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Safari

I Switched from Google Chrome to Safari! Here’s Why

by GeeksModo Staff

I did it. I ditched the behemoth browser that is Google Chrome in favor of Safari. And here are the reasons.

#1. Safari is faster

For a long time, the collective response to the above points was “Sure, but nothing is better”. However, recent versions of Safari are faster, sleeker, and better than Chrome.

Seriously, if you haven’t tried this browser out for a while, you don’t know what you’re missing. Even the extension ecosystem has come a long way; the most common tools are already waiting for you. It’ll be an adjustment, but you’ll never look back.

Chrome is a very fast browser… except when it isn’t. When it hangs and gets stuck before loading the page. Safari, however, has always been responsive when I’ve used it. It never lags or crash, like Chrome.

#2. Chrome Drains Your MacBook Battery

MacBook battery life has been a big feature for Apple in recent releases of macOS. Cupertino brought energy impact measuring tools to the operating system, which you can access by clicking the battery icon in your menu bar. If you’ve got Chrome running, Chrome will often show up here.

Chrome also consumes up a huge amount of battery life and RAM, which is terrible when you’re trying to use multiple apps on your MacBook simultaneously. Safari, however, is optimized to work on Mac hardware and uses almost no Power when it’s sitting in the background, in addition to taking up way less RAM than Chrome. Because of this, if battery life is important to you, avoid using Chrome on your MacBook.

Google is reportedly working on the issue, and has made progress, but the job is far from finished. And you don’t have to take my word for it: launch the Activity Monitor on your Mac, then go to the Energy section. Open some tabs in Chrome and the same ones in another browser—Chrome will almost always use more energy for the same task.

#3. Chrome Works in Its Own Way

Unlike Safari, many of Chrome’s features have their roots in ChromeOS, as opposed to macOS. This results into a less than ideal experience.

Most Mac apps close instantly when you press Cmd + Q; Chrome, by default, makes you hold the combo for a while (though you can disable that feature Most Mac apps have their own preferences window; Chrome uses a website in a tab for that.

Chrome is also slower to catch up with macOS features. macOS Mojave introduced Dark Mode in September 2018, which Safari supported out of the gate. But Chrome didn’t implement this feature until March 2019 which is six months later. Safari also has a feature that will turn supporting websites dark, whereas you have to install a Chrome extension to enjoy this feature.

The old notification system was also a mess. Chrome used its own notification setup that didn’t integrate with the Notification Center. The good news is that this is no longer the case, but it was a huge pain for a long period of time.

Obviously, it’s less than ideal to compell a user to learn an entirely separate interface when they’re accustomed to one already. Safari uses the same buttons and symbols as the rest of macOS, which leads to a more seamless experience.

#4. Chrome Extensions Come With a Price

It’s true that in the head-to-head Battle of Chrome vs. Safari, Chrome is the clear winner when it comes to extensions. Even so, a big extension library comes with a price.

One of the main reasons Chrome uses so much of your CPU and drains so much of your battery life is due to installed extensions. Extensions can also introduce privacy problems, as many of them need extensive access to your browsing. As great as extensions often are, their strain on your system can be a high price. If there are a few you can’t live without, don’t forget that Safari has numerous great extensions as well.

#5. Google Is Watching You

While Google and Apple’s interests might seem like they overlap, the companies are structured quite differently. Google’s revenue is primarily ad-based, meaning that as the user, you aren’t really the customer; you’re the product. Google only makes money if it can somehow collect information about you to sell.

While you can tweak Chrome to protect your privacy to some extent, you’ll never be entirely safe with a company whose business model is built on collecting your data. If that sounds Orwellian to you, Chrome on Mac probably isn’t for you.

#6. Apple Watches You Less

Apple’s business model is based on selling you, the user, its hardware. Its software is usually free, and is only valuable as much as it makes Apple hardware more attractive to the customer. The company has a more direct incentive to provide you with a browser that works well with other Apple products.

