Is Chrome Faster Than Safari On Mac? Google Thinks So

The latest version of Google Chrome is reportedly faster than Apple Safari on macOS. While Google Chrome is the world’s most popular browser on desktops and Android devices, Safari remains the top choice for Mac and iPhone users. Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox are also fairly popular, especially on desktop, but they’re still no match for Chrome and Safari that continue to dominate their respective platforms.

Apple Safari is a Webkit-based browser developed by Apple and shipped with Macs, iPhones, and iPads. It was initially introduced with OS X Panther in 2003, succeeding Microsoft’s Internet Explorer for Mac OS X. Safari was once also available on Windows, but that version was deprecated more than a decade ago. As of 2022, Safari is believed to be the fastest browser on Apple platforms, but Google is now contesting that notion by claiming that Chrome is beating Safari at its own game.

In a blog post on Monday, Google claimed that Chrome v99 for macOS scored 300 points on the Speedometer benchmark, which it says is the highest score achieved by any browser on the platform. According to Google, the score suggests that Chrome is now seven percent faster than current builds of Safari, while graphics performance is up to 15 percent faster than Apple’s browser. The company further adds that optimizations have made Chrome 43 percent faster since it launched M1 Macs in late 2020. Google also said that Chrome would continue to incorporate innovative features and optimizations that will speed up the browser even more in the future.

Apple Developed Speedometer Benchmark

It is worth noting that the Speedometer benchmark was developed by Apple’s WebKit team and offered a home advantage to Safari. Despite that, Chrome has not only managed to hold its own against Apple’s in-house browser, but it has also apparently bettered it in no uncertain terms. This is no mean achievement, so it’s only natural that Google wants the world to know about it.

In addition to the improvements on macOS, Google also said that Chrome on Android is also seeing some changes. According to the company, loading a page should now be 15 percent faster on Android devices, thanks to optimizations that prioritize “critical navigation moments on the browser user interface thread.” There’s no news on Chrome for Windows, but the company is expected to launch version 100 of the browser on Windows in the coming weeks, and it will likely ship with all the new features currently in Google Chrome v100 beta, including reduced user-agent strings, multi-screen window placement, and more.

Source: Google