Most Mac users are browsing the web using either the built-in Safari browser or they have installed Google's Chrome browser. Both browsers have their advantages. Each works well within their own Apple or Google ecosystem. Safari has some clear advantages when it comes to MacBook battery life and privacy. Chrome works better for Google Apps users and those that also have Android or Windows devices.
You can also watch this video at YouTube.
Watch more videos about related subjects: Safari (150 videos).
You can also watch this video at YouTube.
Watch more videos about related subjects: Safari (150 videos).
Video Transcript
Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's compare Safari and Chrome and figure out which browser is best for the Mac.
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So Safari is the builtin browser for your Mac. Often I see Mac users go right to Chrome and use that instead. They've heard that it's better, it's faster, that they should be using it instead of Safari. But is that true? Which browser is actually best for you.
One of the primary factors is speed. So I did hundreds of comprehensive tests between Safari and Chrome to see which is fastest. No, just kidding! I didn't do any of that. I just looked at a lot of sites that did comparisons over the years. What I found is there is not really much difference. Some sites say Chrome is faster and some actually say Safari is faster. Most of them say they're pretty comparable in speed.
Most people agree that Safari has the advantage in privacy. There are a lot of great privacy features and most of them stem from the fact that Apple isn't trying to advertise to you where Goggle is. Goggle makes some of its money through advertising so, of course, it has an interest in collecting information and using information to serve ads to you. Apple doesn't care about that. Safari works in the Apple ecosystem so it's using iCloud to sync things like your passwords, like your bookmarks, and if you're using iPhones, iPads, and Macs then all of that is pretty much automatically synced between your devices. You can even see what Safari tabs are open in other devices. So you can leave our Mac, go to your iPad and then jump right into a tab that you had opened on your Mac.
Safari also has something called Reader View. It takes an article that you're viewing and gives it to you without distractions. So just the main text and images. It's great for reading news online. You don't see it in Chrome because of course Goggle has an interest in making sure you view the ads that are there. Rumors are that it's coming to Chrome soon but it's been in Safari since 2010.
Safari's biggest advantage is specifically for MacBook users. If you have a Mac with a battery in it most experts agree that Safari is far better for conserving power. As a matter of fact you hear people complain online that their MacBook battery isn't lasting as long as they think it should. A lot of times it boils down to the fact that they're using Chrome and when they switch to Safari they find out their batter lasts a lot longer. Safari is really built for conserving battery power.
So, of course, there's the thing that Safari is build for the Mac. It's built by Apple. It's going to be integrated well with the operating system, with iCloud, and the interface is going to be the most Mac-like. Plus, of course, Safari is built in so there's nothing you need to do to get it. Whereas Chrome you would have to download and install Chrome and it's another app you need to keep updated. For Mac users that want to keep it simple you can just use Safari. You've already got it.
Chrome also has its advantages. Chrome syncs using the Goggle ecosystem. So this works really well if you're using android devices, tablets, and phones. It also works really well if you have Windows machines because there is no Safari for windows. But there is Chrome for Windows. You can sync your bookmarks from Mac to Windows by using Goggle Chrome. Goggle Chrome is probably the best browser to use if you're using Goggle Docs a lot. So using Goggle Docs, Goggle Sheets, you know all the Goggle apps, then you're probably not going to get a better experience than using them in Chrome. They work fine in Safari but Chrome is probably the winner.
I know sometimes they have new features and those new features only work in Chrome since Goggle has control over both the browser and the apps. Chrome updates often. You can see here we're at version 74 currently. There always seems to be new versions of Chrome coming out and this can be good and bad. It's good because new features and fixit's appear quickly. But sometimes bugs can also be introduced. If you like browser extensions then you probably can't beat Chrome. There's a ton of them and it's easier for developers to distribute whereas Apple has tighter control. So this is both good and bad. There's a lot of junk in terms of extensions and Chrome apps and things like that. If you're a developer there are tons of tools for both Safari and Chrome. But Chrome probably has a lot more.