As a sign of this good faith, Apple introduced a whole suite of privacy protection measures in macOS Mojave. Intelligent Tracking Prevention 2 (ITP 2) is an update to a feature introduced in High Sierra that attempts to combat cross-site tracking, making it more difficult for websites to follow you on the web. It also attempts to scrub fingerprinting, which makes it more difficult for websites to identify you in the future.

#7. No Chrome Support Below Yosemite

Chrome’s system requirements cut off any Mac that’s below macOS Yosemite. Sure, you can update your Mac free of charge, but many people don’t want to for a number of reasons. This includes users on older computers that don’t support the latest version of macOS.

#8. Safari’s Reader Mode Is Great

Have you ever tried to read an article, but couldn’t get past the ads? Safari’s Reader mode cuts through all the bad formatting, strange fonts, and ad splash pages to deliver what you came for: pure, streamlined text. Images, videos, and links are included, all in an easy-to-read format.

#9. Safari Integrates Better With the Apple Ecosystem

If you’re all-in with the Apple platform, Safari is the better choice. All the little aspects just integrate better: your passwords, for example, are managed by Apple’s system-wide tool and synced using iCloud. The same goes for your Bookmarks.
Because I already use Safari on my iPhone, using Chrome instead on my MacBook meant that none of my passwords would sync across devices, which was a major headache. Now, with Safari on my Mac, my passwords are synced across my devices automatically, and I can autofill them using Face ID on my iPhone or Touch ID on my Mac.

Continuity
with iOS only works with Safari. If you use an iPhone or iPad,
Handoff
allows you to go to a site on Safari on your mobile device, pick up your Mac, and go immediately to the same site.

That’s pretty much it. I’m done with Chrome. And the only thing I’ll miss is the dinosaur game.
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or feedback, drop them in the comments section and I’ll answer them.

Tag: Safari
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Safari Isn’t Responding, Keeps Crashing or Hanging, Fix

by GeeksModo Staff

Safari is not working as expected? In this article, I’ll explain exactly what you can do if Safari doesn’t respond, and keeps freezing or crashing on your Mac. You may also see the rotating color wheel or “spinning beach ball”. A couple of users have also stated that Safari crashes when they open the Preferences pane.

Safari is a great and solid browser. However, performance-related problems (freezing or crashing) may occur every now and then.

Sometimes, you may see “Safari quit unexpectedly” error messages.

An unresponsive Safari may cause your Mac to freeze as well If you are experiencing this problem, please try the following steps. Launch Safari between step to see if your problem is fixed.

1. Update

Ensure that your Mac is running the latest versions of the macOS software. Safari is within macOS. That means, updating your Mac also includes updates to Safari. Here is how to update macOS:

  • If your Mac is running macOS Mojave or higher: head over to System Preferences and Software Update. Otherwise, you can click the Apple menu > About This Mac > Overview and then Software Update. And if you see an update, hit the Update Now button then follow the onscreen prompts.
  • If your Mac is running macOS High Sierra or older: Launch the App Store on your Mac and click Updates.

2. Empty Cache in Safari

Emptying all Safari caches may resolve your issue. It is recommended to do this in Safe Mode because Safe Mode clears your Mac’s system cache and may fix glitches. This is also a good thing because if your experience Safari crashes when you want to open Safari Preferences. Here’s how:

  • Power off your Mac.
  • Power on your Mac and immediately press and hold the Shift key.
  • Keep holding the key until the login screen appears. Then release the Shift key and log in.
  • Your Mac is now in Safe Mode. Your MacBook may be a bit slower in Safe Mode. Don’t worry, this is normal.
  • Next, head over to the Finder.
  • From the menu bar, hit Go and head over to Folder (or press Command, Shift, G keys together).
  • Type in the command below and hit Go:
    ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/
    • Erase files by dragging them to the Trash.
    • Next, exit Safe Mode by restarting your Mac normally. Don’t press the Shift key this time.
    • When your Mac turns on, try to open Safari to see if it now crashes or freezes.

