Safari 18 Features: Highlights, New Reader Mode, and Video Viewer

[lsquare]

Hope theses features come to iOS / iPadOS + the missing “web eraser”, and multi-language, and without new hardware requirements.

What‘s happens with one of most valuable company (Apple)? Other companies (e.g. Google) support other countries from the first day!

It seems like the rumor got my expectations very high. In reality, Safari got very little quality of life upgrade.

Despite the criticism, I feel like Google does a better job upgrading and developing Chrome. Apple only releases one major upgrade a year with new features. It makes me wonder if Apple even cares about Safari on its platforms.

 

[TheMacDaddy1]

All these features seem great. I wish I could use them. But Safari is frequently the one browser that doesn’t work with many of the important websites that I (and my wife) use. So on MacOS, my default browser has been Firefox for the past couple years. Firefox is good, but I wish I could take advantage of new Safari features.

I know the issues haven’t been resolved, because occasionally my wife tries to use the latest Safari on various financial, health-related, or shopping sites — and the same old incompatibilities come roaring back. UI that doesn’t appear (popup blocker off), code that should be running — but doesn’t. We have no 3rd party security programs that would interfere.

Once a month, we’ll even run into a site that’s incompatible with Firefox, and then we have to quickly switch over to Chrome (just for that site) — which always works.

I was always led to believe that some of these issues were due to the design of websites and the components they use not being fully tested or compatible with Safari. But if Firefox and Chrome can get past those issues — Safari should be able to.

I can’t believe we’re the only people that run into these issues. I’ve been a Mac software developer for nearly 40 years — I can’t understand why Apple can’t resolve these incompatibilities.

I work on IT for a retail company. I get to see the browser usage data for our websites. 78% Chromium. Firefox was just 1% last time I checked. Our developers no longer test against it and have not for over a year. Safari, the desktop version was only 2% but higher with mobile versions.

 

[Ad47uk]

Safari is still the second-most used browser. Far behind Chrome but also far ahead of Firefox.

View attachment 2388104

Of course, most of that is iOS/iPadOS. But even on the desktop, Safari is ahead of Firefox and Safari is not even available on Windows & Linux, unlike Firefox. So yeah... People still use FireFox?

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That is because of the Iphone more than the Mac, people don't tend to change their browsers on their phones, I presume it is possible on an Iphone. i use Firefox on everything these days, including my Android phone.
I was willing to give Safari another go, but with some of the sites I use, not liking it would mean changing from one to the other.
There are other things that I could nto really get used to, the URL box being part of the tab system, where with firefox and other browsers you have the Tabs on top, then the URL box and then the bookmarks bar. I expect I could get used to Safari if I used it enough.
Also, also no extension for Ublock Origin, I tried Ghostery, which I used to use years ago, whihc works ok, but I prefer ublock Origin.

there are other things that I just can't get used to.

 

[svish]

Overall good improvements. The new video viewer is good.

 

[Ad47uk]

People love Chrome... Never understood why.

Some people do, you have to think back why people started using Chrome. Most people used to use Internet Exploder and then chrome came along, which was a lot better than Internet Exploder, even I used it for a while and then went back to Firefox. Chrome was different, it had a lightweight UI compared to Internet Exploder.

Google was a different company then, I remember when the Google search engine first came out, it was amazing, just that little box for use to type stuff in. We had no idea what Google would turn out to be. Sadly most companies are the same these days, want to grab data, even Apple, but seem as bad as others. Even our supermarkets want to grab data and flog it. For those that are not in the U.K, flog is slang for sell.

Anyway, I use Firefox as it seems to be one of the more secure browsers and don't seem to want to grab data, I could be wrong. I have used a lot of browsers over the years, from the AmigA, windows and now Mac, plus Android.

You should also remember that a lot of browsers are based on the same engine as Chrome.

 

[NOATAK]

People still use Safari? I tried it when i first had my Mac, but I could nto get on with it, then I tried it again a few weeks ago, but had problems with some sites not working, so I have gone back to Firefox.

