Safari: why is it so awful?

[brijazz]

Some of these problems pre-date Monterey, but since that's what I'm running now I thought this might be the best place to post. Would love to hear your experiences. Here are my current problems with Safari:

1) Tab syncing from Mac OS to iOS is flaky. Some tabs sync, some don't. Heck, I've got two tabs on my iPhone that claim to be from my Air that haven't been open on the Air for months, and they just keep reappearing after I close them. Bonus: my Favorites sync, but appear in a different order on my Mac than they do on my iPhone.
2) Things just stop working. I search for employees on Indeed, and out-of-the-blue, the "send email" button on candidate pages stopped responding. I have to use Indeed in Chrome now.
3) Extensions disappear or change locations. The BitWarden extension flat-out disappears every few months. The Downie extension moves to a different position after it runs its parent app.
4) Regular tabs sometimes show up in the midst of pinned tabs - they APPEAR to have pinned themselves, but don't function like that. They just go rogue, like the MacRumors tab in this screenshot:

I know that Safari is great for memory and energy consumption, but seriously - it's gotta be useable for any of that stuff to matter!

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

Some of these problems pre-date Monterey, but since that's what I'm running now I thought this might be the best place to post. Would love to hear your experiences. Here are my current problems with Safari:

1) Tab syncing from Mac OS to iOS is flaky. Some tabs sync, some don't. Heck, I've got two tabs on my iPhone that claim to be from my Air that haven't been open on the Air for months, and they just keep reappearing after I close them. Bonus: my Favorites sync, but appear in a different order on my Mac than they do on my iPhone.
2) Things just stop working. I search for employees on Indeed, and out-of-the-blue, the "send email" button on candidate pages stopped responding. I have to use Indeed in Chrome now.
3) Extensions disappear or change locations. The BitWarden extension flat-out disappears every few months. The Downie extension moves to a different position after it runs its parent app.
4) Regular tabs sometimes show up in the midst of pinned tabs - they APPEAR to have pinned themselves, but don't function like that. They just go rogue, like the MacRumors tab in this screenshot:

View attachment 2003845

I know that Safari is great for memory and energy consumption, but seriously - it's gotta be useable for any of that stuff to matter!

I don’t think it’s great for memory anymore honestly. For the things I do/watch Safari is actually the worst and has memory issues. Additionally, I just ran the website benchmark everyone seems to use these days and Safari got a 270 while Chrome got a 300.

People are sleeping on Chrome because of what it used to be on the Intel Macs but their Arm version is pretty spot on and provides frequent updates. It’s also cool to hate Chrome so there’s that. People act like Safari hides all their data and their privacy is protected but it’s not…it’s the internet and if you use Safari to go to Facebook or do a Google search it doesn’t matter what browser you use.

 

[orionquest]

Never liked Safari and it never really worked well with banking sites. It's gotten better but I still find FF is the champ.

 

[Starfia]

My answer to the phrasing of your question would be that I haven't found it "bad" because none of those situations are routinely prompted by my use of Safari. Maybe the issues you run into are less prominently on Apple's radar (more like "edge cases" than other issues), in which case they might be worth sending feedback about.

 

[elvisimprsntr]

Never had any issues with Safari.

 

[svenmany]

Bank of America gives me problems when I use Safari. Maybe it's the same problem as what OP gets on Indeed. The entire navigation panel at the top of the page stops responding to clicks.

I've been in touch with Bank of America's tech support and gave them the output from Safari's console. Every click produces an error stack trace.

Oh, syncing tabs - I had to give up on that. The browser takes on a life of its own when I turn that on.

 

[tarsins]

Not had any problems with Safari and I'd use it on Windows if I could.

 

[Feyl]

I used to use Safari but the quality of it it’s going down with each release I swear to God. I mean, no other browser gives me beachballs, freezes or broken sites. And Apple has the audacity to wonder why so many people don’t use Safari. And it’s not really faster or more energy efficient than other browsers like Apple says. Or at least not in comparison with Firefox which is the browser I’m using and I love it.

 

[rachaelc]

Safari is better than the much overrated Google Chrome and suchlike, but I like several others here use Firefox because it feels a lot nicer to use...and you don't have to pay for its dark mode extension ?

 

[Feyl]

Safari is better than the much overrated Google Chrome and suchlike, but I like several others here use Firefox because it feels a lot nicer to use...and you don't have to pay for its dark mode extension ?

Not to mention that Firefox is a much better browser in regards to privacy. It's also open-source, so you know what's in it.

 

[mkelly]

No problems with Safari overall here, either. Certainly no issues with extensions disappearing/reappearing, etc. I have no trouble with site compatibility - but I'm guessing that a big part of that is because I'm self-employed and rarely have to log into "corporate" or "enterprise" sites - almost all of which are written by ex-IE developers who haven't gotten out of the habit of only building and testing for a single browser platform.

 

[mkelly]

I used to use Safari but the quality of it it’s going down with each release I swear to God. I mean, no other browser gives me beachballs, freezes or broken sites. And Apple has the audacity to wonder why so many people don’t use Safari. And it’s not really faster or more energy efficient than other browsers like Apple says. Or at least not in comparison with Firefox which is the browser I’m using and I love it.

re: "audacity" - When was the last time you saw Tim Cook or anybody else from Apple rudely wondering aloud as to why more people aren't using Safari? (Genuinely curious if this was reported somewhere)

 

[marinersaptcomplex]

The only thing keeping me tied to Safari is the Touch/Face ID capability. I am not sure if any other password manager, built in or not, can support that as nicely as Safari does.

