Just a few days after rolling out AI features, the privacy-focused Brave browser is back with another announcement—this time about its growing user base. As of September 30, Brave reported 101 million users across desktop and mobile devices, marking a significant growth milestone for the project.
Alongside that, Brave Search—powered by its own independent index—has now reached nearly 20 billion annualized queries. On a daily basis, Brave Search handles more than 50 million queries, with about 15 million of those tapping into its AI-generated results.
It’s interesting to note that, in the EU, for example, Brave’s iOS installations jumped 50% after Apple rolled out its browser choice screen in iOS 17.4, following the implementation of the Digital Markets Act. And while those numbers are impressive, let’s take a quick, independent look at the stats to see where the browser really stands worldwide in terms of usability.
We’ll start with StatCounter’s worldwide browser market share numbers from the past year. No surprise here—Google Chrome still dominates, with more than 70% of users sticking with it. Way behind in second place is Safari, at just under 14%. Rounding out the top three, Microsoft Edge comes in at under 5%.
According to the numbers, in September 2025, Brave comes in ninth with 0.79% of the overall user base. That’s down from 0.87% back in April, a drop of about 0.08%. This isn’t meant to dismiss the company’s figures—it’s just another way of looking at the data.
Additionally, it’s also worth looking at the Firefox Public Data Reports, since a lot of the new Brave users are probably people making the switch from Firefox. The numbers seem to support this, at least to some degree.
At the end of last year, Firefox had about 163 million users. By September 2025, that number had dropped to 154 million—almost 10 million fewer. It’s not exactly shocking, though. Mozilla had already shown signs of trouble earlier this year when it shut down several services that people had grown accustomed to. Furthermore, the recent push to integrate AI features into the browser has been met with mixed reactions from users.
Speaking of AI, Brave’s recent announcement about adding AI features to its browser, well… can spark a mixed reaction. After all, when your biggest selling point is privacy, bringing AI into the mix is bound to make some folks a little skeptical. Anyway. Back to Brave.
Brendan Eich, CEO and co-founder of Brave, described the 100 million milestone as more than just a number:
“Across the globe, users are choosing privacy and control over their online experience, instead of Big Tech’s tracking and abuse.”
From a business standpoint, things appear to be going well. Brave VPN has nearly 100,000 paying subscribers. Additionally, Brave Ads has gained traction with major companies, including Amazon, Ford, and eBay.
Last, but not least, on the search side, Brave is one of only three independent search engines operating at scale in the West. Unlike competitors that rely on Bing or Google data, Brave runs its own index and has opened it up to developers through the Brave Search API.
In conclusion, Brave deserves credit for what it has accomplished so far—it’s no small achievement. Still, despite the progress, the browser remains far behind the market leaders, and breaking into the top three continues to appear a very challenging goal.
