I am surprised how many people don't like the colored bar, that's my favorite new feature.
I am not, especially in a forum like this.
Everybody here is a little bit into tech (if not fully) and it is clear that macOS is having this iOSification-consumer approach, lack of solid software development and terrible recent updates like catalina and big sur. On the other side this year also brand new iPhone 13 and iOS suffered pretty consistent bugs. When I updated to 15.0.1 I lost a full day of work calls because couldn't receive or make calls anymore (Call Failed). I tried to reset network settings when I realised (too late) and now it seems ok.
But let's put apart the iOS and iPhone situation.
On macOS native apps like Mail, Calendars and even their own Apple TV app are all suffering big reliability problems that remain until now not resolved at all. This is without doubts reflecting on a "big" app like Safari. Apple is losing the ship, especially this year, and I really couldn't believe when I saw Safari with my eyes! Making me think that they don't even use it in Apple park!
From a consumer view, probably Safari is ok, I mean if I drag the tabs and the whole thing crashes, it's not a problem re-opening 3 tabs with Netflix, BBC news and Instagram.com. As well as shouldn't be a problem if the first is black, second turns red and third flashes white. Looking the things at a glance or for fun is never the same of working with schedules, deadlines, under pressure and with consistent workflow. After a full day of work constantly paying attention and guessing if the greyed out tab is active or not, even if only for that little micro-second in your head, do frustrate you and make you lose concentration. I'm not surprised at all for a mass switch to other browsers.
And again, there are those little things that "remain until now not resolved at all":
i) Apple underestimates web apps and browser capabilities
e.g. basically no web apps available for Apple services (that icloud.com beta thing... I don't even consider it)
and also Microsoft planned switching O365 towards web apps/electron in the future
ii) Apple wants you to download and use applications instead of the browser counterpart. Not even for a backup/on-the-go
iii) lack of web standards (let's not talk for a moment about ethic choices for a free web and chromium kingdom, it still doesn't work for some websites)
iv) group tabs in the end of 2021
v) lack of extensions
vi) ridiculous Safari Devtools and again concentrating attention only on app store applications
vii) once-a-year only updates for a web browser
viii) from an academic/university/students/e-learning perspective Safari is totally unreliable and again unusable.
ix) recently in pandemic situation and videoconferencing web applications safari has always been out of the game
x) good luck Apple!