Which browser do you guys recommend? |
06-16-2021, 11:35 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-16-2021, 11:37 AM by gosocial2. Edit Reason: fix typos )
As a user of multiple operating systems on a single computer, I'm trying to avoid Chrome as much as possible for its legitimized spyware which is not called spyware but acts like one.
On macOS Safari is the clear choice to go for excelling in the following criteria: [*]Speed: Apple boasts it has the fastest rendering engine among major browsers and it turns out that they're telling the truth. [*]Efficient system resource usage: I tested keeping 100 different websites open in 10 windows with 10 tabs teach. Switching from one to another, or a window of another application, copying and pasting content between them could be done smoothly, in contrast to the attempt to perform the same with Chrome, Firefox, Brave, and Opera. Safari takes up less RAM and less electricity (meaning longer battery life on mobile devices) [*]JavaScript engine: faster by a long shot, consumes less RAM [*]Developer Tools: Takes a bit of getting used to if you were trained web dev in Chrome developer tools, but after that, it feels a lot better. Safari appears to be the only browser that opens the source code of a web page (not inspect) in the same tab, so that you can compare the actual web page and its source code side by side - as opposed to 'inspect'(ion), I often need to check what the server-side initially rendered as HTML before JS tweaked the DOM. [*]Privacy: Safari is the most your-privacy-friendly and respectful browser with which you can prevent up to 100% of tracking your identity. Cons: [*]For web developers, there's no escape from testing your project on different browsers. [*]Hard to find certain extensions or their equivalents (although this might change starting last week following Apple's lure in WWDC 2021 calling for extension developers) [*]As part of Apple's fetish to constantly remove a few existing great features from a given product, the marvelous built-in RSS reader in the browser is gone several versions ago. They were wrongfully assuming that if people living in or near Silicon Valley are not big on using a certain feature, the rest of the world does not need that feature. On macOS, Firefox is the second most privacy-friendly browser (if you set your default search engine to one which is not your-private data-hungry) is a CPU and memory hog, thus a nightmare for someone like myself working typically with 3 dozen websites open at the same time in multiple windows and tabs. Chrome used to be similar, but Google guys improved the resource usage in response to declining usage statistics. Microsoft Edge for Mac uses the same engine as Chrome's but has some cooler features such as the immersive reader mode and I think it's backed by Microsoft's ML engines. I felt it is slightly faster than Chrome, but I didn't take the time to run tests eloquently to be able to prove this. For a Mac user doing web development, though, MS Edge is precious, because the Windows version has been using the same engine for now, which reduces the need to switch back to Windows to test your web project as it is the default browser on Windows. Personally, I only test my web project on Windows to make sure fonts are showing up alright on Windows, too as everything else is pretty much the same. Firefox and Edge may too lack many extensions that you know from Chrome, except for online video downloaders. Google started a war against protecting its content monetization on YouTube. As for Windows users, Chrome and Firefox appear to be the fastest and most resource-efficient browsers on this platform. I'm a big fan of MS Edge, but the extra features it has causes it to be number 2 or 3 because of the system resources it needs. Firefox on my list dances between numbers 1 and 3 as its performance is better on Windows than Mac. I occasionally catch Chrome using up to %99 CPU and a high percentage of bandwidth (when it's busy calling home under the umbrella labeled "update-checker") on both Windows and macOS. Microsoft had started to apply machine learning to all of its products to make them better, so I believe Edge is likely to become the clear choice for browser unless it aggressively pries on your privacy. |
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