Google Chrome’s overwhelming popularity on macOS is quite a feat for a non-default browser, but it makes sense. In its early days, Chrome had a reputation for being lightweight and fast. It was better than Safari and Firefox, people said.
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It may have been true then, but not true anymore. Safari beats Chrome because it’s more energy-efficient, better at protecting your privacy, and obviously, works with the Mac environment better. Here’s why you should avoid using Google Chrome on Mac.
1. Chrome Drains Your MacBook Battery
MacBook battery life has been a huge feature for Apple in recent releases of macOS. Mavericks brought energy impact measuring tools to the operating system, which you can find by clicking the battery icon in your menu bar.
If you’ve got Chrome running, Chrome will often show up here. 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: open up the Activity Monitor on your Mac, then head 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 job.
2. Chrome Works in Its Own Way
Unlike Safari, many of Chrome’s features have their roots in ChromeOS, as opposed to macOS. This leads to a less than ideal experience.
Most Mac apps close instantly when you hit Cmd + Q; Chrome, by default, makes you hold the combo for a while (though you can turn that feature off). 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 respect this feature until March 2019—half a year later. Safari also has a feature that will turn supporting websites dark, whereas you have to install a Chrome extension for this.
The old notification system was also a mess. Chrome used its own notification setup that didn’t integrate with the Notification Center. Thankfully this is no longer the case, but it was a huge pain for far too long.
Obviously, it’s less than ideal to force a user to learn an entirely separate interface when they’re used to one already. Safari uses the same buttons and symbols as the rest of macOS, which leads to a more seamless experience.
3. Chrome Extensions Come With a Price
It’s true that in the head-to-head showdown 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 plenty of great extensionsThe Best Safari Extensions for Mac UsersThe Best Safari Extensions for Mac UsersSafari is probably the best browser for Mac users, but you can make it even better with a few well-chosen extensions.Read More too.
4. 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, which means that as the user, you aren’t really the customer; you’re the product. Google only makes money if it can somehow acquire information about you to sell.
While you can tweak Chrome to protect your privacy7 Essential Privacy Settings for Chrome OS and Google Chrome7 Essential Privacy Settings for Chrome OS and Google ChromeUsing a Chromebook, but concerned about privacy? Tweak these 7 settings in the Chrome browser on Chrome OS to stay secure online.Read More to some degree, you’ll never be completely safe with a company whose business model is built on obtaining your data.
If that sounds Orwellian to you, Chrome on Mac probably isn’t for you.
5. 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 harder for websites to follow you on the web. It also attempts to scrub fingerprinting, which makes it harder for websites to identify you in the future.
6. 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 variety of reasons. This includes people on older computers that don’t support the latest version of macOS.
7. Safari Is Actually Really Good
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. Try some essential Safari tips and tricks15 Essential Safari Tips and Tricks for Mac Users15 Essential Safari Tips and Tricks for Mac UsersLook beyond the obvious and unearth the usefulness of Apple's fast and energy-efficient web browser.Read More to get acquainted again.
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. 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.
You Can Always Try Another Browser
Though the Chrome vs. Safari debate includes the two heavyweights of the Mac browser battle, there are other options. If you dislike both browsers, you can always look to our list of best alternative browsers for Mac users9 Great Safari Browser Alternatives for Mac Users9 Great Safari Browser Alternatives for Mac UsersIt is not that Safari is a bad browser or that it has a limited feature set -- you may just want a different focus, or major updates more than once a year.Read More. Why not check out some of Opera’s coolest features and give a lesser-known browser a chance?
Explore more about: Browser Extensions, Google Chrome, Safari Browser.
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- In the development community we call Safari the 'new IE6'. It's a terrible, non-compliant browser, and encouraging people to use it is naive and irresponsible.
- Agreed, I've been heavy boatloads with the wheel of death while using Safari, so I've been using chrome and even when not perfect, it works best my battery, doesn't heat as much and lasts fairly the same.
- Safari's Javascript engine is particularly reminiscent of IE6. It commonly breaks on code that executes perfectly in every other browser.
- Thanks for sharing this information with us. This information is really interesting and good. Safari is best for macbook and read modes in safari is really great for read an article and chrome main problem is its drain battery life.
- Unfortunately, Safari is sooo slow to open and pages load slowly as well. Hate it. Even when I upgraded my memory on my iMac it is still horrible.
- use brave. this article is a waste of time.
- By carefully selecting the features, or lack thereof, one can justify the Safari is better than Chrome, or that Chrome is better than Safari, or that Firefox should be the only one to use or even that IE is the best browser ever invented. It all depends on one's likes and dislikes. AFAIAC, the only reason not to use Chrome that matters is that Chrome is spyware from Google. Nothing else matters.
- I totally agree your comments. The number one feature that this article is missing for comparison is how well a web browser shows a website.
Chrome works on any website, especially those requiring scripts and filling forms. Safari, on the other hand, fails many times in showing a website correctly. Clicking on a link with Chrome, I know 100% that the website is exactly what it is. It's not true for Safari.If you don't get your job done, it's a waste!
- safari also uses significant energy not only chrome...
- I have Adblock on Chrome. I'd like to switch to Safari, but no matter how many times I try I cannot get Adblock installed on Safari. I'm not a techie, but Adblock on Chrome was a dream to install. Not so with Safari.
- Ahh, dearie me. Mac fanbois'll never change.....
- One thing holding me back from switching to Safari is the lack of google input tools. this normally isn't a problem for people, as Mac supports input for many languages, but they have not integrated a native Cantonese Pinyin input, which Chrome has. When Apple decides to give Cantonese speakers an option to use Cantonese pinyin (jyutping or Yale) to input Chinese characters, I'll gladly switch. until then, I'm using chrome.
- If you are concerned about your privacy, but still need Chrome - the Brave browser is your answer. It’s built on Chromium, uses the Chrome Web Store for plugins (be careful, most plug-ins have privacy issues), but it doesn’t track you for Google. In fact Brave blocks all fingerprinting and tracking!
- Unfortunately Safari is soo slow and crappy
- Tired of being told 'Safari won't open' certain critical(to me) websites when Chrome is necessary. I wonder if I need a new MacBook, built in 2011 and still running Snow Leopard.
- You forgot one very important point about Chrome. The auto Sign-in feature. It doesn't matter what Google service you're using, if you sign into, say Gmail or Drive, or whatever, Chrome will automatically set up a Chrome user and sign in. Even if you disable this option via Chrome flags, it STILL forces sign-in via the browser. This is plane and simply the biggest reason I switched to Safari.
- StartPage is a private search engine much better than DuckDuckGo. SP uses google search and just strips out the personal identifies. It displays results well and gets the same hits as google unlike DDG
- I have just stop using Chrome to day, affter reading on another website a subject about privacy, and they explained Chrome is working so hard to register everything we do, where we go and so on that it used a lot of memory, I use Chrome sinsce exactly 2005, not yesterday LOL, the % of used memory on Macbook is in the task bar with Chrome I was all the time in the upper 80% sometime even over 90%, I had no idea at all it was due to Chrome, now with Safari, I am under 60%. 57% exactly I have imported all my bookmarks, I will see whats happen with my many password? And at least for the moment I will try to forget about my divorce with Chrome after 13 years of marital life :-)
- You cant still use Safari for Facebook calling. It says you must use Chrome or something better than Safari for this.
