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Safari Turns 20 Today: 'Fastest Web Browser Ever Created for the Mac'

the thing most annoying about safari is the fact it’s integrated into MacOS.

Why can’t I install/update it seperatly?
My perfectly fine 2014 Mbp is now forced to use Chrome or Opera since the latest version of Safari on that machine is so old.

Developer tools on other browsers are better to in my opinion.
 
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Only time I use Chrome is if I need to screenshot a scene from movie or tv show that has encryption from streaming site (aka Netflix, Hulu, etc). Otherwise, Safari only, period, because it's not a massive battery hog.

(Chrome allows users to turn off hardware acceleration which disables all screenshot copy protection. Safari, is 100% reliant on hardware acceleration, hence it can't be turned off, and probably for the best, since turning off hardware acceleration is what makes Chrome a total bloatware and massive battery hog. Even turning on hardware acceleration, still not a huge difference, still battery hog)
 
Middling said:
Shout out to KHTML from which Apple forked WebKit. This little open source browser engine from an open source *nix desktop environment was the genesis for the vast majority of browsers in use today. What a success story.
Click to expand...
👍, and Chrome engine just a fork of WebKit that is used in Safari.

Just as WebKit is a fork of KHTML and KHTML is a fork of khtmlw library
 
Safari has been my first choice for more than 15 years and I still see no reason to switch. I occasionally use Firefox, Opera and Brave for different tasks, but I don’t even have Chrome in my computer. I just don’t trust Google for browsing. Too much commercial interests there to think you’re in control.
 
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That is something I really like about Macs, you get so much good software made by Apple out of the box (office suite, calendar, photo management/editing, simple video editor, music creation, music player, the Swiss Army knife that is Preview and more), including a great web browser with Safari.

Now put a damn calculator on iPads and continue that tradition.
 
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Middling said:
Shout out to KHTML from which Apple forked WebKit. This little open source browser engine from an open source *nix desktop environment was the genesis for the vast majority of browsers in use today. What a success story.
Click to expand...
For me, it’s yet another story of successful innovation made by Apple stolen by others.

If you think that the KHTML open source they used - most people don’t even know the name - really was comparable and if you think they just “improved” it, you have never looked at both. Safari was really a completely new browser when it launched.
 
What is it that people love so much about chrome? I’ve always used safari, am I missing something? I don’t feel google is exactly trustworthy when it comes to handling my privacy, and on top of that chrome demands more resources, what makes chrome desirable to everyone?
 
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For web developers, Safari is the new IE6 because of its slowness to adopt new updates in technology and divergence in implementation of them. It was not always the case. Average users are obviously not aware about it.
 
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For a webapp which I built, I had trouble supporting Safari because it had 10+ reported bugs (specific to Safari) 2 years ago. Since I didn't have help, and Safari usage was less than 5%, I decided to add a notice that said "Please use Chrome or Firefox instead for better experience". Now, when I tested the latest version (16.2), almost all the reported bugs have been fixed except 2 without any fixes from our side. Impressive that Safari has grown in terms of compatibility with Chrome (I could say web standards, but I know Chrome dictates them these days).

However, it's also sad that it took them so long to fix them.
 
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Manzanito said:
What is it that people love so much about chrome?
Click to expand...

Clicking links with a Wacom is janky in Chrome. The browser sometimes assumes we are trying to select or drag the link. We stylus users have to click links in Chrome sooo precisely and slowly.
 
supernova82 said:
For web developers, Safari is the new IE6 because of its slowness to adopt new updates in technology and divergence in implementation of them. It was not always the case. Average users are obviously not aware about it.
Click to expand...

Those updates and plugins aren't always ready for prime time and can have security issues. Apple is more careful than Google at things that impact user safety. For the same reason, Apple pushed the world to ditch Flash and adopt HTML 5 because Flash wasn't secure and ate too much CPU time for no good reason.
 
Middling said:
Shout out to KHTML from which Apple forked WebKit. This little open source browser engine from an open source *nix desktop environment was the genesis for the vast majority of browsers in use today. What a success story.
Click to expand...
This was true for the original WebKit. But Webkit2 is something completely different.

@MacRumors I am really baffled that you guys don't mention with a word that Chrome is based on a Webkit fork. Or more precise, Blink (Rendering engine of Chrome) is a fork of the WebCore component of Webkit.

Also you didn‘t mention that Apple failed to bring Safari/Webkit to other platforms like Google did.

Furthermore, Safari caused lots of complaints because of its bugs - from macrumors.com:
"Everyone in my mentions [is] saying Safari is the worst, it's the new IE."
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...t-safari-is-the-worst-its-the-new-ie.2334209/

I think we should tell the whole story of Safari. It changed the world, killed Flash, established Html5, but then it failed and now sadly Chrome is the king.
 
supernova82 said:
For web developers, Safari is the new IE6 because of its slowness to adopt new updates in technology and divergence in implementation of them. It was not always the case. Average users are obviously not aware about it.
Click to expand...
This website helps out a ton:

Can I use... Support tables for HTML5, CSS3, etc

caniuse.com caniuse.com

It tells you precisely what you can and can't use depending on your target browser, so you don't need to fiddle about with bugs or missing features.
 
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For me the killer feature was that full Safari would run on the iPhone out of the box. Incredible and what a triumph for Apple.
 
MauiPa said:
Faster? yep. These are the results of my tests on my 13 MBP M1:

SpeedometerJetStreamMotionmark
Safari3422713,273
STP3482653,168
Brave2802041,169
Brave Beta2942131,131
Chrome2882061,148
Firefox2341361,232
Firefox 106.00259159.1771147.31
Edge2562141,084
Click to expand...
That’s interesting. I don’t notice much of a speed difference when using the different browsers. I remember Safari was pretty slow at scrolling some web pages, but that was fixed a bunch of years ago. But the switching between tabs when many is open has also been noticeably slow in Safari. It was said to be improved a couple of years ago, but ai still notice a delay at times compared to for Example Firefox that always stay snappy when switching between tabs.
 
I've used Safari for many years since it was the fastest browser, and very light on resources. Since last year, however, I find Firefox to be faster and, ever since Apple Silicon, battery life is not a problem at all.
 
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MauiPa said:
Faster? yep. These are the results of my tests on my 13 MBP M1:

SpeedometerJetStreamMotionmark
Safari3422713,273
STP3482653,168
Brave2802041,169
Brave Beta2942131,131
Chrome2882061,148
Firefox2341361,232
Firefox 106.00259159.1771147.31
Edge2562141,084
Click to expand...

Agreed, Firefox flies on my MBP 2015 (Monterey). On my iPhone & iPad, however, I still prefer using Safari.
 
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