Safari was my main browser from when I first used my Mac up until about two months ago. Safari updates had made the browser insecure and unstable. That’s when I switched to Google Chrome. The atrocity that is Safari wasn’t the only reason, however. The tabs are pinnable and easy to organize. The Chrome Web Store has thousands of useful extensions and all of your data can be synced to Chrome from any other computer. Fast rendering, the Omnibar, and Incognito Mode are also three great features.
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I cannot use Mail and Chrome. In Mail when I click in any word for Google search “search with Google” it opens Safari even if default is Chrome. So not that useful I think unless someone can help with a solution Thanks
Firefox on my mac doesn’t seem to crash at all… So I personally don’t understand all the complaints.
I regularly have around 10 tabs open at any one time, including ones with flash videos. Before the update to 6.0 I had FF open for maybe 2-3 weeks with no problems. The flash plugin crashes occasinally, but I don’t know if that’s the browser, flash, or OSX… and it’s just a matter of reloading the page, so not a big deal.
There was a period of using Chrome, but I didn’t like the downloads within a tab and couldn’t find an addon that would let me have downloads in a separate window, like firefox. Also adblock wasn’t as good. So eventually I just went back to FF
I regularly have a problem with hyperlinks on pages being un-clickable, as in not responding and the cursor doesn’t even change to indicate a link. That happens far more than tabs crashing, wonder if it has to do with regularly having way way too many tab open.
Opera is much better for any weak system (which for me includes my 2gb ram iMac when I have TF2 running, Chrome makes any game lag), and has nearly every feature of Chrome (no auto translate (other than what is on every single google results page which is enough), no web apps, no isolation which caused me more problems in Chrome than the pages caused in Opera).
Does anyone know of a Download Helper equivalent for Chrome? That’s the one plugin that’s keeping me from being 100% comfortable with Chrome.
Most people use Opera functionality every day. All of its innovations have been copied by Firefox, Chrome and IE.
The lack of a really good browser in os x is a really serious strike against the platform. I mostly use safari unless I have something serious to do, and then I reluctantly use Firefox. Chrome seems just as flawed, except you have Google, big brother, on your tits.
It would be nice if Chrome on OS X managed the redesigned Gawker sites as well as Firefox. I’m not sure if that’s a Gawker issue or a Chrome issue…but performance sucks.
does chrome tend to stall when loading web pages for anyone else? and (less then previously) crash flash plugins a lot? maybe its just me
I’ve been a huge fan of Safari since it was Konqueror. The great thing about Safari is and always has been its complete non-intrusiveness. It’s like a tv with nice, simple controls hidden on the sides, out of sight. It just does the web. I’ve never felt the requirement for any extensions. Not even adblock. I’ve got this amazing organ between my eyes and the back of my skull that allows me to block ads just fine. I would call Chrome a close second. The omnibar is nice, but it’s surrounded by chunky icons and the like. I don’t want a TV with a huge bezel.
All that being said, I do not understand the statement “When you start demanding a lot of Safari it’s not great.” In what way? Demanding what? The only problems I’ve had with Safari are usually when some web programmer who thinks it’s still 2001 excludes Safari in their user agent detection.
Chrome is my daily-use browser but only with gfxCardStatus making sure its flash doesn’t eat my battery by playing graphics card favorites.
I used Chrome as my primary browser for several months. Between the constant Flash crashes, bugs (such as inability to scroll while a tab is loading), and the CRAZY CPU usage and boiling hot laptop, I finally switched back to Firefox and I think I’m staying.
Chrome is great, but it’s a memory hog. Safari runs nice and clean.
I use OmniWeb because it allows me to set per-site preferences for appearance, ad blocking, languages, security, and other options. The preferences window has a nice Previous/Next arrowing feature which means you don’t have to keep going back to the Show All view, synchronized bookmarks, the ability to leave breadcrumbs as you surf down the rabbit hole, easily customizable search engines, graphic tabs on the side where there is more room, and it is supported by 1Password too.
I’m not convinced with any browser on my Mac. I’ve been really impressed with the speed in Safari and Opera and find that Chrome tends to use a hell of a lot of power and crash a lot. Unfortunately the extension/app market for the former is no where near as good as Chrome.
Does anyone else have a problem with Chrome where the tabs are unresponsive to scrolling (both platforms, though Windows is worse)? I mean, the tabs are loading, but I’ve been scrolling and loading for years now and it’s only been getting worse even as browser are supposedly getting speedier and CPUs have definitely been getting speedier. It’s most apparent on Gawker sites, especially Giz.
The latest Safari on Lion is pretty awesome actually. It lacks certain bells and whistles but it is a huge performance boost. I use Chrome at work and love that also. I tried safari on Snow leopard at work and it drags.
The question of ‘best Mac browser’ is, I think, moot. More pertinent would be the best 2 Mac browsers as you’re always going to need at least that – no browser displays everything correctly.
I tend to switch between Chrome and Safari more or less equally.
I agree. I’ve been using Chrome for a while now and it’s getting better all the time.
Firefox crashing? On 10.5.8, I use the Firefox nightly build and it crashes less often than Safari. Either way, I’ve grown far too fond of about:config to consider switching.
I love Chrome, but it doesn’t seem to play nice with Silverlight which is needed for Netflix. From what I can tell it doesn’t support GPU acceleration on my new Mac mini. My temps went through the roof watching Netflix on Chrome. Silverlight’s compatibility page also doesn’t list Chrome compatibility past version 4.
I’ve switched to Safari for the time being for web video. Chromes current lack of fullscreen support in Lion is also a downer (but likely a short lived one).
I loved Chrome. But then it went through a stage of just stopping working. I’ll have the browser open for anything from 2 minutes to 2 days (usually closer to the former), and then all of a sudden it drops its connection from the net. Everything else on the Mac works perfectly fine, but Chrome just won’t load another page. This continues until I close the browser, and launch it again…then the process repeats.
I reluctantly revert back to Safari which works how it’s supposed to.
Plenty of Googling has not found any fixes. Has anyone else had a similar experience?
2 about Chrome on Mac:
- no three fingers up/down for home/end, although Firefox lost this in Lion
- F5 doesn’t do refresh on Chrome – can be changed in key binding prefs but this should be working out of the box
These might not be big deals for some but they really bother me.
Having recently bailed on Windows and the PC to world of OSX I’ve just undergone my own search for the best browser. I basically came to the same solution, despite Firefox being my usual browser of choice on PC, Chrome is my favorite Mac browser.
Why only use one browser?
Chrome causes my Macbook Pro (Santa Rosa) to spin its hard drive non-stop, to the point that I demoted it from the toolbar. Any suggestions to stop this?
ive never had much enjoyment with Chrome on Mac. though i use the dev channel so that might be the problem. but the browser either maxes out the CPU (2.0GHz Core2Duo) or takes up a lot of RAM. sometimes it just acts glitchy or doesnt seem to cooperate with certain sites when trying to login or view an overlay.
im still on Firefox 3.6 and while that does glitch up now and again, i still get the full functionality of extensions. Safari seems to be slow as molasses for me. just loading Google , seems to stall for several seconds before displaying the page.
on my iBook i cant use Chrome so i stuck with Camino and the PowerPC version of Firefox 5. Camino ends up having the better performance but lacks add-ons and themes. :\