- You cant use Safari for Facebook video/audio calling,
- Stop using facebook. It's another chrome, only worse.
- Safari is an awful browser and will leave you with a very bad experience of the internet whilst surfing on modern websites and web apps. Safari fell back extremely on either supporting or proper implementing state of the art technological features that the other browsers support. If you're not a Chrome guy, use Firefox, or Opera, hell even Edge is better than Safari today.
- Woooow... wait a second; after reading this article (being on Chrome) I close it immediately and start using Safari, changes in my Mac Mini were impressive!!
First my airplane at least land, the internal fan stops from accelerating, second, the temperature go downs and finally the performance was notable better in my Mac Mini, (Core i5 with 16 GB, no solid state drive jet).
I will move now to Apple apps, no doubt on that. Thanks for this article, it was so useful. - Hi, I have been using Safari for the last 4 years with out any problems, but now when I open an email and open the attachment with it I get a grey Safari logo where the attachment is. The log is there, doesn't move, it's on all web pages. The only way to get rid of it is to close Safari down. It doesn't happen with Mail, Chrome or FireFox. Help
Regards, John - I love your article and agree strongly that the integration and energy efficiency of Safari are way superior, among other things. And Safari is my default and ususal browser However, there are 2 things, as of January 2018, ( but I stick to OS El Capitan) I wonder: 1) Chrome is notably faster to load webpages and moving around. No proper test, but clearly and notable to me . 2) Several webpages still do not support Safari fully. Here are a couple of cases where not all things worked weel in Safari: ww.ebags.com, afip.gov.ar, target.com, http://www.starwoodhotels.com, striderite.com, alamo.com.
Just wondering how Apple lags behind Chrome, and why companies do not pay enough attention to Mac users (usually higher spenders, on average). - I agree regarding safari. it's so much better in recent years. but the really huge and I mean the real killer reason why you cant rely on safari is that there are still so many important websites that do not support safari. and most dont tell you until you get bogged down in some nightmare problem and you hear, 'oh yeah, you can't use safari on our site.' im going crazy with missing transactions in my bank of America online banking or my grocery deliveries from Safeway keep coming to me like someone else wrote the orders and I am ready to scream at customer service because they dont even think apple exists. they say use Firefox or chrome, well Firefox is so busy being full of itself that it cant master the basics of autofill and auto page. and chrome tries to exist as if apple doesnt. and we see how well that works for Microsoft. haha
- None of the 10 reasons are good enough technically speaking.
Copy pasted not-proven random tweets, complaining about temporary files. Really.
Chrome never sets off the fans on my mac. Even if it would - blame the webpage, a Gmail tab can easily consume 1gb of memory.
This article is just marketing for Safari. - A simple test will prove who the best browser is. Just visit the most resource hungry website out there, which is.. Facebook :) And scroll through the newsfeed.Safari is silky smooth and loads the content below the fold 5 times faster, with no real impact on the scroll animation, whereas Chrome can barely scroll without a glitch, even after fully loading the new content.
- you must have a problem with you computer. on my 2011 mac everything is running fine and smooth in chrome.
- Thing is, I start off on Safari, then is won't work, I switch over to Chrome and it works straight away. I wish I knew why this was. Could it be anything to do with needing to update my ioad?
- I have one of the new MacBook Pro and came across battery being drained literally 2% every 2 minutes. After reading your post, I decide to check the activity monitor on the Mac and you were right, the CPU and battery consumption was off the chart. So after shutting down chrome and google drive it's starting to be normal again. I tend to like chrome much better than Safari because it's performance and easily access to google plugin, plus I prefer it for my development testing. I'm starting to slowly move away from chrome because I would rather battery life.
Appreciate the help.- God, save us from your troubleshooting techniques. So was it drive or chrome ?
Just FYI drive had a bug , causing issues on Mac (it's fixed). It wasn't Chrome.
- Their is one big reason WHY YOU SHOULD NOT USE SAFARI : It is untestable for Linux user who are mainly developpers. What does it means : A lot of website are just broken on Safari because their are untested. As long as Apple will keep this policy, I could not tell people to use Safari. So if you like bugs on websites : go to Safari. If you like modern HTML 5 websites : go to chrome or firefox.
- Uhm, no John, that's just BS.
Any remotely serious web developer agency acquires the hardware it needs its website tested on. Or, alternatively, can make use of cross-browser test tooling (browserstack for instance, but there's loads of others).
Stop spreading disinformation because you have a personal dislike for something.
- On the massive accumulation of data issue I'm pretty sure Google is smart enough to track you everywhere you go using Chrome regardless of which search engine you use in Chrome.But Chrome is useful as a sort of web app platform for Youtube TV, and Google apps in general as they already can track you when you're signed in using their apps regardless of browser or operating system.But I only reserve the use of Chrome on MacOS for Google apps (like YouTube TV, etc.).
Safari is great on a Mac but I'm old school about not using the browser that comes with your OS for security reasons (like Internet Explorer or Edge on Wind0ws).
However both Apple and Google seem to have greatly improved security in recent years.Now I'm babbling but Google Chrome is constantly patching itself as opposed to Safari on a Mac. So sometimes I've leaned on Google for security at the price of privacy.I have to use different browsers for different sites. Period. - I tried and still trying both, but I can't see differences. In this moment, with 2 articles of makeuseof.com opened, Safari is consuming the same energy as Chrome 30 minutes ago. Is it because of summer? Don't know, but really no difference. On the Pro (in this moment I'm on the Air) I mainly use Safari.
- I am not a Mac user but I agree with you. I use Edge on my PC because it is so much more efficient and better integrated with Windows. And Chrome is a CPU and memory hog, kills my 4GB ram.
- If you have 4gb of RAM, you live in 2014.
Gmail will eat up the same amount of ram both in Safari and Chrome.
- I've been a Chrome user for a long time simply because it's the only browser that syncs across my multiple Linux desktops (at work and at home), my Android phone, and my Mac laptop. I'm in the Google ecosystem, too. I do agree with the author that Chrome doesn't integrate well with macOS, but that's something I can live with. I use a Mac-like Chrome theme, which helps a bit. I do miss the Safari feature that shows the thumbnails of all open tabs.
- Even though this article is a year old, it's still true. Chrome sucks the big one on Mac OS. It's absolutely insane what a huge CPU hog the software is. Makes the fans on my MB Air run like crazy, and the hardware gets really hot. I'm ditching Chrome & going back to Safari.
- I made the switch from Chrome to Safari today because my MacBook Pro has progressively been getting hotter and hotter. Once I started looking into it I realized it was Chrome. So far so good. Running the exact same apps as I do every day with Safari as my browser and my MacBook is room temperature.
- I so agree with above - get rid of Chrome from your macbook - getting access to websites using chrome is a nightmare - it just doesn't do it - it just sits there and nothing happens - you have to go to 'home' and then put in your request - my personal experience - Safari for me!!!!!
- Considering power consumption, Chrome does NOT show in the list of apps with high power consumption any more (Google changed that about a year ago). But waking up from standby and connecting to a WLAN does take more time when Chrome is active. And yes, it does use a lot of CPU power. But Safari does not know about my synchronised (and encoded) passwords from Windows, so Chrome does make life easier for me.
