Chrome is Awful....

[ProTruckDriver]

It does the same thing that tab search menu in Chrome (except it does not have "Recently closed" section). Integrates well so I think it's worth it.

Thank you. I'll give it a try later.

 

[trash eighty]

Safari is a decent browser though i'm using Vivaldi now on my Macs as its what i'm using on my work PC, plus the developer tools are useful. The ones in Safari mess things up.

 

[nmt1900]

Vivaldi is a decent browser with its' own cloud sync and all but it has stupid annoying bugs which go unfixed for a long time (even when reported) and sometimes reappear after they are fixed.

Two examples: (1) "Save as" prompt is popping up even when "save to default location without asking" is activated. (2) when new window is opened, search/address field is not in focus (but it is when new tab is opened in existing window).

P. S. I am writing this here in Vivaldi...

 

[OKonnel]

Every browser has its own features to take advantage of: for example, DuckDuckGo is a good choice for those who prioritize privacy; Chrome sometimes does a better job of saving web pages as PDFs when you want to keep them; Brave is highly customizable and works in some situations where Safari falls short; and so on, and so on.
Getting back to Chrome, it’s worth noting that it’s hated by many expert bloggers who specialize in Macs and programming.
Personally, I hate that if you let it update automatically, it accumulates all previous versions internally and takes up disk space. I’ve never understood or accepted this behavior, so I used to download Chrome from its website every now and then and completely replace the app, overwriting the copy in the Applications folder.
But recently I’ve been using Cask (with Homebrew) and taking advantage of its automatic updates via a LaunchAgent that checks for updates at 9 a.m. and, if necessary, updates Chrome and other apps in the background.
Safari is still the best browser, though. It’s a shame I’m still stuck on version 17 because (after using Sequoia for months…) I downgraded to Sonoma and deliberately stopped macOS at Sonoma 14.3.1 with OCLP 3.0.0 Nightly (June 2025), using some workarounds, removing unnecessary EFI KEXTs for my iMac, and modifying the config.plist (with ProperThree) to ensure that the menu bar icons don’t disappear after sleep.
I could update to version 18, but it bothers me that Safari 18 has WebGL issues (I don't know if this affects all Macs or just some Macs and OCLP). So, for example, if I want to return items on Amazon, the maps showing the courier pickup locations don't open, and so on.

 

[nmt1900]

I could update to version 18, but it bothers me that Safari 18 has WebGL issues (I don't know if this affects all Macs or just some Macs and OCLP). So, for example, if I want to return items on Amazon, the maps showing the courier pickup locations don't open, and so on.

If this is related to any of machines in your signature then yes it looks like at some point Safari starts to suffer from these issues. One of my older machines is MacbookPro 12,1 and on that I found that Ventura was last actually workable system. Safari 17 (on Sonoma) seemed still to be usable but pegged CPU often up to level that started to feel uncomfortable. One possible explanation may be that Safari 16 came out with Monterey and that was last officially supported OS for that machine (Safari 17 came out on Sonoma).

All this means that your experience probably does not apply to newer hardware...

 

[Dex762]

Chrome

I will never use Chrome the reason because of privacy, and can slow it down on any computer Chrome is under own by google etc, I use safari and Firefox

Years ago I have iMac 2011 and try to use Chrome for a little while and noticeable it slowing down, then my friend were telling me careful over chrome etc

 

[eyoungren]

I will never use Chrome the reason because of privacy, and can slow it down on any computer Chrome is under own by google etc, I use safari and Firefox

Years ago I have iMac 2011 and try to use Chrome for a little while and noticeable it slowing down, then my friend were telling me careful over chrome etc

OK.

I don't use Chrome either.

I use Vivaldi and Microsoft Edge. And Edge is primarily used to stream YT videos while I browse in Vivaldi. Every great once in a while I will use Safari when a particular purpose demands it.

No idea where you might have gotten the idea I use Chrome. Perhaps because I mentioned that Vivaldi and Edge use Chrome extensions? But that doesn't make them Chrome.

 

[OKonnel]

Unfortunately, I’ve recently had to use Chrome on two occasions:
- to download a Chrome extension that helped me transfer my subscriptions from a YouTube account I’ve discontinued;
- to work with Claude A.I. directly in the browser to check and improve the code of a website I created years ago and manage for a friend of mine.

But that’s it. Safari forever or alternatively, Brave, DuckDuckGo, and MS Edge which, by some strange miracle, works on my mid-2010 MBP running High Sierra… while Safari refuses to open many pages; and I don’t mean it just doesn’t want to open them, but it literally can’t.

 

[GregoryPeckEPA]

I ran ungoogled-chromium for a while because it supports the god awful webHID standard that lots of hardware manufactures adopted. My keyboard and mice requires it. But then discovered that once I set them up, I really don't need said software and can always download their even worse electron wrappers should the need arise (and remove them once done).

As such, I moved over to Firefox. It took an annoying amount of time to harden it and tailor it my liking, but through the use of userChrome.css, themes and a lot of secret config:about hacking, it now leaks a lot less than any other browser (even Safari), and I can manage a lot of aspects not open to control in Safari (like remove that ghastly fullscreen video notice to name one). It also supports handoff from my other devices even if they run Safari (mobile Firefox is just trash thanks to needing webkit on the backend), which was a pleasant surprise.

I am also loving the vertical tabs and find that I kind can't live without them anymore lol.

 

[ProTruckDriver]

As such, I moved over to Firefox.

