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Chrome vs. Safari

But...

Has no one experience Safari glitching when you open a new tab? It does this all the time for me. I experience the beachball all the time with Safari as well. It just doesn't seem stable. And don't tell me to buy an SSD. I don't have money to blow. hah. I use Safari when a page won't load right in Chrome. Other than that I keep going back to Chrome. Used Firefox 5 for a while, and it was so fast I thought it would replace Chrome, but the syncing features with Chrome are much better and easier for me. And I actually like the interface. But I'll give Webkit a try. Never used it.
 
I just cannot live without the "pinned tabs" of Chrome (or "App Tabs" in Firefox).
I keep Facebook, Flickr and Twitter as a fixed pinned tab in the corner, and go around doing my regular browsing in the other tabs.
That's the feature that I miss the most on Safari.
 
Safari user here. Tried other browser, but did not liked it. Back to Safari.

Did not experience any beach balls other guys are telling here.
 
Neither is really better in my opinion, I'm stuck using both because of a problem or two lol

Chrome is much faster for me, and I never get the annoying little rainbow ball when using it like I do while using Safari. However, java doesn't seem to function properly in Chrome.

Safari freezes a lot while loading web pages and sometimes crashes but java works great under it.
 
Chrome FTW. It is fast, stable and strikes a fine balance between the simplicity/elegance of Safari and the extensibility of Firefox. It is also the browser with the best support for HTML5/CSS3, which makes it ideal to use as your benchmark browser when doing web development with it's built in web development tools and extensions (Pendule, Page Spee, etc).
 
I used Safari on my PC, I enjoyed the simplicity and quickness of it. Now with my new MacBook Pro I see it's on it by default and I am truly enjoying the experience. I used FireFox for years, my wife still does on the PC, but generally I prefer Safari to be honest and have my own setup on PC as well.
 
I recently tried Chrome (10.0.648.205) for a week and was initially impressed, but have returned to using Safari (5.0.5). Here are my thoughts:

Google Chrome (compared to Safari)

The Good

  • Seems a little faster than Safari on launch, and in loading most webpages. Anecdotal only – I haven’t done any formal testing.
  • Seems to be friendlier towards Flash video. Safari has problems initialising certain video players and playing content.
  • Nifty feature when searching for text, where the scroll bar is marked with instances where matches have been found. Bit buggy though – I don’t remember how to repeat the behaviour, but switching tabs sometimes caused the matches to no longer be highlighted, even though they were still indicated on the scroll bar.
  • Offers to translate a page if it’s detected to be in a foreign language. Making you feel like you are living in the future == Awesome.
  • A site-specific point, but Chrome loads pages on theage.com.au with no issues. The website momentarily hangs Safari on each new news article tab. I’ve placed this in favour of Chrome, but I really blame the website, as I have had no problems with other sites on Safari.
  • The ability to create quick searches are built into the program. In Safari, you need to create custom quick searches as bookmarks.

The Bad

  • Relatively larger app. 100 MB vs 57 MB for Safari.
  • As mentioned by others, Chrome’s interface feels less native to OS X than Safari, which has the (arguable) additional perk of being ‘built-in’.
  • Too much line spacing in the bookmarks toolbar drop-down list. This means that you need to either scroll down to reach bookmarks near the bottom of a longer list, or reorganise them into folders. Drop-down lists in Safari have smaller line spacing but are no less legible, meaning you can place more bookmarks in each drop-drown.
  • Cannot disable summary page (displayed in each new tab or window) in preferences. Need to install an extension to display a blank page in each new tab/window. To me, this is a basic option that should be readily available to the user.
  • No dictionary integration. Unlike Safari, you can’t just highlight a word and press Cmd+Ctrl+D for a definition.
  • Even though I don’t use it all that much, I think Safari Reader (Cmd+Shift+R when available) is a great feature that lacks an equivalent in Chrome. As far as I know, there isn’t even currently an extension that does the same thing.
  • The AdBlock extension for Chrome is less effective out-of-the-box than Ad-Blocker for Safari. I still saw lots of ads in Chrome by default, whereas I’ve never had to customise or ‘train’ Ad-Blocker to screen out ads in Safari.
  • Youtube videos automatically start playing when you open them in a new tab or window, meaning you have to switch to the new tab/window and pause it if you don't want to watch it right away. Repeat for each additional video you open a tab/window for. On Safari, they are paused on open.

Neutral

  • Chrome’s unified address and search bar. It’s simple and handy, but I found it a bit confusing in terms of how Chrome presents you with the different types of suggestions when you start typing in the bar i.e. search words, history and favourites/bookmarks with little icons next to each type. I find the presentation of options clearer in Safari i.e. ‘History’, ‘Bookmarks’ etc. separated by horizontal lines. Maybe it’s a matter of getting used to it.
 
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Chrome, by a country mile. Love Apple's stuff but Safari isn't up to snuff. It's worth noting Safari is always the first browser to go down like a sack of potatoes at any hacking competition...