- As we speak, I have 7 tabs open in Chrome, and Chrome is using 50% of my Mac's CPU(s) and a minimum of double the energy consumption as Safari, which is also running, and has about 50 tabs open. Chrome blows on macOS. Oink oink.
- i'm really pissed off why some websites don't work as well on Safari than on Chrome.
- Safari on Mac is a piece of garbage. Saying that as a mac user. It is glitchy and lacks extensions... It's not useful for work. Basically it's a newbie crap.
- Ha, this newbie disagrees. For myself Chrome is incredibly clunky I can literally hear my MacBook struggling to keep up with simple browsing.I'm curious what extensions you find indispensable that don't have a safari equivalent. For html inspection I've found Safari to be fine, just a little adjustment from Chrome. There're a couple Chrome extensions that I need but I simply open Chrome when I need those tools. The've never been enough to push me back to Chrome full time
- I could take the time to draft a lengthy response to this. But I'm too busy running a successful business that relies heavily on my constant use of Safari, as it has for the past eight years. I wouldn't go near Chrome without a portable fire extinguisher on my desk.
- Wooow you have a business. Neat. Should I be like 'oh that guy is so badass' or something? Ok. You're so badass. I run 2 companies. For real. Will I get more applause now?It doesn't change the fact that safari is a quite gimmick browser...
- How is Safari a gimmick browser?I'm a web developer and I must say that I appreciate Safari so much more than Chrome. Chrome may have a few more advanced web developer tools, but the entire experience is much cleaner in Safari. Chrome isn't as security-conscious as Safari, which can be frustrating when viewing a few websites (but that's the fault of the web developer). Also, I actually like that Flash isn't just built-in, and that PDFs aren't viewed in some Chrome rendering plugin (they look just like they would in Preview).Chrome, like most Google products has a super clunky UI and is just horrendous to look at it. It baffles me when I see other developers using it full-time.
- BEST APPLE AD THAT I'VE EVER SEEN lol
- Yes this article is indeed an advertisement, without any technical truth behind.
- Well I have as school laptop and they say to use safari because it is easier to download assignments that we need to fill out and complete. they just pop up apparently. However, I like the layout of chrome, and I find it to be much faster and easier to navigate than safari.
- Just to confirm that I switched from Chrome to Safari (Macbook Pro Retina 15 inch 2015) and got a material increase in battery life (an extra hour I think) and the Macbook runs much cooler on battery. I use gfxCardstatus to force use of the integrated Graphics when on battery and I found that Chrome always uses the discrete GPU and ignores the gfxCardstatus setting. It seems to use Turbo boost on the CPU more as well. When I switched to Safari it sticks to the integrated chip and the CPU temperature seldom goes above 45 deg C and the fans are much quieter. I still prefer Chrome as a browser and its quicker but Safari is fine and worth the extra battery life.
- I use multiple OS variants and it is no longer the case that one browser will bring cross platform harmony. For years I have used Firefox, but on my Macs it has gotten memory intensive to the point of crashing. Google, who seems to be in a 'I wont port to you war' with everyone, doesnt support keychain access on a Mac. That rules them out on that platform. Safari is good only on a Mac. So it looks like the Mac will be a one off and there is no real choice but to use Safari. Apple better beware because it is looking more like Microsoft every day!
- As of 2016, I'm using Opera. It uses all the goods of Chrome, but without significantly slowing down my Mac. I don't know what is behind, but you can use most of Chrome extensions if you install an Opera app that enables Chrome extensions. One downside is that it cannot run Chrome apps. (Apps and extensions are different beasts..., which is a bit confusing.)I use all four browsers (Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera), depending on its stability and so on. But Opera is my main browser for now.
- Chrome still integrates in the other UNIX based OS - Linux - far better than ANY Apple products - at least Google supports all operating systems whereas Apple's products are more of the 'you will have to buy into my ecosystem or else'.
As a web developer, I also appreciate browsers that are supported cross platforms to be able to support all users of our web applications. Both IE and safari are limited here, the only options are Firefox and Chrome. When Apple releases Safari on Linux, I will be MORE than happy to give it a try. - In my experience none of the items listed here are real issues, some are perceived issues (of which I agree with, but they are still only perceived issues, not real ones), but the real issue for me and my other is that since 'el capitan' my macbook's battery sucks down to nothing (rather literally) in just a few hours with the lid shut and it is blamed on chrome, all of which makes no sense as the lid is shut so the proprietary hardware/OS combo should be in full control and able to tell chrome to go do something with itself (please spare me any excuses, none are legit), and the problem started immediately after the update, not a while after, not a while before, not when chrome was update, not gradually etc.... Everything I read on this blames Chrome and the solution is to dump chrome which for safari (of which is not privacy friendly, not that chrome is). I know the problem has been introduced with the OS and Apple needs to fix what even it broke and I am very annoyed currently and have absolutely no desire to move everything from chrome to safari because Apple f'd up and because I do not like safari.
- Is it just me, or is it ironic that this page has a memory footprint of over 800MB?
- FAA REQUIRES USING GOOGLE CHROME ON A MAC TO COMPLETE A STUDENT PILOTS APPLICATION. I HAVE DOWNLOADED AND INSTALLED AND GET THIS MESSAGE WHEN I TRY AND RUN IT. MESSAGE SAYS PROGRAM CAN'T ACCESS ITS DATA FILE...
- did it also lock your keyboard in upper case? or is it forcing you to yell all the time? :D
- For me there is no way around Chroma anyways because of syncing and because I'm using Google for basically everything. Like, I can't think of any situation where I'm on the computer doing anything different than Gaming on my Windows machine, where I'm not using one or more Google products. And I'm doing web development and it's just sad to see Safari being called better here when developers hate it for lack of support of newer features. It's even been dubbed the new Internet Explorer in terms of compatibility with the latest features of Javascript, CSS and HTML. This is NOT good and not what I want people to install, although I can agree Chrome always shows up in my power menu. Haven't used Safari for anything but downloading Chrome though, so I can't tell whether it really performs differently.
- I have a brand new macbook (latest model with force touch) and battery status says safari is consuming too much battery even with only one tab opened. Chrome is also on with 6 tabs... On my old macbook (2012) I could not run chrome at all because it crashed and everything was so slow... I hated it. I don't think chrome is the issue but its extensions... I suggest you run from them.
- People confuse this battery tab all the time. You can't say Safari is using too much battery just because it's the only thing listed in the battery usage window. If you have one tab open on Safari of course it's going to be listed there that's what it's supposed to do. That means your computer is working properly.The way to find out if Safari is using you battery is click on Safari in the battery tab and it should take you to Activity Monitor. Or you can just open Activity Monitor and click the Energy tab. This is where it will tell you how much battery you are using and what is using up the battery. If it's a low number don't worry about it.
- I found out having Chrome running on my MBP is interfering with battery charging. It is switching charging cycle from charging (orange) to charged (green) back and forward and percentage of battery is decreasing.After I close chrome everything goes back to normal. So I deleted Chrome of mycomp and I'm not missing it so far.
