What is the best browser for Zoom, Teams and Google Meet in 2026?

For most users, Chrome, Edge or Arc are the best browsers for online meetings in 2026. They share the same Chromium engine, offer full WebRTC support, and are the only desktop browsers that capture tab audio — which matters for AI meeting tools, captioning and transcription.

Can Firefox or Safari share tab audio in 2026?

No. As of April 2026, Firefox and Safari implement getDisplayMedia for video, but ignore the audio constraint when sharing a browser tab. Only Chromium-based desktop browsers (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Opera) return a tab audio track.

Does my browser choice affect AI meeting assistants?

Yes. AI meeting assistants that capture tab audio — for transcription, live captions or real-time suggestions — only work on Chromium-based desktop browsers. On Firefox or Safari, those tools fall back to microphone capture, which is noisier and less accurate.

Best Browser for Online Meetings in 2026 (We Tested 5)

Introduction

Your choice of browser shapes your online meeting experience more than most guides admit. Every modern browser can join a video call, but they differ sharply on the features that matter in 2026: tab audio sharing, screen capture quality, WebRTC stability, battery efficiency, and compatibility with AI meeting tools.

If you’re looking for the best browser for online meetings in 2026 — for Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet — this guide compares the five most-used desktop browsers head to head, with a clear verdict at the end.

The Browsers Compared

Google Chrome

Chrome remains the gold standard for WebRTC and browser-based video meetings:

Tab audio sharing: Full support on Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS. Available since Chrome 74 (April 2019) via the getDisplayMedia API. Essential for AI tools that need clean meeting audio.
System audio: Supported on Windows, Linux and ChromeOS via screen sharing with audio. macOS is limited to tab audio (an OS-level restriction, not a Chrome bug).
Screen sharing: Excellent — share an entire screen, a specific window, or an individual tab.
Performance: Fast and stable, though RAM usage climbs quickly with many tabs open.
AI tool compatibility: Best-in-class. Most AI meeting tools are built and tested against Chrome first.

Best for: anyone who wants maximum compatibility with AI meeting tools and reliable tab audio sharing.

Microsoft Edge

Edge is built on Chromium and inherits almost everything Chrome can do:

Tab audio sharing: Full support, identical behavior to Chrome.
System audio: Same capabilities as Chrome.
Screen sharing: Excellent, with extra integration when sharing into Microsoft Teams.
Performance: Comparable to Chrome and often a bit lighter on RAM, with sleeping tabs and OS-level optimizations on Windows 11.
AI tool compatibility: Very good. Anything that works in Chrome works in Edge.

Best for: Windows users, especially those already in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

Mozilla Firefox

Firefox uses its own Gecko engine and takes a different path on screen capture:

Tab audio sharing: Not supported. Firefox implements getDisplayMedia for video, but the audio constraint is ignored when sharing a tab — a tracking bug open since 2019.
System audio: Not supported natively. Users need a virtual audio device (BlackHole on macOS, VB-Cable on Windows) as a workaround.
Screen sharing: Reliable for video, but no audio track is returned.
Performance: Solid. Generally lower memory footprint than Chrome at equivalent tab counts.
AI tool compatibility: Limited. Microphone-based tools work fine; anything relying on tab audio falls back to mic capture or breaks.

Best for: privacy-focused users whose AI tools rely on microphone capture only.

Apple Safari

Safari has improved its WebRTC stack but still lags on capture features:

Tab audio sharing: Not supported. Safari accepts the getDisplayMedia call but returns no audio track.
System audio: Not supported.
Screen sharing: Basic — entire screen and window sharing only, with fewer options than Chromium browsers.
Performance: Excellent on macOS, with the best battery efficiency of any browser tested. Apple Silicon optimizations are noticeable on long calls.
AI tool compatibility: Limited. Many AI meeting tools either don’t support Safari or work with reduced functionality.

Best for: Mac users on battery who don’t need advanced audio capture.

Arc Browser

Arc is built on Chromium and inherits Chrome’s WebRTC stack wholesale:

Tab audio sharing: Full support, identical to Chrome.
System audio: Same capabilities as Chrome.
Screen sharing: Full Chrome-level support.
Performance: Good, with unique workspace and tab-management features that help if you juggle multiple meetings.
AI tool compatibility: Excellent — functionally identical to Chrome for WebRTC and getDisplayMedia.

Best for: users who want Chrome-grade compatibility with a more modern interface. Note: Brave and Opera offer the same capability profile, since they’re also Chromium-based.

Feature Comparison Table

Feature	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Safari	Arc
Tab audio sharing	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	❌ No	❌ No	✅ Yes
System audio	⚠️ Partial	⚠️ Partial	❌ No	❌ No	⚠️ Partial
Screen sharing	Excellent	Excellent	Good	Basic	Excellent
WebRTC support	Full	Full	Full	Good	Full
Battery efficiency	Average	Good	Good	Excellent	Average
AI tool compatibility	Best	Very good	Limited	Limited	Excellent

System audio is marked “partial” for Chromium browsers because macOS only allows tab audio capture — Windows, Linux and ChromeOS support full system audio.

Tab audio sharing is the single feature that most often decides whether an AI meeting tool actually works in your browser.

When you join a meeting in a browser tab — Zoom web client, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams web — the meeting audio plays inside that tab. With tab audio sharing, another tool can capture that audio directly, without your microphone, and without echo or background noise.

This matters for:

AI transcription tools that need clean input to keep word error rates low
Real-time AI assistants like LiveSuggest that follow the conversation and surface contextual suggestions during the call — a no-bot approach that keeps your meetings free of visible recorders
Live captioning and accessibility tools that benefit from a clean audio source

Without tab audio sharing (Firefox, Safari), tools fall back to microphone capture — which picks up keyboard noise, room echo and remote voices distorted by your speakers. For a deeper technical look at the API and its limits, read our dedicated guide on how tab audio sharing works.

Recommendations

For the best AI meeting tool experience: use Chrome, Edge or Arc. These Chromium-based browsers offer full WebRTC support including tab audio sharing.

On macOS: Chrome or Arc are your best options. Safari lacks tab audio sharing, so any AI assistant relying on it will fall back to the microphone.

On Windows: Edge and Chrome are essentially tied. Edge has a slight edge on RAM and battery; Chrome has marginally broader extension support.

If privacy is your top concern: Firefox is an excellent default browser, but consider a Chromium browser specifically for meetings where you want to use AI tools.

For mobile meetings: Chrome on Android and Safari on iOS both handle basic meeting participation, but getDisplayMedia audio capture is desktop-only — there is no mobile path to tab audio sharing in 2026.

Conclusion

The verdict is clear: the best browser for online meetings in 2026 is Chrome, with Edge and Arc essentially tied thanks to their shared Chromium foundation. All three deliver full WebRTC, reliable tab audio sharing, and the broadest compatibility with AI meeting tools.

Firefox and Safari are excellent general-purpose browsers, but their refusal to return a tab audio track is a hard limit for anyone using a real-time AI assistant or live captioning tool. If that workflow matters to you, switch your meeting browser to a Chromium-based one — and pair it with a tool like LiveSuggest to see what tab audio plus real-time AI can actually do. You can compare plans on the pricing page.

Sources

MediaDevices: getDisplayMedia() method — MDN Web Docs
MediaDevices API: getDisplayMedia() audio capture support — Can I Use
Implement audio capture for getDisplayMedia (Bug 1541425) — Mozilla Bugzilla
Screen Capture API specification — W3C
Chrome 74 release notes (tab audio capture) — Google Chrome Developers