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Chrome vs. Safari

I use Chrome for everything but Netflix. Safari just seems to stay at cooler temperatures than Chrome does when watching Netflix.
 
I'm currently using Chrome, but I suspect I'll probably switch back to Safari shortly. Just experimenting for now.

I REALLY miss Safari's Snap Back feature. I also prefer the separate address and search windows. The way 1Password feels in Chrome is clunky, and it doesn't offer to save logins for new sites. Syncing chrome bookmarks to multiple computers is great, but having those carry over to an iPhone and iPad (using Xmarks) is also clunky.

Chrome does feel a little faster, though.
 
I currently switch back and forth between Firefox 4 and the nightly Chromium builds. Haven't touched Safari since I sold my Mac over a year ago. :cool:
 
Hugh said:
First of all, I've never used chrome, nor plan to. I know, why live such dull life? Safari has every thing that I expect my browser to do. I sometimes switch to FireFox, but that's when a site doesn't work in Safari.

What is this beach balls every one is going on about? What are you doing to get them? I really want to know what you are doing in browser wise. So I can duplicate it, to see if I get the beach ball and memory hog.

I have never got a beach ball, nor has it been a memory hog. Also Safari starts right up with half a bounce. I've had one crash, and that was Flash. But it didn't take down the browser, I just got a window that 'Flash extension' had crashed and asked me if I wanted to report it. But the browser kept chugging a long.

Just for s++++ and giggles can some one post a screen shot of what Chrome looks like.


Hugh

EDIT: I'm a 13 MacBook Core 2 DUO with 4gig of ram and 500gig hard drive. Just in case that matters. :/
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Well yea, I have hardly ever seen the beach balls that everyone talks about; I'm also running a 08 Blackbook with 2.2/4gb RAM. Overall, I feel (and many benchmarks tell us this) that Safari is slower than Chrome, Firefox is too. To me, Chrome just feels a lot faster and lighter. The program starts up quicker and it's ability to move tabs around after detaching/reattaching is great for me because I like to use different spaces for different "genres" of things on the internet (one for forums, one for tech news, one for school, etc.)

Now I have seen a beach bal or two with Safari but I rarely see them. If the browser is working great for you, that's great and you should keep using it. I want to love Safari because I'm using a Mac now (used Chrome back when I was on PCs) but it just doesn't perform on the same level. Not to me anyway.

But how many tabs do you have open? Some people find instability in Safari/Firefox as they have a LOT of browsers open; Chrome works in a way that each tab is it's own browser, so to say, so that if a plugin or the page crashes, just that tab/associated tabs get affected and not the entire thing. I've never had any problems with the way Chrome renders web pages though.
 
So when I first got a Mac, I started with Safari. It worked great, but I wanted to see what else was out there. So, during the pre-Chrome era, I switched to Firefox, but it kept getting slower and developing more and more bugs and application incompatibilities. So I switched back to Safari and it worked perfectly fine and consistent for a few years, until I got bored with it again. About the time Chrome was around version 9, I downloaded it and made the switch. It was damn fast and I loved the look and raw functionality of it. The extensions were pretty good, but the themes were horrible. I usually just stuck with the standard gray. My absolute favorite things about Chrome are the universal search bar, and its ability to sync bookmarks and browsing data between different computers using a google account in the background!!. These two features create an extremely simple and efficient browsing experience. Anyway, after a year or so, much to my surprise, the same thing happened in Chrome as it did in Firefox; it started slowing down, getting the beach ball, and getting weird errors which would prevent pages from loading; all of which would work fine in Safari. This really annoyed me, and also when Chrome played Netflix movies, the scenes were really choppy, where in Safari, they would be smooth and normal. It started getting to the point where I had to load every other web page in Safari. So about a month ago I completely switched back over and deleted Chrome.

I always end up going back to Safari. This tells me it's the better browser. Other browsers just end up getting really slow and buggy after time, while Safari just keeps on truckin' as always. Even though Safari doesn't have the bells and whistles of other browsers; and can look pretty boring after a while; it always remains fast, reliable, consistent, and compatible with tons more web apps on Mac. I will definitely miss Chrome's universal search bar and data-syncing, but I'd rather deal with the few extra mouse clicks in Safari then deal with Chrome's bugs and incompatibility.
 
