Today I switched back to Chrome from Safari. I like Safari’s design and integration with iOS. Also, until recently, Safari used a lot less power than Chrome, although I don’t know if that’s the case today. However, the scarce extension support on Safari was driving me crazy. In particular I use a couple of social media extensions that either work badly or are not available on Safari.
I’m curious how other MPU users deal with this. What is your primary browser?
I mainly stick with safari because of the speed/integration. Once in a while, I’ll use FireFox when I encounter a site that doesn’t play well with Safari, though.
I used Chrome as my primary browser for a while, motivated mainly by the extensive library of extensions and better support for some sites. But, I ended up returning to Safari. I like the Safari UI better overall and use the Mac/iOS Handoff feature quite frequently. I still use Chrome in certain instances. For example, any time I’m editing a Google Doc or working on a MailChimp campaign.
I use Firefox because of the ability to add and/or remove extensions. Most of my additional plugins all revolve around security and anti-tracking. Https Everywhere for example.
I use Safari due to integration and I feel it just provides a cleaner overall look. I use handoff occasionally but mostly I use the tabs in iCloud component. So many times where I was looking at something on my Mac and then needed to reference that on my iPhone while away from home.
Safari for as much as I can, but some of the sites I frequent require Chrome or IE (which I run in Parallels). I use Choosy to set up which sites require a different browser so I’m automatically taken to the correct app.
Wow. I’m surprised of those results. It also makes me feel better about the complaints we got on the recent browser episode where people said we gave Safari too much attention.
I’m back on Firefox. It finally got a much needed performace boost, and now runs nicely again. Having used Firefox since the early public betas back in the early 2002 or so, it really feels like coming home. On iOS, I stick with Safari 99% of the time.
Safari mainly because I typically don’t have the chance to plug in my laptop when working and Chrome/Firefox drain the battery a lot. I also prefer the interface and it has all the plugins I need.
When developing websites though I use Chrome most of the time because of the developer tools and the fact that most of my clients also use Chrome.
Firefox (in dark mode). Because I don’t like the way Safari looks (in general) and presents bookmarks in the toolbar. And I’m not too keen on Chrome either. So far Firefox served me well over the years.
I use different browsers for different things. Originally, I tried to reserve Safari for work things and Chrome for personal things. This was when I set up different desktops for work and personal stuff; Safari was assigned to the work environment and Chrome to the other. But I need to work in Canvas, and Canvas has some serious bugs under Safari, so I now use Chrome for Canvas. I also have two subscriptions to the NYTimes (long story) so one is logged in with Safari the other with Chrome.
Most Google apps seem to work better (or exclusively) in Chrome. For example, I can run Youtube TV only in Chrome. And online payments for my municipality are primitive, using a web interface that looks like it was created in 1995, and which will work only on Firefox.
I have been using a newer browser called Vivaldi, which works really well. I may be trying it out, but I don’t see how it can replace either Safari or Chrome for me.
I mostly use Chrome on the desktop because of extensions and power usage, although there was a recent bug last week that made me switch back to safari. I mainly use Safari on mobile because of the interactions but keep Chrome for access to history and other info I might have.
My default browser is Chrome but I have many other browsers installed and use them simultaneously. I am starting to move more across to Firefox as my default but still using Chrome for certain sites including anything that requires flash as I refuse to install that on any of my machines.
Regarding add-ons, I’m particularly interested in Firefox’s new containers. For example the Facebook container allows you to access that site without them being able to see anything else you’re doing in any other tab. I guess it works like a sandbox. Containers also allow for things like two Gmail accounts to be signed into at the same time without needing to run one in an incognito window.
It has the best performance out of all of the options in my opinion.
It uses the least battery power.
Apple cares about my privacy and works to stop people from being able to track me as easily.
I don’t really care about extensions aside from 1Password.
The only time I really use Chrome is if there is a badly designed site that doesn’t work in anything else, or if I am doing something related to web development, because the developer tools in Chrome really are way ahead of anyone else.
I stick with Safari in 99% use cases, due to the the speed, the low battery drain, and because of the integration in MacOS as well as Continuity and iCloud sync.
Once in a while I may go to Opera - because I’ve used it on/off since its “birth” back in the early 200x years - if a site doesn’t play nice with Safari, or if I need some kind of memory / resource heavy add-on which I tend to keep in Opera to keep the lean install of the OS + onboard apps.
Thanks for allowing me that 