I recently tried Chrome, and then Brave again but they was both using crazy amounts of RAM and CPU usage kept spiking, affecting the rest of my workflow. I don’t open that many tabs either, just enough to have my reference materials while working open (and I close them all every day).
I switched back to Safari and have seen my computer return to its usual snappy self. I like some of the features in Chrome and how they play with Google services, but I do not use Google Docs or Sheets, I prefer Excel and Ulysses (my work collaborate in OneDrive so I do not need the Google services). Therefore, I have no compelling reason to sacrifice performance and find Safari is much better integrated with the rest of MacOS.
Per my recent post I have defaulted to a lot of the G-Suit apps including Google Chat, Meet, Gmail, et al. Consequently, I have moved from Safari as my default to Brave. I still need to test Brave with Google Meet (video and audio) but assuming it works, I’ll stick with Brave. I would prefer to use Safari but Safari does not work as consistently and smoothly with Google apps as Chrome and Brave do.
That said, does anyone know when Brave will re-activate sync? It is frustrating not being able to sync bookmarks between my MBP and iOS devices.
In previous weeks, we’ve had entire teams flown out just for the new Brave Sync feature rewrite. It is very important to Brave users; therefore, it’s very important to us.
The new Brave Sync will feature many more data types (e.g., in addition to bookmarks, it can also sync history, passwords, etc.). It will also be completely private, as expected.
In the meantime, the current version of Brave Sync has been hidden/disabled in Brave, which is an acknowledgement of the current issues with Brave Sync.
An option that not only is insufficient for customers of some websites (especially some banks), but which results in less power and flexibility and even reduced security/privacy (given the right extensions), as discussed previously.
Brave user here It has been my primary browser since several months ago. I like its built-in ad-blocker and loading speed. Besides, the idea of “You choose what ads to watch and earn rewards” interests me a lot.
I was on Firefox mainly for privacy features/add-ons, but I could get a close-enough level of protection with Safari, the browser that I find nicer to use.
Firefox
Safari
uBlock Origin
Wipr
Enhanced Tracking Protection
Privacy Badger
Multi-Account / Facebook Containers
Intelligent Tracking Protection
On a non-privacy-related note, a huge shout out to Dark Reader, which offers a massive quality-of-life improvement, and is available for Safari.
With respect to privacy I use Privacy Possum, an offshoot of Privacy Badger from a onetime dev of Privacy Possum who thought it needed to do more (and which is called ‘Privacy Possum on steroids’), PixelBlock to kill tracking cookies in Gmail, and DecentralEyes which puts on your local machine data that otherwise would have been polled from a Content Delivery Network (like Google Hosted Library, which could then build a profile of you across the web).
To my knowledge Safari has no equivalent for any of this.
It really is an invaluable circadian-rhythm-protecting tool (along with the venerable F.lux).
Dark Reader works impressively well on most websites. Funny that you show it on Gmail, though. It sometimes struggles with websites with more complex elements (Facebook being another example).
I think the dark mode in combination with the Gmail theme I have installed really looks great. The colors pop and the overall look is good. I do, however, wish Google would update the Gmail logo. It looks tired.
Just skimmed over the post. May I be the first one to say openly that I am using the Edge browser on an all-Apple ecosystem and actually enjoying the experience? I was searching for a safe browser that lets me make 1password the only password manager (not possible on Safari), not put too much load on the processor (Chrome gone), and with a clean slate in terms of data usage purposes (Opera and Vivaldi gone…). I wanted access to the Chrome extensions (bye Firefox) and wanted to have mobile counterparts to sync with.
While there still might be other options, I went with Edge and didn’t regret it up to this moment. Stable, sync is flawless, search engine and password manager is fully flexible, Chrome web store is only the matter of a checkbox and all the rest is a breeze. It even can create little Web applets that function as Apps out of the box. Very helpful. Needless to say that it plays nice with all the Microsoft 365 stuff. So, why not?
I’ve tested Edge for battery life and it still makes my battery drain 3-4 hours earlier than Safari in everyday use. I tried it for a week and it was the same every day. Chrome and Brave have the same effect.
It’s no good for me as I don’t have my MacBook connected to power most days while I’m working.
Yeah that’s hardly suprising. For me, though, my MacBook (Pro 2017) is docked to an external display 95% of the time. Only problem is that it’s dual core, 8GB RAM
I’m planning on overcompensating with my next Mac purchase.
It has been my primary browser since several months ago. I like its built-in ad-blocker and loading speed. Besides, the idea of “You choose what ads to watch and earn rewards” interests me a lot.