- Hi! I'm running a MacBook Air with El Capitan and have both Chrome and Safari installed. The reason is because I have a gmail account and bookmarks tied with Chrome. So, I don't have to tweak much just add the account in the MacBook Air and I get the best of both worlds. Even that, I have noticed that the MacBook Air runs rougher with the Chrome. Also, I like to use two windows running at the same time. I run Chrome side by side with Safari. Chrome is running a movie / on Demand cable channel and I'm surfing the web with Safari. What I have noticed is that the MacBook Air gets hot on its side by the keyboard, CPU working hard, and the cooling fan running rough. I know this is too much for the MacBook Air and that the MacBook Air should only be used for research, writing papers, college, and business. Which I do happen to do. I like the MacBook for writing my short stories and novels because its light weight, but sometimes I like to have fun with it. So, I sometimes push the envelope. Just my two cents. Thanks for your time in reading my comment. What are your thoughts?
- It sounds like you are using Chrome and knowing that it's causing damage to your computer you are still using? Heating up your computer can cause wear and tear on your battery. If Chrome is causing your fans to run constantly and you are only using it for steaming video and then you do work in Safari then just switch to Safari. It is not that much to do to sync bookmarks from browser to browser. My advice quit being lazy, switch to Safari and save your computer. I notoce too many times someone complaining about battery life too soon in their Macbook Air's lifecycle and the main browser they are using is Chrome.
- The problem here is easy to fix, use a normal and good OS. NO OSX.
- Chrome does the same thing in Windows. The only person that I know that still uses it, is my 13 yr old nephew. Everyone else is on either Firefox or Safari.
- I agree with You. No problem with Chrome on my side - I prefer Waterfox, but Chrome is sometimes better.
For me there is so big tensions between Apple and Google, that there is big chance that OS is doing something to keep people away of the Google products.
- I go between the two, but mostly use Chrome. Why? Because it's faster, especially with Google products such as Maps and street view. Plus some of the extensions are really nice, such as Keep and save to Inbox.I'm on a deskop so battery life is a non issue.
- Opening Youtube in Chrome is another worst battery drainer. No wonder if you loose the entire juice within an hour.
- I agree with pretty much all of what you're saying, but I find the lack of extension support in safari completely unacceptable in this day and age. I make heavy use of lastpass, ublock origin, tab suspender (so I don't have to give up my few hundred tabs, but they don't need to be resident in ram either), and sidewise so i can track all of my open tabs among quite a few others. Firefox could be a reasonable alternative, it has most of the plugins, however, it's support for multithreading, interprocess sandboxing, and overall speed at loading web pages is rather lacking when I last looked into the matter about 6 months ago. So while it may not integrate, work on vastly outdated computers (most of the apps on the app store don't work with outdated OS's either), and may take up a bit more of my computer's resources, I'll still continue using chrome 95% of the time.
- You do realize ublock is available for Safari and Mac has a free version of LastPass that is actually free and better called Keychain Access.I switched from LastPass to Safari and it's way better. No need to pay for something that apple is giving away for free and that will sync across all your devices instantly. Lastpass was horrible on my iPhone. I always had to copy and paste my usernames and passwords. With iCloud ot works great on the iPhone in Safari and even autofills login fileds. I don't feel you have a leg to stand on when you complain about the lack of extensions in Safari when you only mentioned 3. Of those three Safari has solutions for all of those. Safari has uBlock and Lastpass extensions. As far as tab suspending goes you should be able to do that on your own. I don't see your extension usage going beyond what Safari has to offer.
- Thank you for this informative article. It's easy to understand & very helpful. I'm a new Mac user & have a lot of trouble with my MacBook Pro running slow & hanging up. I don't even know why Chrome is on there, but you're correct, it feels completely out of place on my Mac & I'll be happy to be done with it.
- I switched to Opera for many of the above reasons - love it! Fast and doesn't drain my machine. Also, I can use all the Chrome extensions I need.
- I came up to the same your conclusions 2 years ago. I absolutely agree with you.
- I will never use Safari, period. The reasons to use it outlined in this propagandist drivel are outright laughable.
- Only problem I have with Safari is for some reason (don't know if it's my network or what, but it doesn't affect Chrome), often when clicking on a link it'll just 'sit there'. No indication that I've clicked, no progress. Sometimes it eventually goes through, sometimes I have to open a new tab to get it to work.I'm also an unusual case in that I love Google's services but prefer macOS. First thing I normally do on a clean installation of my Mac is undock Safari, Notes, Photos, iTunes etc in favour of Chrome, Keep, Google Photos, Google Music. I still vastly prefer Google Music to the unholy mess that is iTunes and the strange mish-mash of services it has with Apple Music and 'legacy' stuff like iTunes Match. Partly this is because I have an Android phone - iOS feels a bit like iTunes now, an ageing relic of the Noughties that hasn't kept up with the rest of the world. Still having no weekend scheduling on 'Do not Disturb' (and no way to let specific apps bypass it) is one of the real bugbears with me.
Also if I want to do anything from my work desktop (Windows), I'd have to go through iCloud, which still feels like a beta 5 years in with its missing features and slow interface. Want to type an iMessage from the work desktop? I actually have to run Teamviewer (now binned after the recent hacking fiasco) or some other remote desktop to a Mac Mini at home in order to do so. Basically I ended up using my iPhone as a Google phone, so went the whole way - but if you use Google stuff then you're going to want Chrome on the desktop ideally.However it is a breath of fresh air after using Chrome for a while - it's the first time I've heard my fans slow down in a long time. I think I'll have to switch for sanity.I do wish it wasn't 'all in Apple' vs 'all in Google'. It'd be a much nicer world if they'd play nice and stop trying to force people to use their entire ecosystems.- So why did you by an Apple computer just to install Google on it? You could of saved a ton of money just getting a chromebook.
- Er, there's a lot more to a computer than the browser! (Unless it's a Chromebook)For example, RAW photo processing, which is not possible on a Chromebook in any reasonable way (I know there are some early attempts to provide cloud-hosted processing, if you have the bandwidth to quickly upload your 32GB shoot)That said, I was more relaxed with money and more entrenched in Apple's stuff back in 2011 when I got the Macbook. I've since hopped off the Apple cart and have a refurbished Thinkpad.
- I've been a google fan also since the invite party days. However, on my mbp it slow down my system, hog the memory and doesn't just work well. I switched to safari, the difference in speed and is very noticeable. Safari browser is faster while browsing the web. I don't like the switch so far, as the safari does things its own way then I was used to chrome. but chrome isn't just up to pair on El Capitan. So until then, safari will be on as the main browser.
- Safari was so slow I decided to try Chrome as an alternative. It works. I'm sure there's some reason why it was taking a minute or more to get into anything each time I opened Safari, but I don't know or care what it was, because switching to Chrome fixed everything.
- Do you guys and gals not hear (well, read...) yourselves? You're celebrating Mac for the trouble third-party applications -- several others were mentioned in comments -- have in integrating with it. Sure, some of that is entirely on the third-party companies, but the common denominator is Mac. Windows was shunned for the same practices, albeit, understandably so. You can't deny that if this were flipped with any other company, you would not be championing it so. Please quit with the double standard that you feel being a Mac user affords you. If Mac is great at anything, and it most certainly is, it's great at getting people to, at least momentarily, suspend their objectivity in it's favor.
- You can't blame Mac for Chrome when Chrome is obviously the one that is a hassle on your system. Just look at they way it's the only application to install a ton of files on your system including the hidden ones. If you're used to Windows then that is the issue not Mac. Windows file structre is horrendious hence the need to partition hard drives. Also you fail to mention Chrome only ships in 32-bit for Mac. So be biased all you want, but at least use facts.
- Here's a fact: On Mac, Chrome went 64-bit only with Chrome 39 in 2014.
