[whizzkid]

It is funny how my browser preferences has changed over last 5 years.

2014 me as a developer had Chrome as number 1 browser for both development and all rest. Firefox once a month just to check cross browser compatibility. And Safari was just installed without me using it.

2019 me uses Safari for everything except development. Excellent power consumption and UX. Firefox for development. And lastly Chrome for all web apps that only work on Chrome. ( Google Meet etc. ) I feel much much better that I am not dependent on chrome.

[mraison]

It’s nice to see a bit of Safari love around here. Some sites occasionally break, but I really like the macOS/iOS integrations. SMS code autofill on desktop Safari (via Mac <-> iPhone communication) is pretty awesome.

[inferiorhuman]

It’s nice to see a bit of Safari love around here.

The one thing I cannot stand is that fucking URL/search bar (I detest these things in general, but Safari has the worst implementation). Most implementations (e.g. Firefox and Chrome) will encode the space and go on their way, meanwhile Safari translates a space into a search unconditionally — because clearly I want my wikipedia viewing history to end up in my search history FFS. I'm also not a fan of view source opening in a dev tools frame versus a new tab/window like Chrome and Firefox.

Speaking of the dev tools, I was just poking around and saw this in the console:

[Info] Successfuly preconnected to https://securepubads.g.doubleclick.net/

[Info] Successfuly preconnected to https://aax.amazon-adsystem.com/

Interesting as I'm running uBlock Origin (which is, admittedly, more neutered on Safari). I know I've disabled that prefetching before, but I no longer see any options to turn it off. Speaking of UBO, Safari loves to claim UBO will increase energy consumption and slow down my browsing (HA). I wonder if the "disable plugins to save energy" option means that Safari will kill uBlock whenever it feels like. :/

[xfitm3]

Doesn't that defeat the purpose of MFA?

[imcoconut]

I noticed this the other day and was very pleased.

Also, if you have touchID then you can use it on safari to autofill login credentials. I just wish safari had an active plugin ecosystem like firefox (or chrome) does.

[r00fus]

I have mostly switched over to Firefox from Chrome for all work related stuff except for anything Google Drive related (esp. Google "new" Sites - that has resulted in lost data and a failed demo).

So yes Google, Chrome will always likely be running on my system, but in almost exactly the same place IE did 10-15 years ago. Is that something to be proud of?

[toper-centage]

Yup. And even for Gmail and YouTube, Google is trapped in a tab container in Firefox for being naughty.

[kijin]

My preferences haven't changed since 2007 when Chrome didn't even exist. Firefox for everything; Safari once in a while to check browser compatibility; ditto for IE & Chrome; and The Back Button for apps that only work in one browser. It's been a while since I stopped caring about performance and power consumption because I have more performance and battery life than I know what to do with anyway.

I don't regret having stayed with Firefox through the years when Chrome was all the rage. IE6 was the most popular browser in the world when I first tried Firefox, so I know how it feels. Other browsers come and go, but Firefox keeps burning bright.

[j-conn]

Personal use aside, I've been meaning to try out firefox for development after seeing some of their release announcements here. Any tips for people like me who are accustomed to chrome devtools? Are there some things you can do in firefox that you can't in chrome, and vice versa?

I do look forward to the chrome devtools release videos, always learn something new.

[robin_reala]

Firefox in general has much better CSS debugging, and somewhat less good JS debugging. If you’re going to try it out then I’d suggest looking into its grid / flexbox visualisation.

[sombremesa]

It depends on what you do on a daily basis. There are definitely things you can't do in Firefox - chrome://inspect, for example, which is how a JS dev can debug their Jest tests (though for these workflows you can just pop Chrome or Chromium open for a moment).

Otherwise, Firefox has the better API for add-ons and a more 'open' approach in general, so there are a lot more things you can't do on Chrome that you can in Firefox than vice versa. I have yet to see a decent tree tabs extension for Chrome, for example. (They exist, but none compare to the one available for Firefox).

[fraudsyndrome]

I work with both and generally they overlap quite a lot for the basic stuff - for general ones, you probably just have to get used to the colours.

I use firefox for dev and browsing but my job requires me to check out chrome more because it's used the most. One thing I find myself using firefox for is the feature of visualising a flexbox which chrome doesn't have.

[dexterdog]

I use Firefox for meet calls every day

[spullara]

I only use Chrome on Google. Safari for everything else. Best power usage and better protects privacy. No reason to not let Chrome see me use Google...

