Since the inception of the internet, the most basic tool that was required to access the internet has been a browser. Browsers have come a long way since their genesis and have evolved a lot. In the early days, browsers made by different vendors were quite different from each other and had different features that they provided, but since then browsers have grown remarkably similar in all aspects. Two major competitors in this field are Safari and Chrome. Chrome is managed and developed by Google while Safari is an Apple Inc. product.
Both Safari and Chrome use different engines for running javascript-based code in the webpages. Safari utilizes the LVVM JIT engine for Just-in-time javascript processing while chrome uses V8 JavaScript engine for the same.
Since both the browsers are owned by two tech giants that dominate their field, it is a tough choice between these two. Safari and chrome both provide a plethora of features that are common between them. Incognito browsing, multi-tab support, security personalizations, autosave passwords, and usernames are some features that almost all the browsers out there provide nowadays including chrome and safari.
Chrome –
Since chrome is owned by Google, it comes with some of the features and technologies provided by google integrated into it by default. Auto text and website translation, syncing data across Android and iOS devices by signing into them, integrated google drive and email are some features available in chrome.
Google Chrome supports multiple types of media playback including Vorbis, Mp3, H.264, WebM, Theora, etc. Chrome also provides auto-updates and some of the web technologies made by google such as Google Earth only work in chrome. Google chrome is available for all platforms such a Linux, Windows, macOS, Android and iOS.
Safari –
Safari developed and owned by Apple was earlier available for windows and Apple’s own operating system such as macOS and iOS but since after Safari 5, Apple dropped the support for windows. Safari uses Google as its default search engine but also provides multiple search engines as options from which the user can choose as per his/her preference.
Performance –
Good performance is one major aspect that is needed if you want to have a lag-free and smooth web browsing experience. While raw benchmark results show that Safari has better scores than that of chrome but as far as stability is considered, Chrome is much more stable and faces fewer crashes. This will really be beneficial when you are playing online games using the browser. If the browser can process big blocks of code that runs at the same time, you probably will be able to perform better on Chrome. That’s why for example, some of the biggest online casinos in India, recommend their users to play on Chrome browsers. It works much faster and more stable and the FPS that you are getting is higher. As the online games popularity has increased over the years, a more suitable browser is needed – especially when you are playing games or use programs that involve fund transfers and prizes to collect. You wouldn’t want your browser to crash in the middle of a transaction with a chance of losing your funds or progress at least.
One more thing to talk about is the way in which both the browsers handle crash and data recovery. Chrome uses multi-threading for each of its tabs that are opened by the user. This ensures that even if the browser crashes for any unforeseen reason, the other running threads can securely cache the user data before the crash and restore it after a successful restart. While on the other hand, Safari doesn’t work in this way and even if one of the tabs face any complications then the whole browser crashes.
Ecosystem –
Google and Apple, being major tech giants, always want to trap the users in their ecosystems. In the case of Apple, this can be seen clearly as Apple has stopped all the development and support for Safari for windows and all other operating systems other than its own macOS and iOS.
Google too, is making few of its technologies only accessible via chrome and also shows multiple popups and banners asking users to switch to Chrome if they access any of google’s services using other browsers. For example, if you search for, say online casino India on google using Mozilla’s Firefox browser, Google will ask you, again and again, to try out chrome which just becomes a nuisance after a certain amount of time.
Development and Security –
Both safari and chrome are under active development and are regularly updated. Though safari is regularly updated as a part of the operating system itself whereas chrome needs to be manually updated. So for people who are not that tech-savvy or don’t want to do everything on their own will find Apple’s implementation for the update mechanism much better.
Talking about the cross-device bookmark synchronization that is available in both the browsers, Apple seamlessly integrates this feature across all its operating systems which works flawlessly and efficiently. Whereas on the other hand, chrome provides bookmark synchronization too but users need to tweak the settings a bit on their own which not all users are ready to do.
In terms of security, the most common issue is with password saving that mostly all the browsers provide nowadays. Apple uses its Keychain password management technology for saving and synchronizing passwords while google’s chrome by default saves the passwords within chrome itself.
Talking about plug-in and extension support, both chrome and safari allow the installation of external plug-ins but in this aspect, safari doesn’t allow the installation of extensions from third party sources. While in chrome you can download and install third-party extensions with the format .crx.
Resource consumption –
Both Safari and Chrome are software, and all software requires certain resources to run efficiently. As stated earlier, chrome uses multi-threading for each of its opened tabs. This is good for preserving data in case of a crash and improving performance but it also makes chrome power and resources hungry. So if you are on a portable device such as a laptop be ready to have your battery backup reduced by a significant margin whenever you use chrome. Although safari isn’t as power-hungry as chrome, it still manages to provide fast and stable enough browsing experience.
Conclusion –
As far as the browsing experience and feature set are considered, both chrome and safari are equally good. So choosing any one of these two browsers totally depend upon the device you are using and your personal preference.