- Mac Book Pro here; Capitan. Safari browser. Considering using Google Drive as a type of Portal for board of directors of nonprofit. But to print from Google docs, etc., I would have to download Chrome?? My Canon Pixma 882 is not Google Coud compatible, so I’m told I would have to dowload Chrome. I have downloaded the latest drivers for the printer; but no change in compatibility.
Any suggestions? - I have a problem... pretty much my favorite three browsers don't work all that well on my MacBook Pro. Firefox, Safari, Chrome - each has its own set of problems, things I don't like about them, et cetera. I keep trying to settle on one of these three as my preferred browser, but after a few weeks/months of usage, I inevitably end up running into a problem that becomes a bit of a deal breaker...Right now it's the fact that Chrome runs relatively well on my machine, while on the other hand I don't find Safari to be all that awesome. Safari does its own thing differently from the other browsers, which is in keeping with Mac's and Apple's way, but I happen to also own a Windows PC and I have to work with Windows machines in my office... I would prefer to work with either Chrome or Firefox as they are cross-platform; that way I might be able to sync my bookmarks across devices...I can sort of do that with Firefox but it is probably the worst of the three. It has quite a few features that I really like but it seems to be unstable and slow in Win. and even worse on Mac... Chrome is alright but I could never get it to sync my bookmarks properly, and one day it even deleted a bunch of bookmarks I was trying to organize...Now I'm trying to see if Safari will scratch my itch but I always find something that I think is really goofy about Safari that the other browsers don't do. My latest complaint: Google Drive works atrociously in Safari... should have suspected as much, haha. For some bizarre reason, things become unclickable on a regular basis and it makes it impossible to work; I'll select one item in the browser window, and after that I can't seem to interact with the rest of the page in any way...
- You have a windows machine and since you dislike the mac so much sell it and just use the Windows machine in your office. It has Firefox and Chrome. No need to worry about Safari anymore since you hate it and you hate Apple's way.
- I've recently switched to Safari from Chrome and the speed plus smoothness is very clear on a Mac computer compared to a Windows computer. Safari works surprisingly faster than Chrome on a Mac!
- Is it me, but nobody is complaining about ads every millisecond. Adblock plus works great in Safari. My biggest complaint about Google is the Teriyaki on a toothpick, Jehovah Witness, in your face advertising instead of content. I'm on this page reading because I am reconsidering an ecosystem for a business platform. Browsing gives me the same experience as shopping for a new car and a salesman. Advice?
- Adblock plus is not blocking ads. Search for another adblocker. To find out which one works the best browse a couple of the same pages that create popups while using different popup blockers to see which ones actually do block the ads.
- There was no reason for me to use Chrome on Mac. Safari suffices pretty well!
When I attempted to upload a folder to google drive, it prompted me to use Chrome; a folder upload is possible only on Chrome.Downloaded Chrome, but shut the application completely once the given work was done.- Create a folder in Drive then open the folder on your computer and select all the files then drag them to the folder in Drive.You shouldn't have to download chrome for something that simple. I manage my multiple Google Drive accounts on Safari daily.
- I found this thread as it looks like you cant get advanced google analytics tools such as the page analytics extension, tag manager. Also facebook power editor is chrome only.I use keychain quite heavily so switching wont be fun. Chrome looks busy too.Apple is losing me on software. I only deleted photos, and numbers etc last week.
- Hi! I'm a college student and I'm looking at a MacBook Pro 13 or 15 in display. My school requires chrome, Firefox, silver light plug. Will these work on my system?
- Hi Connie, You can go ahead with any Mac. Those three softwares will work on Mac OS X :)
- Thanks for this. I've noticed the performance and speed issues using Chrome against Safari. Recently switched back to Safari as too many issues slowing up my Macbook using Chrome making it almost unusable at times. I've used Chrome for years having switched from Firefox and liked it's clean, simple look.I miss some of the extensions I use everyday in Chrome. Hopefully they will start to appear for Macs or I'll still need to revert to Chrome every now and then. I prefer to have everything in one place, working as intended not crashing my machine - yes even Macs can't cope every now and then and I've realised Chrome is probably the main culprit.
- My guesses for the root cause of Chrome resource hunger on Mac is:
* Tabs with flash generally eat up CPU (maybe a buggy implementation)
* Video decoding also triggers high usage so probably Chrome uses different codecs or the decoder doesn't run as optimal as Safari
* It's harder to tailor to each OS idiosyncrasies while maintaining a uniform UX across platforms and keeping the code base manageable. - I used Firefox for a while, until a few years ago I switched to chrome because of the reduced CPU usage. Then it broke, so I went back to Firefox, which is better in every way I know of. I'm not going back in the foreseeable future.
- Yes, it definitely makes your CPU work harder than usual... I use an old macbook early 2008 with Lion on it and it automatically updated itself to the version 49... And let me tell you it is a nightmare! it won't run the extensions like adblock, chrome just freezes them and they stop working!i had to install the previous version (47) which works way better and OMFG! it was another nightmare trying to disable the auto update on this thing, i had to look and look for the right path to delete the damn programs resposible for auto updating... and this is it:/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/that's where it keeps the scripts to auto update, just delete them and it will stop auto updating itself, do not instal the version 49 on your Lion OS, NEVER!
- I'll show you an app do disable Google Update on OSX if someone will show me where I can find old versions of Chrome browser?
- Long time Mac user (and owner or nearly every Apple product down to the Watch..stand), but currently experimenting with Android (bought a Nexus 5X for testing my app there) and actually enjoying the difference another OS makes. It's a refreshing thing after so many years of well iOS perfection to just play around with apps and settings and notifications coming from everywhere.I am currently using both my iPhone 5s and the Nexus and the transition is easy since I decided to stick with Gmail and platform agnostic apps (like wanderlist, evernote, last pass and so on) to minimize my platform dependance.The Safari versus Chrome debate finds me in the Safari camp as a user, since I agree that Chrome has its own agenda and will never comply with Apple's philosophy. So I have a problem syncing my bookmarks but this is not really an issue, since after initial transfer, little change is happening (most of my time is spent on apps).
- I have a lowly 6 year old Mac. I've been using Firefox for a long while for it's small memory footprint, but it just feels so alien on the Mac, the UI everything. I've been switching between Chrome and Safari off and on, and from my experience Safari is less resource hungry than Chrome and runs circles around Chrome on the Mac when it comes to performance.The only thing I'm am really missing are proper favicons in tabs (I really want that visual cue, I can't remember all page titles to recognise them immediately…) and any decent kind of bookmark synching with Android.But right now I'm back on Safari, it just supports all the OS X native technologies and is better integrated. Also the only extensions I care about are 1Password, Ghostery, Save to Pocket and SaveFrom.net YouTube downloaders, which all are available on both browsers, so I'm good.
- Chrome is certainly not as efficient as Safari but then again the same can be said for Edge or Internet Explorer on Windows. The native browser always has a benefit of being because of its close development with the OS. Case in point is Chrome works very well with Chrome OS nd can run perfectly fine on 2GB RAM and a Celeron CPU. Try that on the same week hardware with Windows or OS X? What I can't understand with OS X is why Chrome is so bad? Google actually requires most employee's to use Mac's so it boggles my mind how they tolerate Chrome on Mac's? You would think they would fix the battery issues pronto. Most likely they don't see this as the big issue because most likely their facilities are filled with ample AC outlets to keep their Mac's on power supplies. I use Windows, Mac's and a Chromebox and for me the native browser works best on all three. If you like a different one on Windows or OS X your stuck with its idiosyncrasies on the OS. Of course you have no choice on a Chrome device.
