Chrome vs Safari

[motrek]

Running on my maxed out 2015 BTO 15" MBP Chrome is so much faster and useful for my purposes.

I have become accustomed to the plethora of time saving extensions only Chrome offers. A long time Apple enthusiast I'd certainly use Safari if it could keep up, but it's always falling behind the excellent work done by the Google Chrome Team. Their efficient browser also shines on my loaded BTO 2014 13" MBA.

Yes, Chrome uses plenty of resources but that's what allows it to be the powerhouse it is. Everything is a compromise. I find Safari an adequate smooth browser to Apples credit. Better than it used to be, it's fine for those who don't tax a browser. It's the best on iOS devices since it takes advantage of Apples restrictions that have a rather negative effect and neuter the competition.

Over at the Google Labs they have a huge, very serious group of Mac enthusiasts and it shows. Working long hours to create Chrome and the many apps, extensions and other tools for Mac, iPhone and iPad they've made my Apple products better and even more enjoyable to use.

I was supporting and defending Chrome earlier in this thread but a few weeks ago it seems a change was made to Chrome (?) that caused it to use more memory. I had basically never run out of memory on my 4GB Mac Mini before, but all of a sudden I was seeing memory pressure and beachballs. That prompted me to switch to Safari and I haven't looked back.

There are a few things about Safari that annoy me. I still miss the icons on tabs. I would like to right click on links to be able to bring them up in a private browsing window. And there are sometimes rendering errors/incompatibilities when using the more sophisticated Google sites like Google Maps.

On the other hand, I've been checking my memory pressure, CPU temperature, and battery life estimates pretty frequently over the past few weeks and they are all much better than when I was using Chrome. I'm happy to accept this tradeoff.

 

[iphonedude2008]

Chrome is even worse on a Retina display. Combine its horrible cpu managment with terrible rendering and you get a program that turns your MacBook into
a. A frying pan
b. A laggy mess
C. Battery drainer

Same on Firefox. I don't know what Apple does but it works

 

[NarenP]

Simple!
If you're on AC adapter, use chrome for fast browsing. If you're travelling/using battery, then use safari to maximize battery life.

 

[Thunderboltedge]

i think things have changed with the new update of Chrome 46.
i am currently using it and it is not so battery draining as it has always been. Check it out if you still use the previous version, as this one is quite smooth and good.

 

[iphonedude2008]

i think things have changed with the new update of Chrome 46.
i am currently using it and it is not so battery draining as it has always been. Check it out if you still use the previous version, as this one is quite smooth and good.

Will do. I always preferred the general feeling of chrome over safari so I hope I am pleasantly surprised.

 

[rnbwd]

Safari is much better for performance, memory, battery life, and syncing with iPhones. But the Chrome extension ecosystem makes it almost impossible not to use (and it's compatibility). To decrease memory usage on chrome, there are extensions that collect all your tabs, kill tabs running in the background after a certain amount of time, etc. - it helps. What i don't like about modern chrome is that is seems to act like malware when installed. There are 4-5 processes running in the background, it duplicates it's settings in multiple locations and then reloads them if you delete them, it installs programs / extensions behind the scenes without any opt-out or opt-in or... any GUI whatsoever indicating that it's running. It also hijacks the network to run it's own system to bypass whatever settings you might have in OSX. This might all be legitimately for security reasons though, nothing seems malicious, it's just background processes for autoupdating and spinning up all those memory consuming processes, some chrome store extensions, but I really don't like that it's not optional. Especially when / if by default they have a google app listening to your mic like siri and chrome is running consistently in the background when you log in and might not be aware. You can disable most of it.. but not all of it, at least not easily.

 

[maflynn]

I still prefer Safari over Chrome on OS X. I use Chrome on windows, but that's my best bet but its a resource hog.

 

[Liam W]

I recently switched to Safari from Chrome on my old Macbook... I don't know if things used to be different, but I'm finding it as fast (if not faster) at loading pages than Chrome (Safari 9.0.1).

Not to mention its super speedy launch time...

Liam

 

[jennifer_w]

I like Safari more. Its UI design is more native than Chrome.

 

[haddy]

I like Safari more. Its UI design is more native than Chrome.

Okay FWIW I use both on my late 2012 iMac 27in i7 32 Gig RAM 10.10.5; and I prefer Chrome because of the "UI design".
Safari for me is hard to read. Chrome is fast and clear. I really only have Safari running just to reinforce, to me, how much better Chrome is!!

 

[jane_w]

There are a lot of extensions for Chrome. That's why I would prefer Chrome. Also I have a Linux machine in my office. Chrome can sync the settings between the two machines.

 

[DFWHD]

Chrome extensions are the only reason I use it. My vision has deteriorated a little as I've aged and Safari does not have any way to increase the font size in the user interface (things like menus and tabs for instance). If it did, I'd drop Chrome in a minute.

 

[dannytman]

Preferences > Advanced > Show full website address.



Preferences > Tabs > Open pages in tabs instead of windows



At least you gave it a try. Enjoy your worse battery life and added heat.

Is there any thing to do about the tabs? safari tabs are very annoying...

