Why Hasn’t Safari Skyrocketed Like Chrome Has?

I use Chrome on all platforms for which it's available for three reasons:

1. It's fast

2. It updates automatically

3. It has a single location/search bar

For me, that's it. Really.

I've been using Safari on every Mac I use since I switched back to the platform in '04 or so. It's a nice browser, has all the features I want, and it's quite fast. I've played with Chrome a bit, and it may be faster, but Safari is fast enough.

But that's on a Mac.

At my last job I had a Windows box. I installed Safari as soon as it was released on Windows for testing purposes. I wouldn't have minded switching, but there was one cold fact in the way: Safari was a pig.

I haven't used it on Windows in about a year, so it may be better, but at the time it took a long time to start Safari up. Later releases were better, but it still would feel slow launching and opening tabs. All and all, I stayed with FireFox.

I recommend Safari as a good browser for anyone who uses OS X. When people I know have bought Macs and asked if they need to download FF or Chrome, I tell them there is no need. Give Safari a try. Only one or two hasn't stuck with it, it fits all their needs.

On Windows I would tell them FF or Chome. Based on my experience there was no reason to recommend Safari.

I think it's too late. Even if Apple made Safari an amazing browser on Windows it's a very crowded market. FF is huge, Chrome is big and gaining. IE 8/9 are pretty nice browsers. That's 3 good choices. I have a hard time seeing Apple get any meaningful Windows marketshare.

Frankly, I think Safari is only on Windows to allow developers to test their sites to work better on iOS without having the devices or Macs. Any promotion to consumers is very half-hearted.

I would add it seems to work almost intuitively, but I find Safari works against me (on Windows).

And it may just be a coincidence, but it's similar to QuickTime.

Yay! There's a new trailer for the Alien prequel out, and it's ... hosted at Apple. That means I'll see it in a window that doesn't full screen, whose controls don't work right, and it probably won't even download regardless of how often I click it. Thank the FSM, someone has posted a link to the trailer on YouTube.

I use both on my machine. Safari is my "Facebook" browser -- I use it for Facebook and Facebook alone.

Chrome is my everything else browser. Mainly because it has a unified url/search bar. I have no idea with Safari hasn't picked this up, but that's pretty much it.

Oh and also because all the google apps just seem to work better on Chrome.

I used use Firefox as my everything browser, but it got just too slow. I mostly only use it for testing and doing front-end development.

Safari has the same problems that Firefox has had in Linux for me. Slow startups, not terribly responsive tabs. In addition, it hides downloads on the FS until they're finished, the download box is awkward, and frankly, it still inferior to Chrome.