- OK, so I've been told I need to buy my child a laptop for school so he can be taught to use Google Chrome. (He needs voice to text technology due to his learning disability). My first thought was a Macbook, as all of our systems at home are i-based, but now you have me re-thinking…What do you recommend? (It doesn't have to be anything fancy, he's 11). We have some funding to use, so money is not a factor either…Thanks!
- This whole article is just a chrome bash, and factually incorrect.Safari uses non public API's that apple does not make available to developers, and these API's allow safari to address the OS directly.Safari is also the worst performing browser in terms of being compliant with modern HTML5 web standards. Google can not simply do things the 'apple' way because apple is lagging behind in their HTML5 adoption.No one is forcing you to install Chrome or to use it and last time I checked it was free ... So what is your actual point here? All I can take away from the article is that you are a very angry individual. This is not journalism.
- I don't use Macs, and I use Chrome, but that's false. Saying Chrome isn't resource hungry on battery devices is crazy.Also, of course they don't have to install it. They choose to install it for convenience. Its not lazy journalling. I'm sorry you got offended because someone hurt your preferred browser.
- Totally agreed - Chrome is resource hungry. My point is their is a reason for it. Apple has access to API's that chrome does not.Chrome is not installed on a mac by default. People choose to install it, people choose to use it, and their are other browsers available should the user require an alternative.Google is giving users a choice.So again whats the point of this article? Where's the journalism? You have expressed ten opinions - not ten fact's as to why people shouldn't use chrome.
- I opened the same tabs on safari and chrome (youtube and netflix). They took about the same time to load although chrome uses about 150x more CPU and 30x more energy. However, Safari uses over 2x the RAM as Chrome does. Is that supposed to happen?
- I am on a high end Mac Pro, so Chrome's excesses don't bother me. I only switched from Safari a few years ago because at the time, Chrome offered some cool extensions that Safari did not. Most of those are now available on Safari, but now that I am comfortable with my solid workflow on Chrome, they need to give me a reason to switch back.
- My macbook CPU with chrome frequently reach over 90C and sounds like Niagara waterfall. Safari is better for mac.
- Reasons I can't use Safari:-Poor handling of latest web technologies.
-Relatively worse off extension performance.
-Lacking choice in the extension market.
-Terrible bookmark handling.
-Generally slower sometimes significantly slower than Chrome.- Not true. Safari preforms BETTER on acid3 tests than chrome does.
- I used chrome which sucks.everytime when I open several windows, my computer got stuck and died.
- Same, for the past month when i was opening serveral tabs on chrome my macbook would freeze and only way i could get my laptop functioning again would be to turn it off using the power button and switch it back on, after a month of this I just now deleted the app, it keep making my fans and start and heat up the device which has never happened in the year I've had it. I now use both safari more so than firefox.
- I had chrome open, and guess what? Chrome takes 42,052.27 Avg. energy impact, while Safari only had 29.44!!!!!!!!
- On Safari, but thinking of switching back again. Better experience with Chrome especially when I'm a heavy Hootsuite user ( Hootlet). And I never seems to get Gmail on Safari to work - which makes everything harder when buttons and tabs stops responding. Anyone with same experience?
- I switched from Safari to Chrome a few years ago. At the time, Safari suffered of latency problems (is it solved?). Never looked back on Safari but this article push me to test it again soon.
- I like Safari better but need Chrome for Amazon video because Safari only supports Silverlight for Amazon video as yet. No html5 so Chrome is by default my browser for that. I agree that Chrome is not so great for Mac's and its surprising given that Google mainly requires Mac's for employee's and I would think Chrome is used? But I think the culprit in performance with Chrome is more due to plugins and specifically PepperFlash which is google's own version of Flash. Any web sites that has Flash content really brings up CPU usage in Chrome. Its really bad and many times lately crashes Chrome or freezes it. If you turn off Flash totally you will find Chrome behaves much better. But Safari definitely holds the advantage in saving on battery.
If you are using a Mac and need battery life Safari is the browser and second is Firefox. Chrome is really the worst choice. - Thank you for the article, course I prefer Safari(being on a mac and all) but for a few things I was inclined to use Chrome. whatsapp for web to name one of few, on your suggestion I've used the Safari soley all day today. Thank you!
I mean I've not really smashed it as I normally do with Chrome i.e. tabs and tabs open for a day or more, sometimes video content too but Safari has done well; if nothing but for the fan speed!.And please whoever doesn't like the article, don't diss the author. Manners. - CMD-Q holding combo in my opinion is one of the better features in Chrome since a lot of action is happening around the Q button: W - Close tab, A - Select all, Tab - Change app, ~ - Switch App window. So once in a while hitting Q by mistake is a real possibility for me.But if you don't like it, fine, you CAN disable it in menu: Chrome -> Warn before quitting.While Chrome isn't native to OS X as Safari, I feel like they are doing their best. Some of the features are not native since it is a multi platform browser. Safari isn't. Which in my opinion is not a possibility for someone like me who isn't invested 100% in Apple ecosystem and won't ever be.Also I would suggest you looking for h264ify chrome extension which will greatly reduce the issue with video playback on youtube and keep your computer cool and nice, in the price of bit more bandwidth.
- This article seems like 2 or 3 valid points stretched out for the clickbait-style headline (which nobody argues that they work, but doesn't necessarily make it respectable journalism).1, 2, 3, 4, and 7 are all basically the same thing here. Chrome does things its own way instead of the Mac way and it causes a lot of inefficiencies (battery life, processing, etc.)5 seems like an obvious lack of even an attempt to understand google's App system and how Chrome apps differ from bookmarks. As far as I'm aware (though I'm no expert), their apps make it more efficient than running purely on HTML, so if you're using google's web ecosystem on chrome (Docs, Youtube, etc.), or anything else with specific Chrome apps (OneNote), the experience will be better than in other browsers.6 just sounds like whining.8 doesn't really matter much, since if a user is using one of those operating systems, they don't really have a decision to make on whether to run Chrome or not?9 and 10 only kind of count if you're wholly bought into the Apple Ecosystem, even then, if you're logged into Chrome on multiple devices, you can access the same tabs, bookmarks, etc.
- I am in college and there are some web based programs we have to use for classes that do nof work properly in Safari. Those program's support have told the professors that we need to use chrome or sometimes even Firefox depending on the program.
- But safari is f****** slow on my latest mbp
- I agree with Dushan, this is ridiculous and sad that Makeuseof has fallen this far. It used to have real articles based on fact. I'm unsubscribing - there are enough reliable sources of information out there that I don't want to waste my reading time on hatchet jobs. I and over 100 users I support use chrome without any of the made up isssues I'm reading of here.
- The energy use criticism is not made-up—it's a well-established problem. Chrome also does a lousy job of going to sleep. I put my MacBook Air to sleep with 80% battery and a bunch of safari tabs open, wake it up 10 hours later, and it'll be at something like 79% battery. Do the same thing with a bunch of chrome tabs open, and it'll be more like 50% battery left.The rest of the article, yeah, a mixed bag, and highly subjective. Frex, I don't care about the notifications integration, because there's nothing I can do with a web browser that I want to have notifications for. Plus, I don't use the OS X notifications system, because Growl is so much better, so I only care whether something plays nice with growl, rather than Notification Center.