I want to get into Safari but there are a few things holding me back.

One, the way Safari does tab groups is not good. Much prefer the way Chrome does it. Putting the in a the side bar takes up too much space.

Two, ad blocking seems to better in Chrome. I use uBlock on Chrome and it does a fine job of keeping pop ups/videos from getting out of control.

I guess I want Safari to be more like Chrome if I need to use it.

The adblockers for Safari are all bad, none of them even come close to uBlock Origin. And that's the biggest reason to use Firefox.

The whole extension system is just ridiculous in Safari, I don't want to install an app for every extension. Not to mention that all the good extensions like SponsorBlock, DarkReader, etc. have to be purchased through the App Store, while they are available for free for the other browsers.

It's a different story on the iPhone, where I also use Safari, because that's the only way you can use extensions at all. I really hope that Firefox will soon release a separate app in the EU that allows extensions.

 

[ApAx]

I wish Safari in iOS let you place Favorites toward the bottom on the screen, like with the home screen changes for iOS 18. My thumb can only stretch so far!

 

[Chazak]

People still use Safari? ...

Are you serious or was that said just for effect?

"Safari, currently holds 18.56% of the internet browser market, with an estimated 984 million people using it in December 2023"

 

[Ad47uk]

Are you serious or was that said just for effect?

"Safari, currently holds 18.56% of the internet browser market, with an estimated 984 million people using it in December 2023"

I tried safari when i first got my Mac and I found a few sites it did nto work correctly with, so I just thought maybe others have had the same problem and changed. The problem is, people just use what they have and can't be bothered to look for something different, that was the same on Windows, that is why Internet Exploder stay around for so long until Chrome was pushed onto people wtith downloads.
I use Firefox myself, been using it for a while on all platforms i use.

I did try Safari again a few weeks agao, but I just can't get used to the UI and also a couple of the extensuons I use on Firefox are not available on Safari. But if i have to change to Firefox to use sites that don't work with Safari, then I may as well saty with Firefox.

The few people i know that has a Mac, only one use Safari, I think most of that 18.56% will be from iphones,

 

[BraytonAK]

If Apple begins allowing alternate browser engines on iOS it will almost surely tank Safari usage in the stats and a downward spiral will bring us back to IE6. That future could be somewhat pre-empted if Apple would release Safari for Windows and Android.

I prefer to use Safari and I don’t have advertisement issues when using AdGuard. I never see YouTube ads, which is a decent test. I’m quite basic with how I use it so profiles, tab groups, reader mode, etc, just aren’t things that concern me.

 

[Ad47uk]

If Apple begins allowing alternate browser engines on iOS it will almost surely tank Safari usage in the stats and a downward spiral will bring us back to IE6. That future could be somewhat pre-empted if Apple would release Safari for Windows and Android.

I prefer to use Safari and I don’t have advertisement issues when using AdGuard. I never see YouTube ads, which is a decent test. I’m quite basic with how I use it so profiles, tab groups, reader mode, etc, just aren’t things that concern me.

So not allowed to use other browsers on IOS? That explains why Safari have so many users then.

 

[BraytonAK]

So not allowed to use other browsers on IOS? That explains why Safari have so many users then.

Outside of the EU Apple only allows the WebKit rendering engine. Any alternative browsers you download are still using WebKit.

 

[Ad47uk]

Outside of the EU Apple only allows the WebKit rendering engine. Any alternative browsers you download are still using WebKit.

Why is that not a shock?
What is Apple scared off? I am surprised they have not done the same thing on the Mac.

 

[jbmelby]

As many other features it is English camp limited.

I’m in the US, and after choosing not to enable Safari summaries/highlights in the beginning, I’ve decided that I want them after all. However, the choice whether or not to enable this feature in the iOS 18 Safari (iOS 18 beta 3) has disappeared, and when I go to Safari settings and toggle highlights on, it doesn’t seem to work (it works fine in macOS 15). Does anyone know how to get it working in iOS 18? The highlights toggle in Safari settings seems to do nothing.