Breaking up With Chrome is Hard, But Right, to do

Safari, Firefox, Chrome

In a rather unexpected piece this week, The Wall Street Journal’s personal tech columnist Joanna Stern recommended quitting Google’s Chrome browser. Instead, she said users should turn to Safari or Microsoft’s Edge.

Firefox, Safari, Chrome

Safari The Best Browser on Mac

I say unexpected because Ms. Stern has previously explained why, like many people – myself included,  she liked using Chrome. Her arguments for quitting are though as compelling as the reasons to stay. What is more, Chrome’s “RAM hoovering, battery draining and privacy disregarding make it easy to not look back,” she wrote. Unsurprisingly, the columnist’s latest tests found that using Safari yielded far better performance on a Mac than its Google-created rival:

Safari used about 5% to 10% less RAM than Chrome, Firefox and Edge in my tests. Compared with Chrome, Safari kept the 13-inch MacBook Pro running an extra 1 to 2 hours on a charge. Plus, the laptop was a lot cooler and quieter, with the exception of in-browser video calls.

Obviously, compatibility across Apple devices is excellent if you just use Safari and we know the significance Apple places on security. However, it’s worth noting that iOS 14 will allow users to set alternative default browsers. Ms. Stern recommended that Safari users should have a backup option as there can occasionally be web app compatibility issues. She also noted that Edge works on Apple devices and that Mozilla Firefox “a good option, especially for the privacy-conscious,” but it didn’t perform that well in her battery-life and performance tests.

Making The Move From Chrome

I stopped using Safari and switched to Chrome a few months back. While it added a couple of hoops to jump through when moving between devices, I regularly got messages from Safari warning me that sites I regularly use were “using significant memory” and was fed up of it. Such issues never arose on Chrome. However, in the name of journalism, I’m going to follow the recommendation, go cold turkey, and take Safari as my one and only. I’ll let you know how it goes.

8 thoughts on “Breaking up With Chrome is Hard, But Right, to do

  • Like you guys, I avoid Chrome if you want website compatibility with Chrome, without the spyware, try Vivaldi.
    Firefox on everything, with NoScript and AdBlocker, Safari by default on a Mac, but Vivaldi is excellent, and it happily defaults to DuckDuckGo, which I also use as my preferred search engine from Firefox, only going to Google when DDG doesn’t give me the hit I’m looking for.

  • Safari needs the design flaw fixed that lets websites know that we are using a “content blocker”. Also the one that allows popups asking visitors if they want to sign up for notifications. Oh one more, auto-correct medium gray text on a white background to either dark gray or black.

    1. O/T a bit but…
      Some years ago I got pushed out of my IT role by a guy who could talk a great game but actually didn’t know ****. No prob I just changed roles in the company. A couple of years later he declared that the company was switching to Chrome and it would be pushed out to all machines by Group Policy. The reason he gave was it was the much better security over any other browser.
      My buddy who is a programmer and I had a hearty laugh over that one.

  • I tried to order some stuff online recently and was unable to do so. It seems that they said I should install Chrome, but I told their tech person that there was no way I would ever do that.
    Their site doesn’t work properly for processing payment with Firefox or Safari.

    I use Safari mainly and Firefox for the few times that a site won’t work with Safari correctly.

    1. I have been using DuckDuckGo primarily on Safari and Firefox. Got all my kids on it now too. They don’t seem to miss Google much. Occasionally I will go to google, but that is less than 10 times every 3 months mostly now.

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