- I should mention that One note is a Microsoft product. The folder mentioned (only accessible through Chrome) is because One Note online is enabled through a Chrome extension so of course it is only accessible through Chrome. But it is not really a part of Chrome.I have also noticed a slowdown while using Chrome on my Mac. Anecdotally, it seems Safari is better on the Mac. Things appear to get worse when you add flash enabled applications (Zynga games, etc.)
- When I made the BIG SWITCH to Mac back in 2010, with a refurbished MB Pro, I discovered Safari. Always been happy with it, but sometimes used Chrome. Hardly any more. But what I have noticed in the past year since moving to Yosemite on my iMac (haven't made the leap to El C yet), and still using Safari, my iMac gets pretty darned hot. A lot of processing means a lot of energy consumed means a lot of heat. Why?
- This article is spot on with my experience. I loved Chrome until it wrecked my MacBook Pro's ability to function - around the time Mavericks came out. First it was the fans. Then fans and battery life. Then it was fans, battery, and spinning beach ball of death for every tab or app I opened. I reached out to Apple and Google and finally just deleted Chrome and migrated to Safari. There was a thread on Google help for over a year that only ever got 'we're working on it' type responses every once in a while. This despite the significant number of people posting about all these same problems. My MacBook Pro (late 2011) never fully recovered. I upgraded to Yosemite and to 16GB RAM and it is faster. But it still occasionally lags (spinning beach ball) when nothing but Safari is open. I removed all the Google files Chrome created, but still wonder if there is some incompatible file somewhere slowing things down.
- Very whiny article, not a lot of real *value* here, just some random things that annoyed you, the author. Poor read, and a sad attempt at rebellion.
- The wonderful review of a macfag
- 'Fag' I'm surprised you've not been banned byrne moderators... Wonder if the 'N' word would have generated almost no attention...
- Where is the science behind any of these claims? If you are going to bash a product at least prove with real numbers that what you say is true. People will take your argument seriously then.
- You're anti-google
- I have a wonderous 27 inch Mac desktop. I use Safari and have resize each page to take advantage of the screen's size. And I have to do this each time I open that page. Tiresome and annoying. So..... I use Chrome, which doesn't have this problem. And it may just be me but I can't discern one tab from the next at the top of the browser. Again, tiresome and annoying.
- I would gladly switch back to Safari, if I could only have the same experience I have with Chrome, when using the Delevoper Tools.
The ones provided by Safary are counter intuitive and lacks a lot of feature I just can't miss.When and if that day ever comes, I'll go back to Safari.I don't really care about extensions, profiles or synchronization between different devices: I just badly need that Developer Tool. - I feel trapped yes - because i am forced to use the Google Drive app on the Mac.
But on the other hand some pretty common things like 'View Page Source' and 'Inspect' and responsive web testing as part of the Inspect element are avalaibale in Mozilla and Chrome and somehow lacks on Safari. Basically Safari is a very casual average-Joe experience, though fast and bateri effiencient, yet slow on feature development (pin tab was introduced less than a year ago). I use Safari for my everyday Youtube watching, but work related stuff i need Chrome (even if i don't want to) - I've used Google Chrome for years and I've never had a problem with it. I'm running OS X 10.11 El Capitan on a late-2013 15 inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. The one thing I do dislike however, is the bloat. Why do Gmail, Google Drive, Google Search and YouTube need to be seperate apps? It just doesn't make any sense. Anyway, thanks for the article.
- Chrome notification center has been gone from OS X for a couple of months. Maybe the author hasn't actually used Chrome browser in a while. Decent article though.
- There's continuity on Chrome.
- Days ago, I downloaded a chrome update for my macbook... I opened it up, and it was sloooooooooow! I couldn't believe how slow it was. Luckily, the older version was still installed, so I was easily able to go back to my previous version. I know that eventually I will have to update, but because of this article I may just switch to safari instead of updating chrome.
- It's only a discussion about the environment you pay for or provide your data for abstract metaanalysis stuff, one of the oldest topics since 'branding'. Mixing those environments is tge biggest fault to make, stick with one. Could you also analyze and refer to the googlish Android-Ecosystem and compare that to the applish iOS?
Email is a critical feature of the working day. Without it, we’d be less than efficient. We would likely spend time staring at our hands, waiting for the snail-mail to arrive (or whatever anyone did before email).
We have different solutions for email, and businesses have their preference. For example, some businesses may use Google Mail–and it is these businesses that could shave fractions from their daily email interrupt with these desktop email clientsThe 5 Best Free Email Clients for Your Desktop PCThe 5 Best Free Email Clients for Your Desktop PCWant the best free email client? We've compiled the best email software for Windows, Mac, and Linux that won't cost you a dime.Read More and browser extensions.
Desktop Clients
Having a specialized desktop email client7 Reasons Why You Should Stop Using Desktop Email Clients7 Reasons Why You Should Stop Using Desktop Email ClientsIs a web-based email client preferable to a desktop option? We looked at the different pros and cons and found an answer for you.Read More can be extremely useful. I have four or five different email addresses and I’ll be dammed if I have to spend minutes of my day clicking between them. No, I want one client, one click, one delete.
That said, online only clients are very convenient when you’re on the move. For me, they only become truly useful if my phone dies on me at an important time. We’re all different, though, so here are some desktop clients you can integrate Gmail with.
Outlook
Outlook is Microsoft’s desktop email client that comes with Microsoft Office. It features an integrated calendar and contacts manager.
Setting up your Gmail account is easy. Just add a new account and enter your email address and password into the Add Account wizard, then Outlook should do the rest. Note that if you have two-factor authenticationLock Down These Services Now With Two-Factor AuthenticationLock Down These Services Now With Two-Factor AuthenticationTwo-factor authentication is the smart way to protect your online accounts. Let's take a look at few of the services you can lock-down with better security.Read More enabled on your Google account–which you should–you’ll first have to create an app specific password for Outlook.
Thunderbird
Thunderbird has maintained its popularity in recent years despite several other viable free email clients appearing on the market. Its extended functionality is pretty handy, and you can make use of a number of Thunderbird add-ons5 Thunderbird Add-Ons That Will Make it Better Than Gmail5 Thunderbird Add-Ons That Will Make it Better Than GmailFor many years, I switched between a whole range of email clients. First I went with Outlook Express. Then I bought a new computer and decided to test the waters with Thunderbird. Once Gmail became...Read More to push it further. Unfortunately, back in 2012 developer, Mozilla, ceased feature development. It still receives security updates every six weeks, but don’t expect anything big and shiny anytime soon.
GMDesk
GMDesk is a nimble desktop application with functions for Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Google Maps. GMDesk is built using the Adobe Air runtime environment, so you’ll need to download and install that before installing GMDesk. GMDesk is another handy application that isn’t receiving any new updates, or at least hasn’t for some time, and it is looking increasingly unlikely to happen. Still, a solid, reliable Gmail desktop bridge.
eMClient
eMClient floats under the desktop client radar in many ways. Overshadowed by Thunderbird (free) and Outlook (comes with Office), it leaves many users wondering why more aren’t making the switch. I’ve been impressed these few testing days–so impressed I’m considering leaving my beloved Outlook, especially as it managed to import my minefield of desecrated unused email accounts without destroying them further.
