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Safari vs Chrome vs Firefox on 2008 Macbook pro

T

thermal

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 3, 2009
294
370
Vancouver, Canada
I currently own a late 2008 15 inch macbook pro. It's my first Mac, and I'm very satisfied with it.

Pre-Apple, I used Firefox, and kept on using it when I got the Mac. Some Mac friends suggested I try Safari.. I did and found it ok.

I recently downloaded Safari 5 and have been less than impressed. I find the performance extremely sporadic: sometimes very fast, sometimes painfully slow. I have also lost Youtube and Justintv functionality, and since I take online courses the video sites are imperative for me.

I've re-loaded Firefox and also Chrome, and over the last three days seem to be leaning towards Chrome for its balance of speed and overall functionality.

I'm wondering how you would rate these three web browsers. Overall, which do you think is currently the best & worst?

Thank you kindly.
 
1. Firefox
2. Chrome
3. Safari

I actually think Safari is a combination of both Firefox and Chrome. But it's not excellent at anything. While Chrome is really fast and firefox has features that I love to use.
 
For me, I use chrome because it is the fastest and i dont care about features or customization. i use the web to find things...not have a window open with a pretty border.
 
Of the 3 I like:

1. Safari
2. Chrome
3. Firefox

Safari 5.0 is superfast and has some cool features. I do have to say that after initially installing Safari 5.0 I wasn't 100% impressed however after repairing permissions, clearing Safari's cache and then restarting Safari this thing flys.

Chrome is good but is lacking the features and isn't quite a quick.

Firefox is one I just never warmed up to, not saying it's bad it's just one I never really liked. I simply found it clunky.

Roger
 
Safari 5.0 is super fast, I'm really enjoying it, Chrome is fast and I like it's interface, and Firefox is really customizable; so I use them 3...
 
cloroxbleach4 said:
1. Firefox
2. Chrome
3. Safari

I actually think Safari is a combination of both Firefox and Chrome. But it's not excellent at anything. While Chrome is really fast and firefox has features that I love to use.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Firefox is great especially when it's as easy as copy and paste one folder to move/backup/transfer to another OS my settings, plugins etc. Pretty stable as well, when it first came out it sucked big weenie but since 3.0 release it's been doing well.
 
I like the functionality of firefox but it uses 100% load on one core for youtube (40-60% on Chrome and Safari) and it crashes constantly so I had to stop. I use Safari now, hopefully it gets better with extensions.
 
firefox has become bloated. safari feels practical but no standout. and chrome is super fast, but buggy.

that's pretty much how I see those three browsers.
 
i think on OSX OPERA 10.5x is the best browser !!!

safari is okay and looks great but not really fast and why god why didn't they put the tabs on top and made the address bar an omnibar like chrome and opera.

chrome is my favourite on windows because it is the fastest ever. on a mac it seems a little slower and uses quite a lot of CPU.

firefox is dead but doesnt know it yet. it is DOG slow. i would Never Ever use it again if not for Yslow and Firebug. But i detest its sluggishness (just see the real life tests at Ars for figures on this)

opera is fast, integrates well in OSX, has tabs on top, an omnibar(ish), and uses little CPU and Memory. if it had extensions it would be the best browser period. now it is just the best on a Mac.

S.
 
i used to use chrome all the time on my pc before i switched to macs a month ago. now i only use safari, but i gotta say, after never experiencing a crash in 1 month of usage with safari 4, safari 5 has crashed for me about 10 times in 3 days. it's pretty frustrating.

Opera OSX is also another really good browser that doesn't get as much love as it should.
 
Chrome is the fastest one but functionality is not very good when you compare it to the other browsers.

Firefox has lots of customizations, it is good if you are gonna build yourself a super custom browser but the more you customize it, the slower it gets.

I think safari 5 is the best one, it is in between firefox and chrome. It is not as much functional as firefox but has extension feature. Not as fast as chrome but has essential functionality over chrome.
 
You might find this interesting...

This page takes a while to load, coincidentally (or maybe not), but here is an interesting and fairly scientific look at the speed of some of the most popular mac browsers around right now. Unfortunately, it doesn't review Safari 5 cuz it was released so recently, but nonetheless...

http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/2010/03/11/2010-mac-web-browser-shootout/

I started with Safari, went to Firefox for the (automatic) privacy features, then to Chrome, then back to Safari after I got weirded out by the possibility of Google collecting information from me. Now I use an applescript program to auto start Safari in "private browsing" mode, and it's worked out well.
 
I also use Chrome because it's fast. I used to use Firefox, and really the only reason I never switched to Safari was because it had no extensions (although now it does) and something that's really small: cmd+# to switch between tabs. I used that all the time, and Safari would open up a bookmark when you did that. I thought Chrome was overrated but I loved it when I tried it: and it had extensions, cmd+# tab switching, and it had HTML5 for youtube :p. Only thing I miss is viewing the source of a selection, but I think that's a webkit thing.
 
cloroxbleach4 said:
1. Firefox
2. Chrome
3. Safari

I actually think Safari is a combination of both Firefox and Chrome. But it's not excellent at anything. While Chrome is really fast and firefox has features that I love to use.
Click to expand...

I would put Safari in front of Chrome, but, otherwise, agree. Safari is very fast now, but, I prefer Firefox for its extensions, especially its security extensions.
 
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