Of course, really, since I need my fingerprint to even access my laptop, some might think this feature redundant, but I just like it not sure why.

 

[Feyl]

re: "audacity" - When was the last time you saw Tim Cook or anybody else from Apple rudely wondering aloud as to why more people aren't using Safari? (Genuinely curious if this was reported somewhere)

Some Apple developer was wondering about that on Twitter. It was an article about it here.

 

[Zorori]

The only thing keeping me tied to Safari is the Touch/Face ID capability. I am not sure if any other password manager, built in or not, can support that as nicely as Safari does.

Of course, really, since I need my fingerprint to even access my laptop, some might think this feature redundant, but I just like it not sure why.

Same here. I'd use Firefox, but the integration of Safari with other services is great.

I kinda wish Apple would work with Mozilla. Have Safari built off Firefox, but with Apple's own 'tweaks'...

 

[Hele]

I use Firefox and Edge on my Windows 11 pc, but I love Safari on my iPhone. I love the easily accessible reader mode and Apple's iCloud Private Relay feature.

 

[edubfromktown]

Safari is nearly as bad of a resource pig as Chrome.

Duckduckgo browser is an excellent alternative on Android, IOS and macOS platforms.

 

[agregson]

I have reported an issue with iCloud tab and history sync many times to Apple. Been through many diagnostic and data gathering experiences. Then silence. I checked logs and my reports and problems go back more than 3 years.

It is much better now on 12.3/4 and 15.X but still not great. It works most of the time then decides not to update. After a bit it will suddenly update. I can see no logic to it.

Why is it Apple cannot get this right? It works flawlessly on Firefox which I use on iOS (2 devices), macOS (1 device) and Linux (2 raspberry PI). It never misses a tab or session and syncs up brilliantly. How can Mozilla get this right and Apple cannot?

I do like Safari. It integrates well and is a great browser. Little niggles spoil it for me. They also frustrate me.

Little rant over ... time for coffee ☕

 

[_apple_apple_]

Safari has no charm or 'must-have' feature. FF has extensions and everything works, Chrome has dev tools and everything works, Safari has nothing. I think it's because Safari is not integral to Apple's business model like all other browsers are for their creators, so there's no creativity under pressure or target market.

I've wondered for a while now, with computer vision and server-side rendering, if it would be possible to visually translate websites into a standard appearance on the fly, as a way of compensating for terrible/malicious website designs. That'd be a great feature, to somehow enforce a style guide on whatever you browse.

 

[Random_Matt]

Best browser for me, Firefox second.

 

[ABuVA]

Some of these problems pre-date Monterey, but since that's what I'm running now I thought this might be the best place to post. Would love to hear your experiences. Here are my current problems with Safari:

1) Tab syncing from Mac OS to iOS is flaky. Some tabs sync, some don't. Heck, I've got two tabs on my iPhone that claim to be from my Air that haven't been open on the Air for months, and they just keep reappearing after I close them. Bonus: my Favorites sync, but appear in a different order on my Mac than they do on my iPhone.
2) Things just stop working. I search for employees on Indeed, and out-of-the-blue, the "send email" button on candidate pages stopped responding. I have to use Indeed in Chrome now.
3) Extensions disappear or change locations. The BitWarden extension flat-out disappears every few months. The Downie extension moves to a different position after it runs its parent app.
4) Regular tabs sometimes show up in the midst of pinned tabs - they APPEAR to have pinned themselves, but don't function like that. They just go rogue, like the MacRumors tab in this screenshot:

View attachment 2003845

I know that Safari is great for memory and energy consumption, but seriously - it's gotta be useable for any of that stuff to matter!

In April 2022, I began encountering many issues with the use of Safari at 7 frequently used web sites which previously used Safari. 5 of the 7 respond that I must use Chrome (preferred) or Firefox to access their sites. If I force the Safari access, the sites do not respond or Safari just stops working.

 

[Tagbert]

Some Apple developer was wondering about that on Twitter. It was an article about it here.

such audacity! oh, my! ?

 

[Adrian W.]

This week is the week that has broken me with Safari; trying to pay my daughter’s university fees, attempting to apply for government money in Luxembourg, trying to upload lesson plans at school. When I enquire to those in authority they all just say that Safari doesn’t work anymore and I should use Chrome or Firefox.
This is pitiful for Apple, and really destabilising, in terms of both history and bookmarks.
Is it now beyond the point of no return??

 

[Big Bad D]

This week is the week that has broken me with Safari; trying to pay my daughter’s university fees, attempting to apply for government money in Luxembourg, trying to upload lesson plans at school. When I enquire to those in authority they all just say that Safari doesn’t work anymore and I should use Chrome or Firefox.
This is pitiful for Apple, and really destabilising, in terms of both history and bookmarks.
Is it now beyond the point of no return??

Many many years ago, I had both Safari plus Firefox installed as backup for when some websites, often state/government ones, were unable to be accessed with Safari. But I don’t recall any such cases or need to use an alternate browser in recent years… If some website cases still exist not including Safari compatibility then I’m not clear what Apple can do, it seems to be laziness of the developer or lack of investment by the website owner? Safari isn’t perfect, and frustratingly sometimes alternatives may still be needed.

 

[Adrian W.]

All I can say is that Leeds University, the Luxembourg state and Microsoft’s school management system don’t support it now and it’s making my life hell.