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nvog86 said:
I always end up going back to Safari. This tells me it's the better browser.
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I feel this same way most of the time, too. I do, however, go back to Firefox every now and then because I have to use a PC for work, where I spend a lot of time using a web browser. I like having my browser experience consistent between work and home, so I'll stick with Firefox for a while before switching back to Safari. I'd use Safari on my work PC if only it wouldn't crash every other day!!!
 
I just got my mac a few weeks ago, and i installed chrome being that i loved it on my pc. However, I was dissapointed in its performance. It seemed to move slower than safari and sometimes failed when clicking on links.
I've been searching around and have noticed two other browsers out there: OmniWeb and Opera. Anyone know anything about them?
 
I have a MacBook Pro with a high-res screen. Text is impossibly small if one doesn't zoom in with 'Command +'. One of the nice things about Firefox and Chrome is that it will remember the zoom settings for that particular site. In my experience, Safari doesn't do this and I have no intention of repeatedly zooming in for sites that I visit often.

Does anyone know if there's a work around for this? It's one of the key things missing from Safari that stop me from using it.

Chrome can be a bit laggy so I'd be interested in trying the Mac default.
 
I would say Chrome, but seeing how the performance has lacked in the latest updates even on higher channels (And Google are too lazy to respond to my issues) I'd have to go with Safari.
 
sam500 said:
I have a MacBook Pro with a high-res screen. Text is impossibly small if one doesn't zoom in with 'Command +'. One of the nice things about Firefox and Chrome is that it will remember the zoom settings for that particular site. In my experience, Safari doesn't do this and I have no intention of repeatedly zooming in for sites that I visit often.

Does anyone know if there's a work around for this? It's one of the key things missing from Safari that stop me from using it.
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In answer to my own question, I discovered that there's a a Safari app called All Pages Zoom that seems to work okay. It sets one zoom level for all websites and remembers them. But there is a small lag from when you open the page to it remembering to zoom in. So Chrome and Firefox are still better in this regard.
 
I was a Chrome user when I switched from PC to Mac, since it is way better the IE or Firefox. However, I find myself always using Safari these days. I really like the Top Sites feature and the bookmark bar. I just wish my saved setting could be automatically used with a login on other computers like Chrome.
 
I want to like Safari more, as I highly prefer the interface and 1Password integration over Chrome. However, I just continually find Chrome to be quicker and more stable on complex websites (try using Facebook Chat with a few people in Safari--the lag is unbearable). Also, there is not yet an adequate ad blocker for Safari (the old SIMBL extension is as good as it gets, but does not block as many ads as the proper Ad Block extension, which causes major performance issues). I'm still awaiting Ad Block Plus to be ported to Safari.
 
Chrome FTW!

I like Chrome way better than Safari, I find Safari very slow and it does not do as well on web pages as Google Chrome. :)
 
I recently tried Chrome for a few weeks and really wanted to like it but it just seemed to be buggy. I found clicking on forum links didn't work a lot of the time and the last straw was when I tried to watch the WWDC keynote and in Chrome it just came up with a green screen. I booted up Safari and all was fine again.

All the people who are claiming Safari is slow and produces beachballs try removing ALL your extensions. I have a strong suspicion that they cause problems especially the ad blocking types. I had problems with Safari for a while and decided to remove all the plugins and Safari is back to normal now.

All the people claiming Chrome to be faster, I have my doubts about this too. Chrome seems to render pages differently to Safari. You will see content coming up a lot quicker in Chrome, however, the page still takes some time before it has finished loading. This will make Chrome appear faster when really it's just showing more of the rendering process, whereas Safari seems to show the pages at a later stage of rendering.

I don't doubt some of the properly conducted speed tests that give Chrome a slight edge over Safari, but I just don't think the difference is large enough to notice as much as people are claiming. It's a chrome illusion.

So to sum up for me:
Chrome - compatibility issues, annoying update engine (a bit like Adobe stuff), less clean UI, puts files and folders all over the place like many PC programs (no respect for the folder structure in Mac OS).

Safari - stable, fast, clean UI.