I wish there were an easy way to push Chrome bookmarks to Mobile Safari or one of the alternative iOS browsers, however. The sync is probably one reason a lot of folks stick with Safari, despite its many flaws.
 
They are all pretty good tbh. But out of three (Firefox 4, Safari and Chrome, all latest versions) I stick with Chrome. Because if I accidentally quit the app, I can still reopen tabs that were open, seems to handle web content such as Flash with more ease, startup is lightning fast and it syncs my preferences throughout all my computers. I go by the uni's internet connection, which isn't the best, and Chrome seems to be able to render webpages faster than the other two. I installed AdBlock and I haven't seen any ads, that added to the overall swiftness of the program and the fact that to look something up in google you can just press CMD+T and start typing, or even youtube (type youtube.com then press tab) searches all integrated have won me over.

At the end of the day though, they are all really similar and just as quick, it depends on your likes and (mostly) subjective view of them.
 
On OSX 10.5, Chrome seems to be faster. Safari tends to lag when loading heavier pages (anything from the Gawker network sites for example). OSX 10.6 they seem to be about equal so it comes down to preferences.

Xmarks is much better for bookmark syncing and 1Password for password syncing than the built-in sync in Firefox/Chrome. Xmarks allows you to keep your bookmarks etc in sync on all browsers, not just the same browser on different computers.

Safari really needs the Glims addon to get to the same level as other browsers, otherwise it's pretty feature deficient.
 
Chrome is much snappier for sure, and I prefer it. But I still use Safari because it is more compatible with essential features of some applications (like HyperDocks's separate each tab feature and Quicksilver's Search With Google service).
 
I use chrome because:

•It has a lightweight, fast structure.

•It doesn't lag and handles 5+ tabs very well.

•Its reliable and doesn't crash often.

•It has exclusive features that I like.
 
Safari 30% of the time, Chrome 30%, Firefox 40% - only because I've been used to Ff for years now. Safari sometimes crashes without reason, and can't handle 20+ tabs as well as Ff. :)
 
Chrome 100% of the time. I am utilizing Chrome 12 (Developer) and I like it a lot. Very very fast, built in Flash 10.3 Release Candidate.

I have no issues with stability or speed on my MacBook Pro i7 2.66 / 8GB Ram / 10.6.7
 
I use Safari because I'm boring and just use the system default. Yes, that does mean I use IE on my Windows box and have yet to use Chrome.

I don't care. I have yet to have a major problem with IE, FF and Safari on the systems they come with; that would want to make me try out Chrome or Opera. They browse the web just fine.
 
How does Chrome handle Adobe Reader files and Flash? I thought I heard on The Tech Guy podcast that you never had to update it because Chrome opens those files in its own window and not on your computer. If this is the case I would consider switching from Safari.
 
Tom Creo said:
How does Chrome handle Adobe Reader files and Flash? I thought I heard on The Tech Guy podcast that you never had to update it because Chrome opens those files in its own window and not on your computer. If this is the case I would consider switching from Safari.
Click to expand...

It has a built in extension for reading pdfs, word, powerpoint files, etc. It is very nice and fast, has never given me any problems.
 
Definitely Chrome. Amazingly fast, doesn't lag or hang on web pages like other browsers, and the small, minimalistic extensions add a lot of functionality; all that I ever need anyway. I've been using Chrome extensively for about two years or so now. Love it.
 
I've been a Chrome user on Windows and Linux, but for some reason, Chrome seems to lag on my new 2011 MBP. It's not really lag but for large websites like Engadget, I cannot scroll down immediately without experience some lag. Safari's scroll is completely smooth though. This is putting me in a very saddening position...I love Chrome but I might have to move to Safari. :(
 
roadbloc said:
I use Safari. Simply because it comes with my mac and I have no problems with it. The day I have a problem with it will be the day I seek an alternative web browser. Until then, Safari is fine.
Click to expand...

Exactly the same here ;)
 
I've switched to Chrome since having occasional beach-balls in safari (having plenty of free ram so thats not the cause!). Now I've noticed that Chrome's page navigation is bugged: sometimes going back will send you back 2 pages with no way to return to the page you were on! Especially frustrating when your trying to navigate back to a set of search results. Anyone else experiencing this?
 
ct2k7 said:
I'm on a Macbook Air. I'm now using Chrome. Unfortunately, Safari is beachballing, or cannot handle cookies, such that when I try to log out of some services, I just cannot log out.
Click to expand...

My wife has the same problem! No extensions, running an SSD, on a late 2008 Macbook and Safari beachballs regularly. It isn't the FASTEST computer these days but it is still pretty zippy until Safari comes to a screeching halt. Perhaps I'll have her try Chrome.
 
Chrome>Fox>Opera>Safari>IE


always go this way :)



the plugin for safari i have

-Unity web player
-ABP
-Ghostery
-Tab reloader
-Safari Restore


Cookies- yes
Flash- Almost never (ex utoob vids and ads)
 
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