the most feature-packed browsers on the market, but it’s still relatively light when it comes down to its basics. It’s great for power users and suitable for just about anyone.

7 Bonus: The Steam overlay browser

Why use a separate browser anyway?

We’re not quite done yet. Using a typical web browser is fine and maybe the method most people think of, but if you’re playing games on Steam, you might not need a separate browser. The Steam in-game overlay comes with a built-in web browser, and it’s perfectly capable for basic web searching. It’s also easier to access than switching back to the desktop to open a separate browser, so it does the job if you want to look up something while playing a game.

Measuring the performance of the Steam overlay browser is a little more complicated since the processes are mixed with the rest of the Steam processes. Still, a quick look shows roughly 800MB of memory and 10% CPU usage when using the browser for our test, which makes this one of the lighter options on this list.

That, combined with the quick and easy access, plus the fact that it still supports most web features just fine, makes this a solid choice for casual web browsing while gaming. Of course, you’ll need to be using Steam for it to work, but most PC gamers are probably already doing that.

What makes a good gaming browser?

When it comes to a browser made specifically for gaming, one of the first factors man y will consider is performance. If this is a browser you’re opening during your gaming sessions, you don’t want it to hog a ton of system resources and affect the performance of your games. Because gaming laptops and PCs these days mostly have pretty high specs, browsers also tend to use significant resources, but we did try a relatively simple test on the ones we’ve included here.

Basically, while running Rocket League from Steam, we launched these browsers and opened four tabs: the XDA homepage, the Google homepage, a YouTube video, and Discord. With the video playing and in focus, we looked at the CPU and RAM usage in Task Manager to see just how high or low it can get.

Of course, there are other important factors, like gaming-focused features, and those that can help save on resources, like built-in ad blockers. We’ve considered all of this when making our picks here.

Play your favorite titles on the web

These are great options if you’re looking for a browser to use on Windows 11 (and other platforms) while gaming. The top pick has to go to Opera GX because it’s the only browser with such a handy resource limiter, and it has some cool gaming-focused features like the GX Corner, too. Opera may oversell it, but it’s a great choice for a gaming browser. Otherwise, if you want the most lightweight option, something like Brave may be better for you. It’s truly a matter of what you prefer to focus on.