Unfortunately, eMClient free limits you to two accounts, but the Pro price isn’t terrifying at $50.
Mailbird
Mailbird is delightfulMailbird: Change The Way You Use Email [Giveaway]Mailbird: Change The Way You Use Email [Giveaway]Mailbird Pro currently costs $9 per year at pre-order, and will costs $12/year after the version's full launch. But you now have a chance to get a whole year for free!Read More. If GMDesk was resourceful, then Mailbird was gifted the bells and whistles. There is a reason it has won several awards as Best Windows Email Client. The range of Mailbird-apps gives it an extra edge over other desktop clients. Integrated WhatsApp, Facebook, Sunrise, Google Calendar, and Evernote, plus some nifty attachment management tools make this absolutely nailed onto my desktop client list. The Mailbird API is about to become public, too, so expect that add-on bracket to expand.
Youtube Set Google Chrome For Mac Email Client 2018
However, Mailbird does come with ads, and the free version is restricted to a maximum 3 accounts. That said, the Pro version is $1 per month, or $45 for a lifetime license.
Pokki
I almost didn’t include Pokki as Gmail is no longer included in their application store. It is now a separate download and install. Nonetheless, it is here, and it is somewhat handy. If you’re making the switch to the Pokki app-store and the surrounding ecosystem, then this would absolutely be worth downloading and installing.
It loads quickly, emails are synced just as rapidly as the web client and Chrome, and there are hundreds of other applications to play with. Pokki did catch some bad press during the Lenovo/Superfish bloatware debacle earlier in the year, but it seems to have largely dissipated.
But in a world where Chrome offers this feature with numerous methods to access your Gmail account, I cannot see it catching on. Other applications, yes. Gmail, no.
Download:Pokki Gmail.
Firefox For Mac
Checker Plus
Checker Plus for Gmail is another Chrome applicationGoogle Gold: 15 Essential Chrome ExtensionsGoogle Gold: 15 Essential Chrome ExtensionsThe standard Chrome experience can be made so much better with a handful of extensions.Read More, but it comes with its own notifications and some pretty nifty features that set it aside.
First, the notifications are customizable. Choose appearance time, notification button options, email previews, rich or text notifications, the amount of sender information you require, whether to mark the email as read, and where to auto-advance your mail to.
Secondly, you can respond directly from your notification, or use the customizable buttons to take you directly to Gmail.
Thirdly, you can also use Checker Plus for Google Calendar for further integration and/or distancing from the site itself.
Fourth, Checker Plus installs a nice little mail logo with your other Gmail-related extensions5 Smart Addons That Will Make You A Gmail Ninja5 Smart Addons That Will Make You A Gmail NinjaGmail has spawned many third party tools, extending it from a mere email service into something much more powerful instead. These third-party apps are for all email ninjas.Read More. Clicking this overlays, your Gmail accounts in Chrome without having to click through to the actual service. It’s really handy unless, like me, you have 809 emails in your inboxRediscover Gmail Labels and Finally Tame Your InboxRediscover Gmail Labels and Finally Tame Your InboxThere are plenty of tricks to deal with email overload, but there's one right under your nose that you might not be using: good old Gmail labels.Read More.
Application Shortcuts
Application shortcuts are admittedly a little dated, but still ever-so useful. An application shortcut is what it sounds: you place a shortcut for the applicationHow to Use Gmail Like a Desktop Email Client in 7 Simple StepsHow to Use Gmail Like a Desktop Email Client in 7 Simple StepsWould you ditch your default desktop email client, if Gmail had more desktop-like features? Let us show you how you can set up Gmail to behave more like a desktop email client.Read More somewhere handy. This has been somewhat negated by the appearance of tools like the Chrome App Launcher, but this is still worth knowing how to do.
Open your Gmail account in Chrome. Click the Chrome Settings icon (the three parallel lines, top right corner), and head to More Tools. Here you should see Create Application Shortcut, and once clicked it will ask you what options you’d like to assign. Done!
The Chrome App Launcher fulfils the same promise, without having to do much. It also unifies your existing web-apps into a single directory accessible from the taskbar, and you can use it to search the store, as a calculator or unit converter, or to run specific commands for specific applications.
Turn on IMAP/POP for Gmail
Of course, for all of this to be remotely successful, you’ll need to activate Gmail’s IMAP/POP settings. It is jolly easy, and only takes a minute.
Head to your Gmail, followed by Settings. You should spot a tab labelled Forwarding and POP/IMAP. Alter or activate the appropriate settings for your account, save your changes, and off you go, emailing into the sunset.
Each of the desktop email clients we included have support for Gmail out-of-the-box, which is nice, considering only recently asking Gmail to integrate with your desktop was tantamount to asking a Dodgers fan to kiss a Giants badge.
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Considerations
Gmail is a full featured web email client. It has numerous add-ons to entice you11 Chrome Extensions That Will Super-Power Your Gmail Experience11 Chrome Extensions That Will Super-Power Your Gmail ExperienceGoogle makes the Chrome browser and Google makes Gmail. Naturally, you have some great Chrome extensions to make your Gmail experience better.Read More, you can read your mail wherever there is an Internet connection, and its threaded-conversational style email threads are an exacting remedy for the stagnated, one-by-one desktop clients of the past. Gmail remains a firm favorite, and I can see why.
But for the desktop client users–nay, lovers–amongst us, functionality and efficiency is key, and that’s exactly what you’ll find with these solutions.
How do you check your emails and what’s your favorite tool?
Image Credits: man scratching his head via Shutterstock
Explore more about: Desktop Email Client, Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird.
- Mailbird may look good from this review, but there are major drawbacks - quite elementary features missing, see their support forum.
- Thanks for including Mailbird in this roundup Gavin :)Mailbird Update- We just updated Mailbird to allow users to 'unsend' emails!Just like gmail, you can prevent an email from actually being sent to it's recipient, allowing you to prevent:sending emails to the wrong person
forgetting to include attachments
sending emails with spelling errors
etc...Best of all, this works with any/all the email account-types you use:gmail
hotmail
yahoo mail
windows live
anythingThis comes on the heels of our recent release of automatic-import, which makes it super easy to try Mailbird by allowing you to import account data from other clients like Outlook and Thunderbird! Check out the announcement about Undo Send on our blog - https://www.getmailbird.com/the-best-way-to-unsend-email/ - I hope that write-up about Mailbird as a joke...It is absolute garbage and does everything opposite to what it promises. It is bloated, it is the slowest local email client we have ever used, it lacks incredibly important features (that you would expect in an email client) and the company doesn't listen to any of it's users.It had great potential but has already failed on many levels before it has even got off the ground.Frustratingly, GMDesk and Gmail for Pokki are no longer supported so run on depreciated browser versions and out-of-date Gmail interfaces. As these are really the best to fully utilise everything in Gmail.What we really need (I am guessing) is a version of Mailplane for Windows.
- Another hearty vote for eM Client! As a Gmail user, one might wonder why use a desktop client instead of the browser directly? For me, accessing Gmail, calendar, etc. via EM Client frees my browser from Google snooping. My browser is actually set to block ALL Google cookies. Not that I have anything to hide, but I just don't want Google to know exactly when, where and how I surf.