3. Safari Extensions

You may be experiencing this problem because of third party extensions you may have. There are two troubleshooting steps you should take:

  1. First off, ensure that if your issue caused by an extension.
  2. If an extension is the problem, then we will need to pinpoint the problematic extensions. Here is how:

Please follow the steps below to turn off extensions to figure out whether they are causing the problems:

  1. On your Mac, launch Safari and in Safari, click Safari and Preferences.
  2. Go to the Extensions tab. Then uncheck all of the extension’s checkboxes to disable them.
  3. Now exit Preferences and check if Safari is working. If your problem is not fixed, you can now reenable the extensions as they are not the culprit. If your problem is resolved, it means that your problem is triggered by one of your extensions. Simply re-enable the extensions one after another until you identify the problematic extension. When you find it, you can simply hit the uninstall button to remove it, update, or
    contact its developer
    for more help.
Tag: Safari
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How to Increase Font Size in Safari on iPhone & iPad

by GeeksModo Staff

It’s difficult to read on the websites that have a smaller font size. To get rid of this, apple has added a new feature on Safari in
iOS 13
. You can easily make text
larger in Safari on your iPhone or iPad. If you want to increase the font size of text on any webpage in Safari on iPhone or iPad, there are a few simple steps which you need to follow.
Here is the step-by-step guide which can help you to adjust web text size with any iPhone or iPad running iOS 13 or iPadOS 13 or later.
Increase font size in safari on iPhone
In the previous version of iOS, you could use the Safari feature “pinch-to-zoom” to increase the font size of a website on iPhone or iPad. With the latest features of iOS 13, Safari has dedicated zoom controls to complement its pinch-to-zoom feature, making web browsing even more convenient.
In iOS 13, Safari has gotten much better Beginning from
managing your downloads
to
closing Safari tabs automatically
it just became easier to brouse in Safari. And now, to make the text bigger on Safari is no longer a pinch-to-zoom!
While you can still read an article by simply zooming in or zooming out, you are required to scroll either way as it doesn’t fit on your screen. But with the latest
Features added in Safari, you do not require to scroll or zoom in to increase the font size of a given website on the iPhone or iPad.

How to Increase the Font Size in Safari on iPhone & iPad

Make Text Bigger in Safari on iPhone and iPad

Follow these steps to make the text bigger on Safari on iPhone and iPad.

  1. Launch Safari app on your iPhone and navigate to a website of your choice, we suggest
    geeksmodo.com
  2. Tap the “aA” icon in the upper left corner of the screen.
  3. Now tap on the larger “A” that appears on the right side to increase the percentage and keep tapping on it until you get the desired text size. It can zoom in up
    to 300%.
  4. You can also decrease the percentage of font size of the web page by tapping on smaller “A” located on the left side. It can zoom-out up to 50%.

It’s that simple to increase and decrease the font size in Safari on your iPhone and iPad running on iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 respectively.

In case you don’t want to repeat the same steps for all the websites, you can just specify a permanent zoom percentage for all the websites you want to read
regularly.

How to Set a Bigger or Smaller Text Size for All Websites in iOS 13 Safari App

You don’t have to use the above method every time to make a text smaller or bigger in Safari. You can set a permanent zoom percentage for all the websites by simply
changing a couple of settings outlined below. Here is how to do it!

  1. Launch Settings App and navigate to Safari.
  2. Scroll down to “Settings for Websites” section and tap on Page Zoom option.
  3. You will find a list of websites under “Page Zoom ON” that you have previously increased or reduced the font size. Tap on that website to set font size of your choice.

You can also move to “Other Websites” section and change the font size depending on your preference

Selecting a smaller font size could render the text difficult to read. Therefore, it’s recommended to keep the font size above 100% for a better reading experience on your iPhone or iPad in Safari.

Final Thoughts!

This is so far my favorite feature in Safari as it improves my overall experience upon selecting my preferred font size. Have you tried this feature
on your iPhone or iPad? If not, give it a shot now by following the above-given steps.

Questions?

Let us know in the comments section below. We also have plenty of other articles that I suggest you check right now.

Tag: Safari
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