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Comment by megablast | Hacker News Reader

Chrome is just awful on a mac. I am not sure why anyone uses it. FF is much nicer to use.

I’ve been using Safari as my daily driver for some time and it’s quite nice to use. Don’t be afraid to give it another chance.

Does Safari have extensions like Ad Blocker and does it have good developer tools?

1. Yes, it does. I use AdBlock Pro. 2. Yes, it does. I've been using Safari as my primary browser as a Rails developer for at least the past decade and have always found the developer tools at least adequate. I don't use the developer tools on other browsers heavily, so I don't know if I might be missing something.

[Edit] I'm wrong about this- "Adblock Pro no longer exists for Safari (in the form of an "official" extension)." It still exists, as "AdBlock Pro for Safari" developed by Crypto, Inc. but was not listed on Apple's extension site for some strange reason: https://apps.apple.com/us/story/id1377753262

The listed adblocker is: "AdBlock for Safari" developed by BETAFISH INC, which offers in-app purchases including "Gold Upgrade" which "unlocks" some basic features that gorhill's uBlock Origin already has for every other browser.

https://help.getadblock.com/support/solutions/articles/60002...

Not switching until there are some better options for this.

I have no trust in an ad blocker extension (which has access to any site you visit) published by an entity that is in the domain of crypto currencies. An adblocker is the best way to hide malware that steals money.

I used to run Safari on my mac and it was the best thing in the world:

- It integrated perfectly with the OS

- It saved battery like heeeeell

- It integrated natively with Airpods and media keys

- It clearly had worse performance than Chrome and a couple of incompatibilities, but it was perfectly acceptable

- I could run most of my extensions, namely uBlock Origin, HTTPS Everywhere and Reddit Enhancement Suite

- The native PiP (before it was on any other browser) was AMAZING

I had been a diehard Chrome user since it came out (with the comic book!) on Windows, Linux and macOS. I got fed up with how slow it was becoming and how it was running my fans all the time.

Unfortunately, two things happened that made me quit Safari:

- I found some weird bug wherein whenever I typed an address in the address bar it would always slow down to a crawl

- Apple deprecated and abandoned old extensions. So I lost most of my very valuable extensions, with emphasis on uBlock Origin and Reddit Enhancement Suite. I could live with a different adblocker (I saw adguard at the time), but I could not live without RES. No way.

So I left Safari and have since moved to Firefox. It seems almost as fast as Chrome, has nice integrations and features, but it's no Safari. It still drains my battery and has issues. Firefox has since progressively added PiP (even if it's not native) and support for media keys, which was a godsend, so that's nice.

I'd like to get back to Safari. It would be amazing. Do you know if there is any way for me to get what I used to have back? uBlock Origin (or something with compatible filter lists and custom rules) and Reddit Enhancement Suite?

Yes, PM me for an invite (its not Safari but is native, Webkit based browser that runs uBlock and other webextensions)

try adguard pls, it also has an iOS version which has almost the same experience on safari

Safari is migrating to a new system of extensions that will make it much easier to port from Chrome. However, I understand it still requires Xcode (which non-Mac folks can't run) and a developer license (which not everyone wants to pay for). I hope to bring my Chrome extension to Safari, but honestly it's not a priority because most people who install extensions are not running Safari (when you consider that most people are not on Mac, and a large chunk of folks on desktop Safari are there because it's the default — and therefore would not likely install extensions).

I use AdGuard for safari (in the Mac app store), which works reasonably well.

It has good standard developer tools, but not the advanced stuff like Redux replay and flexbox inspectors.

I particularly like Chrome profiles. I have a few profiles with their own bookmarks/histories/open tabs/etc. For example, one of my profiles is "Shopping". Another is "Work" and yet another is "Social Media".

Context switching profiles at a macro level - as opposed to intermingling work/shopping/social - is beneficial to me.

When I switch over to "Shopping", I have my tabs on whatever purchase I'm researching open. I can drop the whole project for a few weeks and resume it later right where I left off. None of it can bleed over into my "Work" profile. I like the separation. Helps keep my head clear.

Firefox has something like this called containers. The best example is one for facebook, where any call to any facebook servers only works in the facebook container. It has similar setups as well, Work, Home, Commerce, etc.

Not quite the same. I want to set-up and tear-down entire macro groups of windows and tabs while keeping others active.

Opening my 'Shopping' profile brings up windows and tabs from where I left off. Same with "Social". When I don't want distractions, I just close those profiles. No notifications, no updates, etc. I like the separation.

Simple Tab Groups [0] + Multi-Account Containers [1] are my workflow for that exact case. Simple Tab Groups hides the tabs based on the group you're in and the Multi Account Containers can keep them segmented from a contextual standpoint.

I can't stand Chrome either and so I've been using these two together for about a year now I believe. Using a naked version of Chrome is jarring given my browser feels like it fits how I use it being setup like this.

[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simple-tab-gr... [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...

Thanks I'll look into it.

I don't use Chrome, so I don't know what Chrome profiles are like. But Firefox also has profiles. Launch it with the -P option to open the profile manager and create additional profiles, besides the default one. Each profile is an entirely separate browser state: settings, tabs, cookies, storage, cache, etc. You can use them simultaneously. (This has existed for as long as I can remember... since 0.9 and probably back to Netscape?)

I switched from Chrome to FF as my daily driver, and miss being able to have multiple simultaneous instances with different proxy configs (via a --proxy-server="socks4://localhost:####" command line flag).

FF as far as I know does not have a way to do this as easily, you have to spin up different profiles and click through each one to configure it.

I still have chromium around for primarily this reason.

OTOH I was not able to stop Chromium from leaking DNS requests when using socks5. Only in FF I could make it happen.

Foxyproxy extension will help you there. You can also configure automatic proxy switching based on many conditions.

Firefox also has profiles, though they're not a very prominent feature and are a bit less polished as a result.

    firefox --ProfileManager

You can also type about:profiles in the address bar and launch a new profile from there.

Is that a Chrome for Mac feature? Never seen it before. Care to elavorate?

I use Profiles on Mac and Linux. Don't think Profiles work on Chromebooks - haven't really explored this.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/custom-chrome-browser-profiles...

There are many extensions which implement workspaces in FF. You can do exactly the same thing + FF containers give you separation for cookies, etc.

Yep, would love to use Safari but profiles are crucial for services you have multiple logins for (such as work and personal email).

Speed mostly, though the last time I tried out Firefox seriously was over a year ago, it was noticeably much slower on pages (ab)using lots of javascript.

Does Edge Chromium for MacOS have the same awfulness?

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