Now I'm just looking at Safari and Chrome here because they're the two I see the most. But there are other options including Firefox as well. So my conclusion is that Safari is best in most situations on a Mac especially if you're using a MacBook because you're going to get better battery life if you're using Safari. Safari is also the clear winner if you're concerned about privacy and you want to stay in the Apple ecosystem using iCloud and using all Apple devices.
Chrome is the winner in a couple situations. One is if you happen to have an android phone and you use a Mac computer. In that case Chrome will allow you to sync up your browsing between your devices. Also if you use Goggle apps a lot then Chrome is the better solution for using those. A lot of times I will go and use Chrome when I know I have to work for awhile in Goggle Docs or Goggle Sheets. But there's no reason why you can't have both browsers. So a reasonable solution for a lot of people is to use Safari for most things and switch to Chrome for certain situations.
Check out the new-ish “Brave” browser. Fast, secure, and ad blocking. I now use it for 99% of my browsing. Plus, has apps for iPhone and iPad too.
Years ago I switched to Apple. Apple is a closed system and in my opinion high on privacy. I did however use gmail as my email. Last year I bought an iPad online from Apple. I got an email from Apple confirming it. A few days later I got an email from Google congratulating me on my purchase and encouraging me to load it up with Google apps. That was the last straw. Monitoring my email! I took the 3 plus months to change email to iCloud. We, the users are Google's product. SAD and BAD
Whatever Chrome's merits, it comes from Google, a company slightly less intrusive than Facebook. No way will I run Chrome.
Thanks again, Gary. Since you use Safari, yesterday I was asking my self the question you answered today. Respect to Brave, for me it is changing a group of unwanted aids for another group.
Whats wrong with Opera? I'm not a techie, but I've found it intuitive, quick and easy.
I really like Safari over Chrome because the encryption is better. The only problem I have is Safari seems to freeze a lot and I have to go to force quit so I can continue. This is forcing me to go back to Firefox. It doesn’t seem to freeze up as much.
I use both, and find that Safari is much slower, but that could be an issue with my computer, since that beach ball is always rolling. I even had a Apple service person capture my computer to find out why- and he couldn't.
Use Safari most of time. However some sights only work with Chrome. Husband tried for hours trying to fill out a document for work. Finally able to call the place who put out the form to find out it didn’t work on Safari and never mentioned this on their form. It’s like everybody assumes one is going to use Chrome.
Chrome has built in superb simultaneous language translator- Safari has none.
My Bank program only comes in on Chrome. Otherwise it is Safari, which seems to be slower with a lot of the ball at times
Safari stopped supporting Sling TV quite a while ago but it runs with Chrome.
I prefer minimal advertising following me around:). BTW nice touch with Doris Day.
I pay more for a Mac. I only use safari. You want pop ups, intrusion, bugs, etc., run chrome or buy a non apple product. No thanks, I will buy a new Mac every few years to mainly use it for the internet, photos e-mail and the Numbers program.
I use Safari for most everything and occasionally pop over to Chrome or Firefox if I have trouble with a page or need a specific extension that only works in the other browser. One thing I found makes it super easy to switch to the other browsers is to turn on the Develop menu in Safari. There you can use the "Open Page With" and it will show you all your other browsers. To turn on the Develop menu, go to Safari Preferences, Advanced tab, and check the box at the bottom of the dialog box.
Getting refunds on my Penfed credit card works on Chrome. Will not work on safari.
How about comparing Firefox with Safari? Thanks.
Lee: Firefox is a minor player on macOS, having less than 7% of the market. I don't even use it. What do you see as the advantage to Firefox over Safari?
Eric, I tried the Brave browser and liked it a lot - until I discovered that they do not (yet) support opening a New Tab to the URL of your choice. I prefer to open new tabs to google.com. It seems odd that this can't be done, when the other browsers do this easily, but that's an admitted Open Issue on Brave's support page. Until they fix this, I'm not inclined to switch over, because I don't want to be locked into their dashboard (or any other extension's dashboard, like Momentum).
Safari often doesn't work with airline bookings or with seeing seating arrangements at concerts etc. through Ticketmaster. Firefox works for those purposes. I don't use Chrome but have been wondering about it so thanks for this topic posting.
