MacOS browser discussion

Ok, after over a decade of using Google Chrome as my main browser, I’ve just changed back to Safari (took me a few hours to slowly build my bookmarks and autofill form info after an import).

The current Safari is awesome. Dark mode, fast, nicely integrated into MacOS. Autofill SMS code is a nice touch that I was used to in iOS, and great to see happening on the desktop.

Just thought I would share. What do others use?

2 Likes

Safari, which works great 99.9% of the time. For when it doesn’t - Firefox.

I couldn’t bring myself to use Chrome - I don’t particularly like all my information being transmitted back to Google whenever I do something online.

2 Likes

Same. Safari with Firefox as the alternative. I set up Safari with ad blocker, but Firefox without.

The world needs alternatives to Chrome, especially now Microsoft’s latest Edge browser is based on Chrome.

Chrome on my home MacBook and work PC. Safari on my iPhone.

This article prompted me to finally make the switch from Chrome to Safari:

Thoughts by others?

Watch and wait. I hadn’t heard of Brave.

Never been keen on Safari cos… it doesn’t have a bottom on its windows… but then, that’s macOS now, isn’t it… (I don’t do change well, but - windows always looked like a - window…)

I’m using Safari 12.1. I’d describe it as a love-hate relationship at best.

The minimal interface is nice, and I’m familiar with its controls and layout, but I come across too many instances where something doesn’t work in Safari, but it does in Chrome or Firefox. Like videos fully buffering then not playing, websites that require disabling an ad blocker thinking said ad blocker is still enabled, or Safari attempting to disable the ad blocker by itself (uBlock Origin, occasionally I’ll find it unchecked or removed entirely without warning).

Sometimes the viewport will stop updating entirely. Browsing a page and suddenly nothing becomes clickable. Enter another address and hit enter, the progress bar indicates a page is loading, but the viewable area stays on the previous page. If I close the tab and open another, it starts working again.

I’ve considered moving across to Brave as well, but it’s almost habit to continue using Safari at this point. Still, I should eventually make the switch to Brave as I cross into multi-platform environments, so I could then run the same browser on every machine.

I’ve used safari since OSX Tiger and I can honestly say that in the last 6 months or so, the number of times i’ve Had to go open a site in chrome because it won’t load or display properly in safari is infuriating.

I tend to use at least four browsers of late. Safari for “general” web browsing, Firefox for my Gmail and most web based software, Chrome for Orafice 365 and some web based software and Brave for the rest which includes following news.

I’ve used Chrome pretty much since it became available. I used Netscape Navigator and then Mozilla. I may have used Safari for a short window when Chrome and Firefox were not options. I remember the Aqua IE (gaaaaaaaaag) too and despised it. Firefox is what we recommend people use in the office across all platforms because we use Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, High Sierra, Mojave, and Ubuntu flavors of Linux. Our SEs use Ubuntu, I use Linux Mint on my MacBooks as well as macOS. I have a provided iMac I don’t touch. I have a provided Dell All-in-one running Win10 …1809? I think? That I only touch when my supervisor forces me to, or if I need to use TeamViewer (gaaaaaaaaaaag). Otherwise if I have to use Orafice 365 (thanks for that @zbaron) then I still use macOS.

The biggest reason I haven’t been able to leave Chrome is because I have a Chromecast and I use it a lot. For everything. Is there a way to cast from inside Firefox?

I thought Vivaldi was going to be an option (I am testing it out in Linux), but herp derp, it doesn’t like GIFs on Twitter. That may be unacceptable. Otherwise it is really fast and smooth. I wonder if it is as fast on macOS.

Ive been using Brave for quite some time.Its based on chrome but it has better privacy. You can add extensions from the chrome store too.Recently I started to use Safari again for youtube.

1 Like

I don’t like using Chrome too much because it is a huge memory hog! :hedgehog: