I recommend to my non-IT friends and family that they should use gmail and chrome because they use Windows and Google's security is fantastic. Sure there is a compromise. Google are using private information for advertising but (1) Google doesn't have a history of sharing PII with third parties and (2) Google are very good at keeping information and passwords secure. Many of my non-tech friends and family use Android phones so they need a gmail account (convenience), and they use Facebook (so their privacy is already compromised to third parties). I strongly recommend against IE and Edge because they are buggy and IE/Edge had 9 critical security flaws in October (implies lots and lots of zero days in the long tail still remain). Firefox is OK but it just isn't as fast, reliable, usable, or secure as Chrome IMHO.

I personally use Chrome because it is secure and fast (and the debugger works far better than Firefox's, Safari's or Edge's). I personally don't use Apple because I don't want to spend x% of my disposable income on iDevices per year, when I can spend 0.x% on Android devices per year. I distrust Microsoft (their security is suspect and their implementations suck: I use outlook for work and the UI is super buggy - I notice unique flaws regularly and have to live with some bugs every day. Like email notifications stopped working the other day - just unbelievable shit). I would love to not use Google, but for the compromises I need to make, it remains the best choice by far for me. Edit: fixed # flaws.