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Comment by slig | Hacker News Reader

I can't see why anyone would stick with safari giving that Chrome runs the same rendering engine, a faster JS engine and extensions.

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Scrolling is broken. The difference is minimal, but Chrome doesn't scroll the same as native OS X apps. It's the same with Firefox (only worse).

I scroll all the time. So it should better work perfectly. With Chrome, it doesn't. Switching between my feedreader and Chrome made my fingers hurt.

(This is, by the way, something many OS X apps get wrong. All of MS Office, iTunes and so on.)

The crappy scrolling on the Mac is what keeps me away from Firefox. I've tried extensions to fix it, but nothing worked. It's still laggy and slow and just doesn't feel as solid as on Safari.

What's the prob specifically? That the speed is different?

It scrolls faster, yes.

Well, right now on the Mac, Safari has a lot going for it. Like, bookmark managing and extensions like AdBlock. But, I love Chrome tabs and how it is able to maximize real estate, and I hate the constant Safari beachballing, so I use Chrome. One day Chrome on the Mac will get what's missing, plus bookmark syncing (which I don't know if Safari will ever get).

I suspect that Apple doesn't necessarily care to have the largest browser market share on Windows.

If they did, Safari on Windows would look and feel more like a Windows application. As it stands, it's a very opinionated application, with foreign-looking scrollbars, text antialiasing that works differently from ClearType (they may have changed this by now, I haven't looked), etc. Comparing market shares between these browsers with the assumption that they have the same goals might be a bit off.

[edit]: I've also noticed a lot of people I know living over in the Windows world seem to harbor an uncontrolled hate-on for iTunes and Quicktime. Since these are often associated with the installation of Safari, that probably doesn't help Apple's position. Does Chrome come with any "unwanted" extras?

> I've also noticed a lot of people I know living over in the Windows world seem to harbor an uncontrolled hate-on for iTunes and Quicktime.

It's because Apple's software runs like garbage on Windows boxes. They eat up resources, install unnecessary stuff, run useless background apps that east up memory, take over bindings between file types and better applications (really, quicktime? I really don't want you to become the embedded player for .mpg files in all of my browsers, so I'm stuck with a 1"x1" postage stamp on my 26" monitor and no full-screen option).

On Macs, the software is sublime. On PCs they simply suck.

Those specific pieces of software alone kept me away from Macs for years because the PC ports were so terrible.

Well iTunes especially has been a resource hog on Windows in my experience. Between the ipodservicehelper.exe and the itunes.exe itself taking a lot of memory I think there is room for improvement there.

Assuming you mean on a Mac... I stick with Safari because it's fast enough, more mature than Chrome, evolved specifically for this platform, and updates and behaves according to OS conventions. Slightly better JS performance doesn't compel me to ignore those benefits, install another app, migrate my bookmarks and settings, and (presumably) learn new keyboard shortcuts.

Safari still "works" better on the Mac than the Chrome dev builds. Little things, like where you save a file work better in Safari.

Plus Safari is very close to Chrome's performance on a Mac, at least insomuch that anyone wouldn't notice.

Not since Safari 4, IMO. Ever since I upgraded it became very laggy (especially when opening/closing tabs), and does not have the same solid & nimble feel that Chrome has.

That being said, although Chrome performs the core browser functions better than safari, it's still rough around the edges.

Safari's Javascript engine runs faster than Chrome's on the Mac. I'm not sure what went wrong in the Windows port.

Not true. At best they are equal. Most of the times chrome bests safari. http://www.manu-j.com/blog/chrome-vs-firefox-vs-safari-vs-we...

Alright, sure, they do about the same on Apple's tests and Chrome wins on Google's. But I've seen tests (e.g. http://news.cnet.com/safari-challenges-chrome-on-web-app-spe...) of Safari on Windows that put it behind even Firefox in Javascript speed, on Apple's own tests!

The linked test wasn't "google's", it was independent. And you do realize that that cnet link you posted, while it might look a little anomalous for the safari numbers, shows a huge win for chrome?

Really, there isn't any meaningful debate that V8 is the current king of the hill in Javascript performance, by a pretty large margin. Your statement that Safari's engine runs faster than Chrome's isn't supported by any evidence of which I am aware.

I don't know why everyone is downvoting this, it's true as of 12/9/09. On SunSpider, Safari edges out Chrome by about 12%.

source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9142004/Safari_edges_...

Now of course on Windows there is no contest, Chrome is faster, but on Mac Safari is slightly faster.

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