7 Controls to Compare Before Choosing an Enterprise Browser
Cybersecurity has moved from being an IT expense to a business-critical function. Breaches now affect balance sheets, investor confidence, and brand reputation. The global average cost of a data breach reached $4.88 million in 2024, a 10% rise from the previous year. Nearly 40% of those breaches involved multiple cloud environments, making containment more complex than ever.
With most work now happening inside the browser, it makes sense to treat it as a primary control point that can be standardised, monitored, and fine-tuned without overhauling the rest of your security stack.
- Identity and Access Enforcement
Your browser should act as a first line of defence, verifying who gets in, from which device, and under what conditions. When comparing enterprise browsers, look for deep integrations with identity providers such as OIDC or SAML, adaptive multi-factor authentication, and automatic re-authentication when device posture drifts. Stolen credentials have driven roughly a third of all breaches over the past decade, and incidents involving compromised credentials can take hundreds of days to detect. Browser-level enforcement dramatically reduces that window.
- Data Loss Prevention in the Browser
Actions such as copy, paste, downloads, and screenshots all carry data leakage risks. Evaluate how precisely each browser allows you to manage them. Can you watermark, encrypt, or redact rather than block outright? Research from IBM in 2024 found that 35% of breaches involved “shadow data,” information stored or shared outside approved systems. Policy-based data loss prevention inside the browser can help contain that exposure before it spreads.
- Threat Isolation and Malware Defence
Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) keeps active web code off the endpoint by executing web pages remotely and streaming only a safe visual layer to the user. This design removes entire categories of malware from your environment and prevents exploit kits from finding a foothold.
- Context-Aware Policy Engine
Rigid, static rules rarely survive real-world use. Modern enterprise browsers let you define dynamic “if/then” logic that accounts for user role, app sensitivity, data classification, geolocation, and time of day. Policies should re-evaluate in real time and include a simulation mode so security teams can test before enforcement.
- Extension and Shadow IT Governance
Unapproved browser extensions and pop-up SaaS tools quietly create new attack surfaces. Choose a browser that includes extension risk scoring, clear allow or deny lists, and automatic remediation when suspicious add-ons appear. Some enterprise browsers also include self-service workflows for users that still require admin sign-off, a balance between flexibility and control.
- Telemetry, Audit, and SIEM/SOAR Integration
If your security operations centre cannot see it, it cannot investigate it. Prioritise browsers that generate detailed logs of URLs, data movements, and policy actions in real time, and send that information directly to platforms such as Splunk or Microsoft Sentinel. Visibility is what turns isolated events into actionable intelligence.
- Deployment, Scalability, and User Experience
Even the best security measures fail if users resist them. Compare browsers for cross-platform support, bandwidth efficiency, update management, and admin controls. The goal is an experience that feels as fast and familiar as Chrome or Edge, but with enterprise-grade protections built in.
Conclusion
Selecting the right enterprise browser is about alignment, not just features. Each control should map to your specific risk profile, regulatory environment, and growth trajectory. Modern solutions, such as the HERE Enterprise Browser, aim to enforce policy directly where work happens, inside the browser, while remaining almost invisible to users.
When assessing options, document how each browser meets today’s needs and how it will adapt to tomorrow’s. A solution that cannot evolve with your business will quickly become a security gap in itself, reintroducing the very risks it was meant to eliminate.