> “This perhaps explains why Apple has not launched a rival search engine or invested in the development of its Safari browser to the point that it could become a credible challenger to Chrome,”
I'm sorry what? On iOS, Safari is superior to Chrome in every way.
People use Chrome for the cross-platform Google account integration
On iOS, Chrome is Safari. Apple outright bans competing web browsers on its platform; what they allow is reskinned versions of Safari, which is basically a way to allow Chrome and Firefox to save face and support bookmarks-syncing, but not a genuine alternative browser.
That's like saying games that use Unreal Engine are basically reskins of each other. Yes, they both use WebKit, but as browsers they're quite different, and the data that Google collects when you're using Chrome is quite different than what it gets when you're using Safari.
I'm not sure to what extent this is true but here's an anecdote.
The other day I was at the local climbing gym where they have a "Moonboard"-clone - basically a spraywall with LEDs so you can program different boulder problems by selecting holds and having their LEDs light up to indicate which are part of the problem.
The application to control it is a web app. It didn't work for me on Safari, but it did on Firefox.
I thought it could be some difference in configuration but another iOS user confirmed it worked for him on Firefox but not Safari on his phone either.
Please point where in my post I made this claim before making accusations.
I know for a fact that Firefox uses WebKit as a rendering engine on iOS. I'm just responding to the claim that "On iOS, Chrome is Safari" and "what they allow is reskinned versions of Safari, which is basically a way to allow Chrome and Firefox to save face and support bookmarks-syncing".
I have given one example where Firefox behaves differently than Safari on iOS, and my experience was further validated by another iOS user who had never been able to use the system until I suggested they try Firefox.
I have seen other websites that behave subtly different between the browsers. Orion is another example of a browser that behaves quite differently on iOS despite also using WebKit - which they also use on the desktop apps and those also behave differently from desktop Safari.
I would add that on macOS as well Safari is far superior in many aspects e.g. battery life, efficiency, performance.
Also it argues that Apple takes more time to think through features rather than just blindly adding them. For example only allowing Web Push for apps installed to the phone rather than the bombarding the user.
Yeah, I think most complaints about Safari come from web developers. I do a fair amount of web dev yet use Safari as my default browser. As a user, it's great. It seems faster and leaner and it's definitely batter for battery life. The one downside is the extension ecosystem isn't as good as Chrome, but Ad Guard works ok (not as good as uBlock Origin, but good enough) and that's really all I need.
It’s shocking that Safari is the only browser that seems to aim specifically for not eating battery and not turning your laptop into an oven. With the ever rising importance of mobile platforms you’d think these things would be a bigger priority at Google and Mozilla, especially since Google has not one but two mobile platforms, but instead the focus seems to be on gee-whiz bells and whistles of questionable value.
Firefox is very good on macOS these days. Very low memory and CPU footprint, great battery life.
I haven't run numbers but it feels similar to Safari in that I can use it pretty much all day without reaching for the charger - that is, unless I'm doing a lot of video confs.
Weird. I have Firefox with quite a few extensions and probably about 50 tabs open (most are dormant, but still), and it's not showing as an energy hog.
Unless I'm using video conf or other very heavy websites, CPU usage tends to sit between 2 and 5% with an occasional spike.
12 hr Power in activity manager shows 19.50 (Watts, I presume) which is by far the largest in the list but it's also more or less the only app I've used in those hours :D . Activity Monitor itself usually has an energy impact of ~30.
This is not wrong. I use Chrome because I use a lot of other Google tools, but Safari is clearly faster, lighter, and trouble free to the extent I have used it. Chrome isn't a necessity on MacOS.
I'm sorry what? On iOS, Safari is superior to Chrome in every way.
People use Chrome for the cross-platform Google account integration