 

[whsbuss]

Well since Yosemite and (even more now) El Captain, safari seems to stall more (at times) especially when the URL is https. I know its not my wifi because when it stalls, my iPad air 2 has no problems connecting to the same URL. And it never happened on Chrome.

 

[holisticdmd]

Running on my maxed out 2015 BTO 15" MBP Chrome is so much faster and useful for my purposes.

I have become accustomed to the plethora of time saving extensions only Chrome offers. A long time Apple enthusiast I'd certainly use Safari if it could keep up, but it's always falling behind the excellent work done by the Google Chrome Team. Their efficient browser also shines on my loaded BTO 2014 13" MBA.

Yes, Chrome uses plenty of resources but that's what allows it to be the powerhouse it is. Everything is a compromise. I find Safari an adequate smooth browser to Apples credit. Better than it used to be, it's fine for those who don't tax a browser. It's the best on iOS devices since it takes advantage of Apples restrictions that have a rather negative effect and neuter the competition.

Over at the Google Labs they have a huge, very serious group of Mac enthusiasts and it shows. Working long hours to create Chrome and the many apps, extensions and other tools for Mac, iPhone and iPad they've made my Apple products better and even more enjoyable to use.

[doublepost=1458501847][/doublepost]I have tried to stay Apple native since the early 80's. I have a new 15" macbook pro retina.
Safari is simply too slow from time to time. I saw an entire thread that was blaming ebay for the ridiculously slow loading of pages on Ebay. Chrome is lightening fast compared to Safari. i do not know about the power usage thing, however if i am on battery and need to conserve power, i can always open the Safari browser, for now it is one of the most annoying slowdowns I have ever experienced in my loyalty to Apple product for over 34 years.

 

[maxsix]

[doublepost=1458501847][/doublepost]I have tried to stay Apple native since the early 80's. I have a new 15" macbook pro retina.
Safari is simply too slow from time to time. I saw an entire thread that was blaming ebay for the ridiculously slow loading of pages on Ebay. Chrome is lightening fast compared to Safari. i do not know about the power usage thing, however if i am on battery and need to conserve power, i can always open the Safari browser, for now it is one of the most annoying slowdowns I have ever experienced in my loyalty to Apple product for over 34 years.

You've expressed it well.

I would like to be able to honestly state that Safari is an equal to Chrome, but my ongoing experience proves otherwise. This is a perfect example of my frustration with Apple, more than capable of creating a world class browser, they putz around like novices failing to apply themselves.

 

[ShikariMR]

Fascinating! (To quote wotsisname)

I had a brief try with Vivaldi, biut unloaded it when I had a warning popup that they wanted to use my Chrome data. Which would not be easy since I do not have Chrome. I just shy away from any option that turns out to be intrusive, or offers apparently free downloads which are just 'openers' for expensive continuation after The Trial (never previously mentioned), expires.

Who was it said that there are people around who would sooner make a dollar crooked than two dollars straight?

If I ever come across one that offers more than I can already find on the Apple, it might be different.

No doubt we are all aware of those downloaads which have piggy-backed other items which are also downloaded unless we click the NO button. Not always easy to spot. IXQuick is safe, but can be needlessly censorious.

As for Safari, from time to find I get popping up: 'Safari cannot find ...' This disappears if I go onto Google Uk and straight off again. Safari then functions normally.

When I fully scan the Apple I get clear OKs for tens of thousands of files. Since I make very specific use of the Apple as a professional writer, wth some research, I wonder just how many unused unwanted and unknown files (and facilities) I could usefully delete. Not to mention how.

 

[heathf]

This thread prompted me to switch to Safari for the day to try it out.

Seems to work fine but I find the usability poor vs. Chrome.

No icons next to bookmarks or open tabs makes them hard to differentiate at a glance.

Address field only shows the domain name unless clicked, so, difficult to see the actual URL.

Private browsing windows have minimal visual differentiation, just a somewhat darker address bar.

Management of pop-up windows seems poor. Pop-ups actually pop up in separate windows, sometimes above and sometimes below the originating window. Confusing. Like I'm using a web browser from 10 years ago.

Anyway, I'm going back to Chrome even if it's less efficient (which I'm not 100% convinced of).

I actually like both browsers, but have you tried the keyboard shortcut (shift + CMD + \) to see open tabs? I use it quite a bit and it makes finding a specific tab pretty simple. There's a 'Show All Tabs' button that does the same thing, but I prefer the keyboard shortcut. Also, in Preferences > Advanced, you can choose to show the full URL in the address field by default.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

This why i'm moving back to Safari?Firefox.

 

[jwolf6589]

Hi,

I done some searching regarding the topic in the title and could only find really old posts, I get 4h 30m battery life estimates on chrome on my 2014 11" Air. This is with just a few tabs open and nothing else.

With safari the estimates are way better clocking in at easily 8h or above, is there really that much of a difference between chrome and safari?

I prefer chrome as its what I've used for years and I like the tab icons more than safari, i'm not worried about switching if the battery life is that different between the two however.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

I do not know why people prefer Chrome. For a backup browser to Safari I would prefer Firefox.

 

[jwolf6589]

..... guess I got sucked into the discussion thinking Safari made a breakthrough I guess there are questions that will always have subjective answers: is there a God? Windows or OSX? Synth or Dino? .

Yes there is a God.