I use to use Firefox all the time when they updated the browser once a month or so. Now it seems like it's every other day. It became a PITA. Sometimes it would break my Password Manager when they would update.
I'll stick with Safari on the Mac.

 

[eyoungren]

I ran ungoogled-chromium for a while because it supports the god awful webHID standard that lots of hardware manufactures adopted. My keyboard and mice requires it. But then discovered that once I set them up, I really don't need said software and can always download their even worse electron wrappers should the need arise (and remove them once done).

As such, I moved over to Firefox. It took an annoying amount of time to harden it and tailor it my liking, but through the use of userChrome.css, themes and a lot of secret config:about hacking, it now leaks a lot less than any other browser (even Safari), and I can manage a lot of aspects not open to control in Safari (like remove that ghastly fullscreen video notice to name one). It also supports handoff from my other devices even if they run Safari (mobile Firefox is just trash thanks to needing webkit on the backend), which was a pleasant surprise.

I am also loving the vertical tabs and find that I kind can't live without them anymore lol.

For a number of years I was largely using TenFourFox, which is a PowerPC fork of Firefox. This was primarily back when I was on PowerPC. T4Fx came about through a dev intent on keeping PowerPC running on a modern browser roughly equivalent to whatever Firefox was offering at the time. Eventually the dev abandoned the project (it got too difficult) and for myself I'd moved on to Intel Macs.

Anyway, I had a thread of about:config tweaks that for me made browsing on PowerPC Macs much easier. Later, someone else in the MR PowerPC Macs subforum here took many of those mods and created a project that optimized T4Fx via a simple install.

I'm bringing this up because there may be some of that stuff that is still relevant to modern Firefox. None of it was specifically aimed at PowerPC, but rather the browser itself. At the end, I had T4Fx using cache, my profile and addons and the app itself inside a RAM disk. Everything was in memory because of that. Sped things up considerably on a Quad PowerMac G5. I had 16GB ram with that Mac, so I had the ram to spare for the ram disk.

If you're interested, I can see if I can track down the links. If not, nevermind. Just thought I'd mention it though.

 

[GregoryPeckEPA]

@eyoungren

I used mostly this: https://brain****sec.github.io/firefox-hardening-guide and https://github.com/Renatoissance/firefox-hardening-guide and https://cyberinsider.com/firefox-privacy/

I know FF 67+ changed a lot of things under the hood so it's been a challenge searching online and going thru the litany of settings in about:config but I think I have enough to manage it all, thanks for the offer tho.

TBH, even just using a lot of the available settings in FF are likely good enough for most people.

I have also made use of the deadass simple policies feature to disable the auto updates, something Mozilla doesn't have a setting for anymore. And I don't like things updating on me nor pinging servers without my consent, even if it's just a benign update server. Times have changed and new version don't have the best track record.

 

[it wasnt me]

Safari is still the best browser, though.

To avoid a few issues with Vivaldi on iOS, I'm currently trying out Safari more often again. On the iPhone, Safari is clearly a great browser, with significantly fewer bugs than Orion and substantially (noticeably) lower CPU and memory usage than Vivaldi. Unfortunately, it's the other way around on the Mac: if you're used to Vivaldi there, you really miss certain features and conveniences in Safari. The one major advantage of Safari is, ironically, ad blocking: as Chromium-based browsers will make it harder to implement viable ad blockers in the future, I can report that Wipr (on the iPhone and on the Mac) delivers absolutely fantastic results in Safari. Much to my own surprise, I recommend it.

 

[eyoungren]

@eyoungren

I used mostly this: https://brain****sec.github.io/firefox-hardening-guide and https://github.com/Renatoissance/firefox-hardening-guide and https://cyberinsider.com/firefox-privacy/

I know FF 67+ changed a lot of things under the hood so it's been a challenge searching online and going thru the litany of settings in about:config but I think I have enough to manage it all, thanks for the offer tho.

TBH, even just using a lot of the available settings in FF are likely good enough for most people.

I have also made use of the deadass simple policies feature to disable the auto updates, something Mozilla doesn't have a setting for anymore. And I don't like things updating on me nor pinging servers without my consent, even if it's just a benign update server. Times have changed and new version don't have the best track record.

No problem. Just thought I'd offer. For us at that time, the problem was that more modern Macs simply had the ability to power through bad website code. PowerPC never had that advantage because website code is all processed by the CPU and not the GPU. So our efforts were largely centered around loading and interpreting a page quickly so that the CPU was not being hammered. That, in large part is what made browsing slow on old Macs. But it was all trial and error with a lot of misses.

Anway, no worries. Glad it's all good for you.

 

[boswald]

@eyoungren

I used mostly this: https://brain****sec.github.io/firefox-hardening-guide and https://github.com/Renatoissance/firefox-hardening-guide and https://cyberinsider.com/firefox-privacy/

I know FF 67+ changed a lot of things under the hood so it's been a challenge searching online and going thru the litany of settings in about:config but I think I have enough to manage it all, thanks for the offer tho.

TBH, even just using a lot of the available settings in FF are likely good enough for most people.

I have also made use of the deadass simple policies feature to disable the auto updates, something Mozilla doesn't have a setting for anymore. And I don't like things updating on me nor pinging servers without my consent, even if it's just a benign update server. Times have changed and new version don't have the best track record.

There's a Github project called Betterfox that I often use as a baseline for my FF tweaks on Linux. I'm sure there are better and more complete guides out there, but if you want a quick .js copy-paste for quick tweaks, it's a good start.