It's so good to see Safari steadily making progress on being a decent browser.
I've used Safari daily for … must be 20 years now? Every day, for everything, minus the odd exceptionally rare circumstance. And I couldn't tell you what the last one of those was, it was so long ago.
I'm a web developer. I use its devtools constantly.
People ask why do you use Safari and not Chrome and I think the question is backwards. Why, given how lovely Safari is, would you go and download Chrome? It's really ugly and doesn't look like any of the other apps on my Mac.
When I do want other devtools, I vastly prefer Firefox's to Chrome's.
As a browser? I agree with you.
So, the "Why not use Chrome instead of Safari?” certainly happens.
The market share is what makes those circumstances exceptionally rare. Meanwhile we're having to use safari specific fixes and refrain from using he newest standards just because of safari
Safari is not just fine. It's more than fine: https://wpt.fyi/interop-2025?stable
It's also the last non-evergreen browser so bugs take longer to fix than Firefox or Chrome, compounding the problem.
I have used Safari since it replace Internet Explorer back in the days, then switched to Chrome a few years ago after a beta broke password syncing and AdBlocker Extensions for Safari were paid/not as good.
Like much of Apple's software, it has strengths and looks good but is really lacking in many ways. It also locks you into the walled garden pretty tight, which can be annoying at times.
Apple should go back to releasing a cross-platform version if they want to be taken seriously, in my opinion. In general, their incentive to build software solely for their platform is a double-edged sword because they can't manage to create hardware that can cover every need (especially for 3D/engineering), and it becomes very annoying to rely on it the moment you need to use another OS (either Windows or Linux).
Another example is Apple Notes being decent, but using it in the web browser is basically a joke (might as well not exist).
At which cost? Huge RAM footprint, deadly battery killer, slow start time. How often do you need heavy performance for web apps versus just browsing?
With how much engineering was poured over V8, I don't doubt.
In similar veins, they'll say that Windows uses more RAM than macOS. Yet on both an iMac that was bootcamped and a custom-built hackintosh, macOS almost always used more RAM after booting.
Apple makes great hardware but the software is often very mid, its only visually pleasing.
It starts way slower, Chrome is one bounce and usable immediately, Safari is 2-3 bounces and 3-4 seconds before it starts accepting input.
This is not true. You can distribute Safari extensions outside the Mac App Store.
While it's true that you can't distribute Safari extensions outside the iOS App Store, mobile Chrome doesn't even have extension support, so in this case, Safari has vastly better extension support.
I suspect that the difference in extension availability is mostly due to desktop market share, since Safari is nonexistent on Windows and Linux.
Given almost 100% compatibility with the same Web Extension APIs that Chrome uses, I think you’d expect near-parity in extension availability between Chrome and Safari if that barrier didn’t exist.
Yes? I didn't deny that. I said your initial comment didn't mention cost.
> Given almost 100% compatibility with the same Web Extension APIs that Chrome uses, I think you’d expect near-parity in extension availability between Chrome and Safari if that barrier didn’t exist.
It feels like you ignored the points I made in my last comment. Why would you expect near parity in extension availability when you can't even develop Safari extensions on Windows and Linux computers?
You very much can develop Safari extensions on Windows or Linux because they use largely the same APIs as Chrome extensions as I already mentioned. Any differences are well documented. The only thing you need a Mac for is, again, distribution. If not for that it’s really not that different to developing a website that will open on Safari without access to an Apple device.
Once upon a time Apple had a separate Safari extensions website where they allowed extension developers to publish or sign extensions after registering for free as they recognised these barriers. They could either be distributed on Apple’s extensions gallery or you could distribute the files yourself.
LOL, I wish.
I would note that I'm a professional browser extension developer and have a great deal of experience with this.
> The only thing you need a Mac for is, again, distribution.
Or, you know, testing your software. Or are you in the habit of shipping software without any testing?
> If not for that it’s really not that different to developing a website that will open on Safari without access to an Apple device.
Also a bad idea.
> They could either be distributed on Apple’s extensions gallery or you could distribute the files yourself.
You may have still have needed Safari to package the extension, though I don't recall for sure, because that was 15 years ago.
In any case, I'm glad you mentioned it, because there was not near-parity in extension availability back then either.
If you use Google products extensively and don't use Apple ecosystem integration features, then Chrome may look like it has better features; the same is true if you are on the Apple ecosystem (Notes, Reminders, Calendar, Passwords, multiple devices, etc). Seamless integration of Apple devices is one of the biggest advantages of using Apple software like Safari, where you can use iCloud Tabs to switch between devices. Also, Tab Groups is a neat feature; you can move Safari windows to an iPad with Sidecar and so on.
Google's ecosystem also has similar features, but you can argue that you're "locked into a walled garden pretty tight" with Google as well.
Browsers have their different advantages, but they are not so different from each other, especially when we compare Safari and Chrome. Maybe the only real difference is that Chrome has way more extensions.
Form filling and login just work better on Chrome; that's not subjective at all.
Tabs syncing works better and faster with Chrome, one of the reasons I switched is that Safari implementation was laggy and buggy (happened with the password sync problem as well).
Bookmarks favicons came back, but they were removed for many versions, which was very annoying.
