Ended my Safari torture by downgrading to 18.6 on Sequoia

[kvic]

I'm back to the very snappy experience of Safari 18.6 on Sequoia. So happy about it!

Simply install Safari 18.6 for Sonoma on Sequoia from the link on this page:

macOS Safari Full Installer Database. Download Directly from Apple!

Download macOS Safari app full installers with one click straight from Apple! Every version of Safari for Monterey, Big Sur & Catalina!

mrmacintosh.com

I was aware of the links months ago but didn't realise before that Safari 18.6 for Sonoma actually works on Sequoia too. After little inspiration from a Redditor yesterday, I gave it a try and apparently works and works flawlessly.

Kudos to @MrMacintoshBlog for archiving these installers.

Have fun.

 

[Diopter]

And just a note for anyone else experiencing sluggish performance/UI lag with Safari 26.0 or 26.1 on Sequoia/Sonoma: I can confirm that Safari 26.2 beta 1 fixes the issue.

So while downgrading to Safari 18.6 is an option in the meantime, next month's Safari 26.2 release for Sequoia/Sonoma will fix it.

 

[kvic]

Safari 18.6 is light years grace saved from 26.x downfall released so far. No reason to discourage people from downgrading while waiting for Apple's update to fix whatever they screwed up in 26.x so far.

(@Diopter apologies. I mixed up you with somebody else)

 

[chevyboy60013]

Just installed Sequoia on my unsupported MacBook Air mid 2013 model and did the safari 26.1 update, and so far do not see any issues with Safari, seems to work as it always has, which is 100% better than Microsoft edge or Chrome.

 

[klaudio]

Just restored my MacBook Pro M1pro to Sequoia; I really do not like the liquid glass interface on the Mac. Waited one month but could not get used to it. It is ok in iPhone and iPad but not on the Mac.

Now I don't know whether to update Safari to 26.1 or stay with 18.6. What I definitely don't want is Safari to have the Liquid Glass interface too.

 

[bogdanw]

Now I don't know whether to update Safari to 26.1 or stay with 18.6. What I definitely don't want is Safari to have the Liquid Glass interface too.

Safari 26 for Sequoia does not have a Liquid Glass interface.

 

[Diopter]

Safari 26.2 was released today for Sequoia and (as with the beta) fixes the performance issues. No Liquid Glass UI, so it’s a good option for anyone on Sequoia to install. Along with macOS 15.7.3 it also fixes some important security issues.

 

[bogdanw]

Safari 26.2 for macOS Sequoia
https://swcdn.apple.com/content/dow...cpgft9bpzp93sakg8no/Safari26.2SequoiaAuto.pkg

 

[msephton]

Does Safari 26.2 also fix the crashes? I get crashes doing autofill on Safari 18 macOS 15

 

[kvic]

Should I upgrade ?

The experience of the past month being on Safari 18.6 was superb, fast, snappy, no hiccups. Raised my daily productivity to another level. That's compared to two months torture by Safari 26/26.0.1/26.1 before that.

Burn me once. Shame on you (Apple). Burn me twice. Shame on me.

I guess I'll be using 18.6 for a little while longer.

 

[Diopter]

Should I upgrade ?

See all the posts above yours - I've generally found Safari 26.2 to be back to the performance of Safari 18.6 with the sluggish issue fixed.

 

[katbel]

Does Safari 26.2 also fix the crashes? I get crashes doing autofill on Safari 18 macOS 15

Lucky you! 🙃
I don’t even get to keep the autofill on both in System Settings or in Safari 18

P.s.I solved the autofill issue re-installing Safari . All is working now

 

[kvic]

Make use of this thread to keep track of outstanding issues that I spot in Safari 26.2:

(Emphasis is mine)

#1

Safari 26.2 repeatedly freezes on pages left alone for several hours. Its retain/release structure has been modified and let's hope not with Swift and they keep it Cocoa/AppKit. The fact Swift is over fifteen years old and considered a work in progress would leave me to designate it as a research language. Roll back features into ObjC 3.0 and keep working on both languages. Most of Safari is C++ just as much of Pro Apps are C/C++ with ObjC/ObjC++.

#2

Safari 26.2 on 15.7.3 here. It’s definitely better than before and finally usable.

That said, there’s still a really annoying issue: if I type too fast (for example fa for Facebook) and press Enter before the history suggestion shows up, Safari does a Google search for “fa” instead of going to facebook.com. It then saves “fa” in history, which makes address bar suggestions even worse over time.

Honestly, this kind of thing is making me consider dropping Safari and switching to Firefox.

 

[msephton]

Does Safari 26.2 also fix the crashes? I get crashes doing autofill on Safari 18 macOS 15

I updated and it does fix the auto fill crashes.