Rosemary: I'm made many many airline reservations with Safari using many major airline sites and some travel sites and services. Never had a problem. I have bought tickets with Ticketmaster too. When was the last time you tried?
Thanks for the suggestions. I normally use Safari browser. I just want to know for FaceBook which is better Safari or Chrome?
Thanks Gary,
Lali
Lali: I use Safari. But watch the video to learn advantages and disadvantages. For instance, Safari may have a significant advantage if you want to conserve battery on a MacBook.
I use Safari most of the time but am forced to switch to Chrome to use certain software that I have no control over. Is there a SIMPLER way to synch bookmarks.
Tom: Sync between Safari and Chrome? No. But if you only need Chrome for one task, then you really don't need bookmarks.
Larry Thaxton, I have Penfed and have found that if you disable content blockers for the Penfed site and disable the blocking of pop-up windows for Penfed then this allows many of the things that do not work in Penfed to work...
On that same note to many of you - if a site does not work in Safari try to disable content blockers, and even more importantly, allow pop-up windows, to fix issues. I find that banking, ticket, etc sites often fail with the pop-up window blocking
I tried to change my seat with Air Canada today and got the spinning ball. Worked fine with Firefox. Last year WestJets site wouldn’t work with Safari. Their tech people said to switch to Chrome but I made it work with Firefox. I’m on an older iMac (2009) running El Captain. Perhaps that’s the issue.
I prefer Safari on the Mac. Although for way better performance and usability I prefer Opera as a secondary browser over Chrome. Although it’s also a WebKit browser. It has such a lot of features built in. Works way faster then Chrome. It doesn’t steal your user data(which you agreed on as soon as you installed chrome, even when you are not logged in) has a battery saver mode. And a turbo mode. And built in adblocker and vpn. Especially recommended on Windows and Linux. But works good on Mac too
Give Cliqz(off Mozilla) and /or Opera which has its own VPN......are lesser memory hogs.
What’s the difference in using safari instead of chrome if I the search engines in the app I have a choice of Google yahoo or Bing or DuckDuckGo to choose from. Hope you understand my question.
Marina: Not sure what you mean. Those are just the search engines. You may use those as a first step to get somewhere, but then you are at another site. The browser makes a difference in speed, features, energy consumption, etc.
I too would like to see / hear a comparison between Firefox and Safari. I use Firefox 99% of the time. It is VERY fast and has extensive privacy features. The big difference is that Firefox has an excellent Bookmarks manager that syncs across all of my devices. This feature has a very effective and easy to use sorting feature, whereas Safari requires manual sorting. And it is also easy to import my Firefox bookmarks HTML file into my Safari "Favorites".
I use Firefox at work because some internal systems (e.g., Agresso) won’t work nicely with Safari, which is my default browser.
I don’t like to even have Chrome installed because I noticed a lot of Google stuff going on behind the scenes (in Activity Monitor or the console logs, I think). Any idea what that stuff all is?
I prefer Safari and use it as my primary browser. But I have found Firefox very helpful for a couple of things. First, I am able to download YouTube and other videos and capture live webcasts with it.
Apple/Safari doesn't seem to have this capability (as far as I can tell) because of their concerns over copyright infringements, etc.
Secondly, in some applications (e.g. like building WP websites using the Divi Builder) Safari doesn't seem to work very efficiently with them.
Have you every used Vivaldi?
Tom: No. Looks to be a very small marketshare (0.05% according to Wikipedia).
I switched to firefox a long time ago because it was faster than Safari and or some reason the online brokerage service I use daily does not always load with Safari and will with Firefox. Our internet comes from radio transmission. It took the brokerage a long time to add support for Mac. A techie in my Mac group touted Brave. I use it a lot now. Ads are gone.
Regarding use of Safari with PenFed rewards card, Safari works fine for me when redeeming points and with all functions for the PenFed website. The user above who reported a problem may have a setting enabled (perhaps content blocker or some other setting) that causes the problem.