I don't use Google apps much, and I don't find the Apple ecosystem integration to be that useful. At best they are a convenience, but often just gimmicks.
I still mostly use Apple devices but have a PC as well. Apple iCloud for Windows is buggy and annoying as hell and requires using Chrome anyway; might as well skip the step of using Safari.
Google definitely has some walling as well, but it works with more hardware and is generally easier to integrate. Apple really plays nice with their own stuff.
I was once a defender of Apple's approach, especially for native apps and stuff like that. They have shown they can't be trusted. We are very far from the era when Apple was making Safari for Windows because they wanted to offer a better browser to everyone. Now only the bottom line matters, even though they have never been as rich as now.
The reason they fight so hard to prevent 3rd-party browser engines on iOS is because they know they would lose market share extremely fast.
Make no mistake, I would prefer to use Apple stuff but it just isn't very competitive anymore, and they really need to put a lot of effort into it.
> translation
Safari has Translation built in
> favicon bookmarks
Yeah to my knowledge this is not possible (someone correct me if I am wrong), but I also fail to see the value given how large screens are today and favicons are kinda terrible.
> Google Lens
That alone is a reason for me not to use chrome.
> better autofill/autologin
I have never had any major issue with autofill or login on Safari. It pulls in my contact information when filling out a form, it pulls in my credit card information, and it pulls in one time codes from mail and messages when those happen. The only real issue I have here is that I use both Apple Passwords and 1Password and the popups for both interfere, but I doubt that is really a safari unique issue.
> better performance for web apps generally
Do we have data to back that up? Websites perform just fine for me.
> Another very useful property is being able to sync your Chrome profile on any computer, which comes in very handy when you need to do stuff on computers you do not own. Doing the same with Safari is possible but a hassle.
Not sure if syncing with a computer you don't own is really a feature that we should be encouraging? That seems really bad advice.
Regardless, outside of Windows (which I just don't care or have any desire to have my main computing sync too) Safari syncs just fine between my devices I care for it to sync too.
> Apple should go back to releasing a cross-platform version
I disagree with the "Seriously" part but I agree in spirit. I would love to have Safari on Windows again so I can never use Chrome or Firefox again. As far as other apps being on Windows, I care less but I would love to see icloud.com improved when needed in a pinch.
If they can't make what people want, they go somewhere else, exactly what I did.
I also do dev work in Firefox + Safari. I use Firefox mainly because I prefer their dev tools to do frontend work. Chrome I almost never use. This insistence that Safari is the new IE is honestly baffling. Yes Safari is not perfect and yes Apple is Apple. Still, Safari is far from being a train wreck.
The lack of cross-platform support is also annoying to the point where I generally don't bother testing on Safari unless I'm absolutely forced to. Until Apple releases a Safari build for Windows and/or Linux, Safari users will just have to rely on Safari's compatibility with cross-platform browsers.
The open source version of WebKit works fine as a user, but behaves differently from any official Safari releases, so as a web developer it's not really usable as a testing tool.
To me, it's annoying people ask that question. It's like they ask why I use brand A of shoes and not B, but it's my choice and nobody would expect a monopoly from an Ad company to be a good thing.
Social pressure is real, though.
The one that bites me every day is how I cannot pick an arbitrary search engine. The ones they have are very few and awful.
One that bites me on occasion is the inability to selectively disable JavaScript per website.
Another is the atrocious permissions management for extensions. On iOS you can’t even deny access to a specific website until you allow it once first.
One that bites me rarely is AppleScript support being slightly worse than in Chromium, specifically there being no way (other than GUI automation) to make a new Private Window.
One that hasn’t bitten me yet is the ugly pill-shaped tabs in Tahoe, together with the removal of the unified tab layout.
The most frustrating part is these are very easy to fix. Note also that this isn’t an endorsement of Chromium, there’s a reason those browsers aren’t my main. Right now there isn’t a single web browser I like and that does everything I want acceptably. But Safari is the least bad.
:)
If there was a downside I guess it would be in the realm of extensions/plugins where Chrome probably has a leg up. That's where I decided to make the jump to Brave. All the same Chrome extensions without the Google nonsense (and built in ad blocker).
I still really like Safari though and would likely use it daily if it had a built-in ad blocker.
I encounter it on a weekly or monthly basis before Safari 18.0, but then subsequent release 18.2 along with latest 26.2 I finally have yet to encounter one.
I am hoping they will shift a little more focus on multi Tab usage, less paging, address bar, and some other desktop browser features.
It's a sad state of affairs when one can't make a positive comment without triggering someone to look for the spice take hidden between the lines.
Unless I am using Windows (which I use for anything except gaming sparingly) Safari is my primary browser on my Mac and I stick with it on my iPhone and iPad. It does what I need it to do and I never have issues as a user. It works with the plugins I need it to work with (mostly 1Password).
I am sure there are genuine issues with the browser just like with any software, but it is already past "decent" and does its job.
https://www.google.com/search?q=examples%20of%20code%20that%...
It would be nice if Reddit wasn't a total hog that could barely load two separate pages without crashing from a memory leak, or allow you to navigate without breaking the back button completely, but it'd also be nice if Safari was more resilient to it.