Apple Vs Google is one of the biggest corporate battle of this decade, whether it is Android vs iOS, or Safari Vs Chrome. If you are a Mac user like me, you will always be tempting to see which should be your default browser.
I must admit that I have been a fan of Google Chrome for long and it has been my default browser for past few years. But latest version of Safari has changed the game, it has added lot of desired and required features.
Speed
Speed is one of the important factor for the browsers, earlier Chrome was a clear winner in this category but not any more. Safari has a notable improvement in the speed and with the better system integration now it actually fetch almost identical score as Chrome.
Here are the scores for Sunspider Javascript Benchmark Results for Safari Vs Chrome: (Remember the lower score is a better score in this test)
You can see they both have almost similar scores for Javascript execution and speed. Here is another benchmark results from BrowserMark:
Again the number are not much different though Safari comes on top here. One of the reason is Safari is integrated in Mac OS and has access to faster system API’s. But to be honest I am using both of them and does not feel much difference in terms of speed.
Extensions
One of the important things is extension, which can extend the functionality for your browsers. Chrome has a long history with those and Safari has refused to use them in earlier versions.
With the new version Safari also includes extensions and you can download them from Apple Extension Gallery. There are many extension already available and I tried to install the extension which I use, on both of them.
I was able to find most of the required extension in both the browsers but still Chrome extensions are more polished at this point of time. Even with the same extensions I found that Chrome provides better fuctionality.
System Integration
Now there can’t be a better browser in terms of system integration than Safari. It uses the system api’s which is not available to third party browsers and it is one of the reason it feels much faster than the other browsers.
Also the transitions of forward and backward page movements are great in Safari, no other browser can give you that. Even before going back you can take a peep on the last page and decide if you want to go back.
With all this, I have started using Safari more and more on my mac, I still use Chrome for my blogging work but Safari is my regular browser for surfing.
Safari Vs Chrome, which one you are using as a default browser on your Mac?
In mac I go for Safari browser, because it’s own advantages for regularly surfing.
Hi Sanjeev, well compression but I am in a fix that, why didn’t choose or mention about Firefox. It seems that you are comparing Apple and Google. But as a blogger i’ll go with Firefox and reasons are already told by Ian Eberle.
Thanks for sharing.
Safari can be used as it has a rich user interface than chrome. But I mostly prefer Chrome as it has many ready made add-ons with forum support.
@Sanjeev: I started using Safari on my PowerBook around 7 years ago and it was way ahead of all browsers at that time. Chrome stole the show briefly and lack of extensions on Safari was definitely a drawback for me. I am glad Apple is on top of their game here.
There is a small typo there – weather should be changed to whether in first line 🙂
Thanks for catching that, I have corrected the post. Still they have to catch up some more before making it more developer friendly but I am also happy as it is going into right direction.
That’s right, plug-ins can take the functionality to a completely new level for some power users. I think Safari was always ‘user friendly’. I exclusively used their RSS reader before I switched to Google Reader a few years ago.
hi,
I used mostly chrome. but I think firefox is better than chrome and safari b’coz it is more secure.
thanks for sharing … 🙂
I use Moziall firefox generally but for my blog work i prefer chorme.
I use more of Chrome than Safari because of its easy to use interface. Thanks for the comparison.
I personally use Firefox on my Macs for a few reasons…
1. Firefox does not have any fancy animations that slow things down. When opening a browser window of Safari or Chrome, it lags a little because it has small animations. Firefox opens very quickly.
2. Firefox gives me a lot of developer tools that both Chrome and Safari lack.
3. I don’t care about bookmark syncing / history syncing with my iPhone, so that means I could care less about the iCloud syncing features with Safari.
4. Firefox saves a lot of space. When compared to Chrome and Safari, the bar at the top of the screen is smaller on Firefox.
I actually am doing reviews for Safari and Chrome on which has better performance on Mac. Planning to buy one!
Bookmarked! I never heard of Safari before because I’m more of a desktop kind of person where the only browsers that I know includes Chrome, Firefox, and yes, Internet Explorer.
I’m not very familiar with Safari actually, and I don’t have Mac, but I’ll be sure to share this article to friends and colleagues who have one in their homes. Thank you so much for posting such a valuable article!
If Mac is the OS Chrome is better browser compared to Safari, but on Window there is no match for Firefox. No other browser performance like it.
Hey hi,
Even up till now i am using chrome as my default browser but after reading the features of safari will defiantly going to try it.
Thanks for sharing..!!!
If you are on the latest version of the Safari than you should try it out…I still feel the lack of developer tools but for normal surfing it is really good.
Nice comparision between safari and google chrome. I use chrome mostly, i very rarely use safari.
Thankyou for sharing the article.
I also use Chrome for my Blogging work because of availability of many extensions and developer tools…
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