I’ve a net browser confession to make: I’m an inveterate tab hoarder. I’ve tried to vary. I’ve tried to cull open tabs and tried to withstand opening new ones — however one way or the other the open tab counter simply retains on rising. At this level, I feel I’m past saving.
What I’ve discovered is that I would like an internet browser that may accommodate me, that has discovered to simply accept my tab-based failings with out judgement or chastisement. And after a few years of attempting, it seems that Safari isn’t that browser.
The tab downside
Safari treats tabs in the identical means that Google Chrome does (and the identical goes for all Chromium-based browsers like Edge, the truth is). That’s, the extra tabs you open, the smaller every particular person tab will get. If, like me, you’ve got dozens and even lots of of tabs open at a time, every one is shrunk right down to the dimensions of a pinhead within the tab bar.
Evidently, that is fairly anxiety-inducing, because it’s a ache to search out whichever tab it’s that I’m searching for. Certain, I may at all times, you recognize, filter my tabs, however who is aware of after I would possibly want that article on the proper solution to iron my shirts? It might be proper now. Bookmarking it and forgetting about it merely isn’t an possibility.
As an alternative of being extra measured with my tab utilization like a correct grownup, I’ve taken the straightforward means out and switched to a greater browser various: Firefox. Not like Safari, when Firefox reaches a sure tab threshold, it allows you to scroll the tab bar. Tabs keep an affordable measurement and by no means shrink right down to an unmanageable dimension. It’s enabling my unhealthy habits, and I like it.
Sharing is caring
I’ve really used Firefox for over 15 years now, and I’ve beforehand written about why I like it a lot. However whereas it was at all times my go-to Home windows browser, Safari nonetheless clung on whereas I used to be utilizing my Mac. Lately, I lastly pulled the plug and converted to Firefox on my Mac, and I couldn’t be happier.
As I’m somebody who recurrently makes use of each Home windows and macOS, I discover myself often sending content material from one gadget to a different. Apple’s ecosystem is nice for that (good day, AirDrop), however going from Home windows to macOS and again once more isn’t so simple.
That’s manifestly the case in relation to sending myself net content material. Apple pulled Safari from Home windows years in the past, so if I’m studying a webpage on Safari on my Mac, I’ve to e mail it to myself if I wish to learn it on my PC. It feels prefer it’s 2005 another time.
If I exploit Firefox on my Mac, although, I can merely use its Ship Tab to System function to ping the web site throughout to Firefox operating on my PC. It takes only a second and doesn’t clog up my e mail inbox. The irony is that Firefox is basically organising the form of walled-garden ecosystem that Apple has lengthy perfected.
Enjoying catchup
Regardless of what I’ve stated up to now, it wasn’t simply Safari’s tab administration that pressured my hand, though that performed an enormous half in it. For one factor, each Safari and Firefox are a few of the greatest browsers for privateness and have a plethora of privacy-protecting options in-built. In that regard, switching to Firefox on my Mac didn’t really feel like a step again in any respect.
However there’s one thing else, and it comes right down to a extra elementary downside I’ve with Safari: it continually feels prefer it’s taking part in catchup. We needed to wait years earlier than it bought a number of shopping profiles, one thing rivals have lengthy since baked in as customary in their very own browsers.
Even worse, we needed to wait till November 2023 to get favicons within the favorites bar. That’s proper, web sites saved to the toolbar have solely simply gained this key visible cue, actually years after each different browser applied the function.
Ultimately, it was a mix of all these components that led me to surrender Safari on my Mac. I used it for years as a result of, because the default macOS net browser, it was straightforward. However generally you’ve bought to transcend the default to search out one thing higher.
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