Which browser is best for Mac?

As the default web browser on your Mac, Safari has received continuous updates over the past few years. Apple releases new builds of all its apps and services with OS updates every year. While we applaud the improvements to Safari on the Mac, the question remains whether it’s enough to prevent users from switching to Chrome. How does it compare to everyone’s favorite web browser? Before you change the default browser on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad, read our comparison article.

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Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge: Which browser is better?

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Cross-platform availability

Before comparing Safari and Chrome, let’s first look at Safari’s cross-platform availability. After all, you don’t want to leave your web bookmarks, history, quick links, and other settings behind when you switch to another platform.

As expected, Chrome is available on most smart platforms imaginable, so switching is easy. Whether you’re using Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android, or ChromeOS, you can surf the web with all your personal data and a familiar interface. In contrast, Apple’s walled garden approach limited Safari to only the company’s devices.

User interface and themes

As a first-party app for macOS, Apple established the Safari aesthetic. Let’s start with the home page. Contains all the elements needed when starting a browser. You can also see your favorites, recently closed tabs, reading list, privacy report, Siri suggestions, and apply a minimal wallpaper to your background. If you’re busy, customize your entire homepage using the menu at the bottom. Overall, it’s not as crowded as Microsoft Edge and not as bland as Chrome’s homepage. Safari displays a cool translucent effect at the top of a web page as you scroll through it. Unlike Chrome, there’s no theme store that lets you change the look with one click.

Google Chrome recently underwent a stunning Material You makeover on the web. Chrome’s Material You matches other Google services, but it looks a little out of place compared to other Mac apps.

tab management

Do you often have dozens of tabs open during long research sessions? Managing and switching between them can become tedious after a while. This is where Chrome and Safari tab groups come into play. You can organize related tabs into different groups. However, Safari has some additional tricks up its sleeve.

Create multiple tab groups in Safari and see the entire list from the vertical sidebar. Safari also lets you create different profiles to segregate browsing data such as tabs, history, cookies, and website data.

You can assign different symbols, colors, and separate extension lists to your work, school, or personal profiles. There’s also an option to share tab groups with your iMessage contacts.

Chrome and Safari: Features

Compare Safari and Chrome based on extension support, reading mode, and other novel features.

reading mode

Apple offers a seamless reading mode in Safari that can be customized with different backgrounds, fonts, and sizes. In comparison, Chrome’s reader mode leaves a lot of room for improvement. The article opens in the sidebar, but doesn’t necessarily hide all distractions. Safari definitely wins here.

Extensions

Although Safari covers important extensions from top VPNs, password managers, and other third-party developers such as Grammarly, Pocket, Raindrop, and Notion, the overall collection is still small compared to Google Chrome.

If your workflow relies on a lot of extensions, think twice before switching from Chrome to Safari.

Seamless sharing

share with you This is a niche Safari feature that’s firmly backed by iMessage.Links shared in the Messages app appear in Safari.[あなたと共有]section automatically. This is only useful for people who frequently exchange web links in iMessage conversations.

Instant conversion and translation

Both Safari and Chrome support instant currency conversion and basic formulas. For example, you can quickly get the final numbers by typing: From $1000 to INR or 45*3 in the address bar. Chrome goes one step further with integration with Google Translate, so you can simply type. hello in french Get instant results.

Chrome and Safari: Password management

Both browsers offer basic password management for saving login credentials. Safari uses iCloud passwords, which can sync with all your devices. Supports autofill, passkey, verification code, notes, etc.

Google Password Manager also supports notes and checks. Similar to Safari’s security recommendations, Chrome Password Manager’s checking tool shows you leaked, reused, and weak passwords.

Privacy and security

Standard protections built into Chrome warn you about harmful files, extensions, and broken sites. Safari goes one step ahead with iCloud private relay. This is a privacy add-on for Apple One and iCloud+ subscribers that allows you to hide your IP address from the websites you visit. This option is enabled by default and works silently in the background. When you visit a website in Safari, no one, including Apple, can see who you are or what sites you visit. It’s not as extreme as a VPN connection and won’t disrupt your browsing settings. If you want to learn more about iCloud Private Relay, check out our dedicated guide.

Safari also offers a privacy report that shows you how many trackers have blocked your profiling in the past 30 days.

performance

When it comes to performance, there isn’t much difference between Chrome and Safari on a fast internet connection. However, if your Mac has a slow network connection, you may find that Safari loads web pages faster than Chrome. This is what Avast confirmed in a speed comparison of major browsers.

Although we’re talking about performance, you should also consider compatibility. Google Chrome (built on Chromium) is the most popular web browser, so developers test and optimize their products for it. You may experience performance issues with certain websites on Safari, such as Photopea, a web-based Photoshop alternative.

memory usage

Safari is a relatively lightweight web browser compared to Chrome. This is to be expected since Chrome is notorious for using a lot of RAM. I opened some of the same tabs in Chrome and Safari and checked the memory usage from Activity Monitor. Take a look at the screenshot below.

Mac users with 8GB of RAM will appreciate Safari’s approach to memory usage.

Chrome and Safari: Mobile experience

Both Apple and Google have done a solid job with their iOS apps. Use the bottom bar with all important options. You can also use Chrome Password Manager as your default method to autofill your login information. Chrome’s default Discover menu with news articles can be frustrating for some users. Interestingly, Google does a better job than Apple when it comes to widgets, as Chrome offers more widget options than Safari. Most notably, Chrome offers lock screen widgets that Safari doesn’t.

Browse the web in style

Still not sure about the pros and cons of Chrome and Safari? Let’s simplify the situation. Safari excels with its great UI, low memory usage, and integration with other Apple apps. Chrome fights back with cross-platform availability, rich extension support, and Google Translate integration. If you notice performance issues while browsing the web, check your Mac’s CPU usage.