Safe Surfer supports a large variety of devices, including but not limited to the following: Android, iPhone and iPad, Windows, and Mac. This article will help you learn more about devices that we officially recommend, system requirements in general, and web browser apps that we've tested.

Recommended devices

The mission of Safe Surfer is to protect the mental health of our young people through technology, education, and advocacy. Following our mission, the Safe Surfer team works hard to provide a remarkably clean online protection experience for families and individuals. Due to how devices are designed, each kind works a little differently, where this affects how we build technology. In accordance with our testing, we officially recommend the following devices for the best protection experience:

• First smartphone for a child: Safe Surfer Kid-Safe Smartphone (available for customers in New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific islands)
• Smartphones and tablets: Samsung Galaxy (2019 range or newer)
• Laptops and desktops: any brand running Windows 11 (most Windows devices manufactured since 2019 support running Windows 11, and most since 2022 have Windows 11 preinstalled)

The Safe Surfer team also works hard to provide a safe experience for other kinds of devices, too. Continue reading to find out more about system requirements for all devices in general.

System requirements

Android

• Minimum operating system: Android 6
• Recommended operating system: Android 9 or newer

iPhone and iPad

• Minimum operating system (app-based protection installation): iOS/iPadOS 16
• Minimum operating system for older iPhone and iPad devices (manual protection installation): iOS/iPadOS 14

Windows

• Minimum operating system: Windows 10 (version 2004)
• Recommended operating system: Windows 11

Mac

• Minimum operating system for Mac devices manufactured since late 2020 (app-based protection installation): macOS 14 Sonoma or newer (How can I check?)
• Minimum operating system for older Intel-based Mac devices (manual protection installation): macOS 11 Big Sur or newer (macOS 12 Monterey is unsupported due to an Apple bug)

List of tested web browsers

Android

Safe Surfer for Android fully supports the following web browser apps:

• Brave
• Chromium
• Comet
• Ecosia Browser
• Firefox
• Google Chrome
• Microsoft Edge
• Samsung Browser

iPhone and iPad

Safe Surfer for iOS/iPadOS fully supports the following web browser apps:

• Brave
• Comet
• Ecosia Browser
• Firefox
• Google Chrome
• Microsoft Edge
• Safari

Windows

Safe Surfer for Windows fully supports the following web browser apps:

• Brave (including Brave Origin)
• Chromium
• Comet
• Ecosia Browser
• Firefox
• Google Chrome
• Microsoft Edge
• Samsung Browser

We have also tested the following browsers, and while not fully supported, we also found them to be compatible:

• Arc
• Cốc Cốc
• Floorp
• LibreWolf
• NAVER Whale
• Supermium
• Thorium
• Vivaldi
• Waterfox
• Yandex
• Zen

Mac

Safe Surfer for macOS fully supports the following web browsers apps:

• Brave (including Brave Origin)
• Chromium
• Comet
• Dia
• Ecosia Browser
• Firefox
• Google Chrome
• Microsoft Edge
• Safari

We have also tested the following browsers, and while not fully supported, we also found them to be compatible:

• Arc
• Cốc Cốc
• DuckDuckGo (that is, the browser app; the search engine is fully supported)
• Epic Browser
• Floorp
• LibreWolf
• NAVER Whale
• Orion
• Thorium
• Vivaldi
• Waterfox
• Yandex
• Zen

Updated on: 03/08/2026