[nebulaserfer]

deleted

[MH15]

I've stayed with Safari for all web browsing mainly due to it's fantastic power consumption. Still use Chrome for development, but I find Safari's UX so compelling I'll still have it open for reference.

Safari needs a duplicate tab button though.

[clumsysmurf]

My favorite Safari UX feature is 'show tab overview'. Its far better than the Firefox overflow menu.

[scoopr]

I duplicate tabs with CMD-L CMD-ENTER combo, which I find passable. I suppose an item in the context menu would make sense though.

[heyoni]

That and a way to turn off transition animations...

[grahamburger]

Google Meet works fine for me in Firefox fwiw. I'm in meetings several hours a day on Firefox nightly on a Mac.

[arohner]

Brave is great for those "it only works in Chrome" sites

[tagawa]

Or Vivaldi.

[dvcrn]

I also completely switched to Safari a few years ago mainly for power consumption (how can you all run chrome on battery??), but there isn’t really anything I miss in it these days.

It also integrates very well with my other Apple devices, and works with AppleScripts and keyboard maestro to quickly do complex macros and talk to other apps.

[iaml]

Google meet works in firefox (at least dev edition).

[shandor]

It didn't about 9 months ago. Great if the situation has improved. Thanks a lot for the heads up, hopefully this works and lets me uninstall Chrome!

[lscotte]

It works, just not well in my experience. Meet is about the only thing I still use Chromium for.

[komali2]

It didn't today for us.

[akerro]

> It is funny how my browser preferences has changed over last 5 years.

Sure, we're still testing, if stuff works on IE10...

[duhi88]

You shouldn't be! Microsoft has deprecated it and that should be reason enough to get your users off it.

IE11 isn't much better, though...

[fallenatreus]

This looks perfect way to solve the current dilemma of choosing a "daily driver", but isn't it convenient to have stored all of passwords or details in profile in one browser or is there a way to keep everything in sync. I definitely would like to give a try to Safari.

[nuclear_eclipse]

Use something like 1Password and you can have your passwords in every browser or app, on desktop and mobile.

[suyash]

I use for Safari for everything including Development.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

Are there Chrome-only webapps you use that don't just work with a User-Agent switcher?

[shrikant]

Most Google apps only just about "work" on Firefox. They're clearly optimised for Chromium and it shows.

I use Firefox for all my browsing needs except for Google apps, for which I keep an install of Vivaldi around. I only really fire up Chrome if some stupid internal workplace app refuses to work on anything else. It truly is the new IE.

[themattress]

Not quite the same thing and I know it’s not fully rolled out yet, but I enable u2f support in Firefox and haven’t had any issues with my Yubikey... except when I try to add a new Yubikey To my gmail account in Firefox it makes me switch to Chrome because “u2f isn’t supported”.

At least let me try and if it fails I’ll file an issue with FF so they can fix it and improve instead of locking me out with half-truths.

[whizzkid]

Most of them probably will work on other browsers with user-agent switching. But i do not want to hack it and risk having a problem in middle of my work. They can easily inject something that is only available in chrome and there goes my video conference :)

[iscrewyou]

I would love to switch to safari. What do you use for ad-blocking?

[Wowfunhappy]

UBlock Origin supports Safari: https://safari-extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.el1t.uBl...

[m-p-3]

Pi-Hole is a nice DNS-level adblocker, works with anything.

Otherwise I discovered nextdns.io recently, which seems to work well too.

[mraison]

I find AdGuard pretty good, but I’ve only started using it recently.

[azretd]

I use Wipr both on IOS and MacOS and it’s been great.

[ravivyas]

1Blocker and I also use LittleSnitch as a blocker.

[nisuni]

You could also try ublock origin.

[kreetx]

Given the privacy features Apple is introducing they could also put some more resources into making Safari appeal more to developers.

[o10449366]

I sorely want to switch to Safari but I can't port all of my Chrome extensions over.

[deca6cda37d0]

Which ones are you missing?

[baggy_trough]

The only thing I like about Chrome is the native personas.

[fouc]

It would be nice if right-clicking on links gave an option of opening it in another browser. That would make it easy to stick to a multi-browser setup.

[GeneralMaximus]

I use Choosy for that. See https://www.choosyosx.com/

One of my favorite apps on macOS.

[OrgNet]

A lot of people got tricked into using Chrome.

[joshuakarjala]

What do you recommend for adblocking on Safari?

[edraferi]

uBlock Origin, same as anywhere else.

https://safari-extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.el1t.uBl...

[Spiritus]

Wipr: https://giorgiocalderolla.com/wipr.html