I think Safari is still the best choice on Mac at the moment.
 
djshack said:
I want to like Safari more, as I highly prefer the interface and 1Password integration over Chrome. However, I just continually find Chrome to be quicker and more stable on complex websites (try using Facebook Chat with a few people in Safari--the lag is unbearable). Also, there is not yet an adequate ad blocker for Safari (the old SIMBL extension is as good as it gets, but does not block as many ads as the proper Ad Block extension, which causes major performance issues). I'm still awaiting Ad Block Plus to be ported to Safari.
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Agreed. I've always liked Safari, but these days I'm thinking of switching over to Chrome, or maybe Firefox. Safari has just been so buggy for me lately, crashing all the time...
 
cas85 said:
one thing i never noticed that i liked about safari is the extra screen real estate you get for your actual browser window. firefox takes up the most, and chrome's menu bar isn't as small as safari's.

this is important on a 13 inch Macbook pro. probably not a big deal to those with larger screens though.
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my problem too. i've been using chrome and love it but now that i went from a 13 air to a 13 pro the resolution gets to me. couple the resolution with the really large tool bar for chrome, its looks horrible.

is there any way to get chromes bar to look slim like safaris?
 
TinHead88 said:
I recently tried Chrome for a few weeks and really wanted to like it but it just seemed to be buggy. I found clicking on forum links didn't work a lot of the time and the last straw was when I tried to watch the WWDC keynote and in Chrome it just came up with a green screen. I booted up Safari and all was fine again.

All the people who are claiming Safari is slow and produces beachballs try removing ALL your extensions. I have a strong suspicion that they cause problems especially the ad blocking types. I had problems with Safari for a while and decided to remove all the plugins and Safari is back to normal now.

All the people claiming Chrome to be faster, I have my doubts about this too. Chrome seems to render pages differently to Safari. You will see content coming up a lot quicker in Chrome, however, the page still takes some time before it has finished loading. This will make Chrome appear faster when really it's just showing more of the rendering process, whereas Safari seems to show the pages at a later stage of rendering.

I don't doubt some of the properly conducted speed tests that give Chrome a slight edge over Safari, but I just don't think the difference is large enough to notice as much as people are claiming. It's a chrome illusion.

So to sum up for me:
Chrome - compatibility issues, annoying update engine (a bit like Adobe stuff), less clean UI, puts files and folders all over the place like many PC programs (no respect for the folder structure in Mac OS).

Safari - stable, fast, clean UI.

I think Safari is still the best choice on Mac at the moment.
Click to expand...

That's good to hear seeing as I just installed Safari an hour ago in place of Firefox and Chrome. I used to use Chrome extensively then switched to Firefox. Now I'm using Safari for a day or so to see how that goes.

Sadly they don't have the add on Xmarks to keep my bookmarks synced :/
 
I just got my Mac a day ago so my answer may not have excessive testing but...

I have used chrome on my PC for as long as I can remember, and I loved having all of the extensions and speed. Upon getting my Mac, however, I feel as if it is not as polished as Safari. Three finger swipe does not bring me back and forth, among other minor annoyances.

Chrome extensions are much better than Safari ones however. I cannot find a single good weather extension in Safari, while chrome has many that open up to show the weekly forecast without opening a new tab.

I will use Safari for now, but I am waiting for either Chrome to catch up or Safari to drastically improve.
 
Been using Chrome since friday and im not sure i can go back to Safari now. It is so much faster and unlike Safari that used over 450 meg of ram on my machine, i have yet to see chrome go over 150. It just feels so much lighter and faster, and i dont get beachballs when flash is on the page. Even when i had click to flash Safari still beachballed a couple of times a day.
 
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I am using Chrome for its functionalities. It is just a very convenience app that can easily be adapted to the way I work on my 11" MBA and I could say it is "fast and light".

Also, I like the way Chrome handles and presents colorful Evernote and xmarks on the bar, which I use frequently, and of course the search and the URL are conveniently located in one place with the functionality of the "Instant".

I do however agree that I could hear the fan spinning more compared to using Safari. Not sure after the OS 10.6.8 upgrade or otherwise though.

Have fun! :cool:
 
Use both of them.

At one time I have about 10 browsers and it was a free for all... But after some 4 months of going back and forth I am down to three.. Safari, Chrome and Firefox.

And its been like that for a year now.. At first I couldn't make a decision as to which one to use, and to be honest it bothered me. It seemed like a simple thing to decide... On the end I couldn't.

After some time I realised that I don't have to...

Decided simply to use all three.

And now I do... Safari and Chrome some 40% each and the rest Firefox.

Horses for the courses :)
 
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