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It’s weird how this cycles. Firebird/Firefox was originally an amazingly light browser (discounting some niche Linux ones that embedded Gecko). Then it got hug

by salmo 5y ago

It’s weird how this cycles. Firebird/Firefox was originally an amazingly light browser (discounting some niche Linux ones that embedded Gecko). Then it got huge, and Chrome was amazing. And it seemed impossible for FF to be able to work out the technical debt. Now Chrome often makes the fan kick in on my MBP and Firefox is lighter again in CPU and memory. I think Safari is probably best in this regard on this machine, but I just don’t enjoy using it. Not sure why. Maybe I’m old and it’s just change. Sadly, I did hit my first work website that only worked in Chrome this week. No FF, no Safari.

toyg 5y ago
> I think Safari is probably best in this regard on this machine, but I just don’t enjoy using it Safari always gives me the feeling of being too basic. The extension ecosystem is very small, and settings panels try their hardest not to actually give you any options beyond the essential ones. It's a browser for people who endure the web, not enjoy it.
- handrous 5y ago
  Safari's respect for battery life and ability to limit the harm a misbehaving/disrespectful tab (which is lots of them, these days) can do to overall system responsiveness are what keep me using it, and those definitely help me enjoy the web, to the extent that it can be enjoyed anymore. It's the best at both of those of any major browser I'm aware of, and in fact I don't know any that are even close—something like Surf might match or beat it, I guess, being very small and using the WebKit as the rendering engine, but I wouldn't bet on it. [EDIT] but yes, FF and Chrome/Chromium destroy it on a feature basis. I just value those other things so much, and both of those options are so bad at those things, that I prefer Safari anyway.
- chipotle_coyote 5y ago
  I don't think your last sentence is a particularly generous summation. :) Maybe I'm an anomaly in the HN crowd, but I never really got into extensions even when I was using Firefox or Chrome as a daily driver. I have an extension for 1Password, an extension for a read-it-later service (for years Instapaper, lately GoodLinks), and somewhat grudgingly, an ad blocker. And sometimes a user style sheet extension. I've tried other extensions at various points and they've never really stuck, not even the "vertical tab" style extensions that I want to love but always find ugly and distracting. (OmniWeb, RIP, is the only browser I ever used that had what I thought was a great implementation of this.) And I use Chrome daily at work now, because there are a few internal sites that require it (and one that inexplicably requires IE 10, which Chrome turns out to be better at faking than Safari), and... it's fine? But it feels just a little slower, it's harder on the battery, and there's very little about it that I miss when I'm back in Safari on my personal Mac. Maybe if I was deep into web development again, this would change, since Safari's dev tools always seem to be a few steps behind Chrome's. Maybe there's some magic can't-live-without extension I could find on Chrome or Firefox that would sway me to stick with one for the long haul. But for years, I've enjoyed the web, and I've enjoyed it on Safari. [shrug emoji]
lucian1900 5y ago
I didn’t like Safari at first either, but after using it for performance reasons I prefer it in general now. Simple sane UI and it helps that it syncs to my phone and table seamlessly.

by salmo 5y ago

toyg 5y ago

> I think Safari is probably best in this regard on this machine, but I just don’t enjoy using it Safari always gives me the feeling of being too basic. The extension ecosystem is very small, and settings panels try their hardest not to actually give you any options beyond the essential ones. It's a browser for people who endure the web, not enjoy it.

handrous 5y ago
Safari's respect for battery life and ability to limit the harm a misbehaving/disrespectful tab (which is lots of them, these days) can do to overall system responsiveness are what keep me using it, and those definitely help me enjoy the web, to the extent that it can be enjoyed anymore. It's the best at both of those of any major browser I'm aware of, and in fact I don't know any that are even close—something like Surf might match or beat it, I guess, being very small and using the WebKit as the rendering engine, but I wouldn't bet on it. [EDIT] but yes, FF and Chrome/Chromium destroy it on a feature basis. I just value those other things so much, and both of those options are so bad at those things, that I prefer Safari anyway.
chipotle_coyote 5y ago
I don't think your last sentence is a particularly generous summation. :) Maybe I'm an anomaly in the HN crowd, but I never really got into extensions even when I was using Firefox or Chrome as a daily driver. I have an extension for 1Password, an extension for a read-it-later service (for years Instapaper, lately GoodLinks), and somewhat grudgingly, an ad blocker. And sometimes a user style sheet extension. I've tried other extensions at various points and they've never really stuck, not even the "vertical tab" style extensions that I want to love but always find ugly and distracting. (OmniWeb, RIP, is the only browser I ever used that had what I thought was a great implementation of this.) And I use Chrome daily at work now, because there are a few internal sites that require it (and one that inexplicably requires IE 10, which Chrome turns out to be better at faking than Safari), and... it's fine? But it feels just a little slower, it's harder on the battery, and there's very little about it that I miss when I'm back in Safari on my personal Mac. Maybe if I was deep into web development again, this would change, since Safari's dev tools always seem to be a few steps behind Chrome's. Maybe there's some magic can't-live-without extension I could find on Chrome or Firefox that would sway me to stick with one for the long haul. But for years, I've enjoyed the web, and I've enjoyed it on Safari. [shrug emoji]

lucian1900 5y ago

I didn’t like Safari at first either, but after using it for performance reasons I prefer it in general now. Simple sane UI and it helps that it syncs to my phone and table seamlessly.