Best iPhone Browser: Safari vs Chrome

Recent changes to the software that supports your iPhone have made it easier for third-party browser developers (like Google and Google Chrome) to create an attractive alternative to the system’s native Safari. So which is the best iPhone browser in Safari vs Chrome? Let’s find out.

Third-party browsers have long been available on iOS now. Since the launch of the App Store, developers have often offered web browsers that offer features that are not in Safari or will not be for a few years. The best example is tabbed browsing; On the first iPad, Safari was little more than the iPhone browser blasted for a big screen; The absence of tabbed browsing was a major shortcoming and something third-party developers raced to fix. Opera brought image compression (and hence bandwidth saving) algorithms to iOS; this is a move Google copied last year with “Data Saver”, a Chrome feature that runs some traffic through Google servers to save how much bandwidth you use (this is probably a terrible example, because Data Saver is in the latest version of Chrome) removed).

These days, Safari has absorbed many of the features found in third-party offerings and has become a truly powerful app in its own right. As of iOS 9, Safari on OS X can tabbed browsing with Safari, sync passwords, bookmarks, and more, retrieve open tabs from other devices (both other iOS devices running Safari and any Macs you’re signed in to with your iTunes password) , etc.

However, its biggest standout over the competition was Apple’s Nitro javascript rendering engine. Safari has made great improvements in page load speed thanks to Nitro. Because of the way iOS was built, Apple forced third-party browser developers to use alternative, slower systems for rendering javascript (or displaying large portions of modern web pages in English) rather than allowing them to access the best parts of Safari. As a result, no browser can compare to the speed and stability that Safari offers, and even those with a ton of extra features like Chrome pale in comparison.

Nowadays, well it’s over now. Recently (in iOS 8), Apple made the decision to allow developers access to the engine that powers Safari, and finally “What is the best iPhone browser?” He made his question. a splurge – just a few months ago the answer would have been a definitive Safari, this is no longer the case.

Safari and Chrome

I won’t be posting a bunch of benchmarks comparing these two browsers because they no longer tell a story. With the move to the same systems used by Safari, Chrome has gained the same strengths – the differences in benchmarks for the various tests are within the margin of error; one browser can never really beat another. The same can be said for Chrome’s impact on battery life, now better than ever and similar to Safari.

Chrome offers its own settings screen within the app itself, which is an outlet for most iPhone apps.

The real differences, then, come in the form of user interface, layout and features that have nothing to do with how a web page is viewed.

There aren’t many changes in terms of major changes to the way the browser works, but one of the most important is the sound. Safari naturally relies on Siri to provide voice functionality; However, Chrome uses Google’s own Google Assistant voice assistant. Both Google and Microsoft have tried to bring their digital assistants (Google with Google Now and Microsoft with Cortana) to the iPhone, but most of the effort has been wasted – iOS doesn’t offer the kind of low-level integration that would allow these services to work. connect to the phone at a basic level (Android’s to do must be specified).

Chrome is better at sound

So Chrome is a way for Google to add Google Assistant to iPhone and it works really well; it feels almost as natural as Siri. When you open Chrome, you’re greeted with a clean page and a simple search box in the middle of the screen; acts as both a search box and an address bar. However, notice that there is a microphone icon; You can tap and speak to it to use Google Assistant with your voice. When you start typing, you will see a Microphone connected to Google above the keyboard. Tap it at any time to switch to using voice search.

You will increasingly notice this type of integration as you explore Chrome. Audio is treated more like a first-party interaction tool, which makes sense. This is Google’s “easy” way to distinguish Chrome from Safari, drawing on its substantial experience in audio, an area that many would say still leads Apple.

While Google can’t quite match Siri’s tight integration with iOS (for example, hold the Home button to use Siri from anywhere, even from a locked phone), it does its best. If you have an iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus, you can use 3D Touch on the Chrome icon and initiate a voice call directly from the iPhone home screen. It’s just as quick to use Siri if you’ve already unlocked your phone, which suggests Apple has some work to do in this area.

The other area where Chrome clearly excels is when it comes to using Google’s product ecosystem. If you’re using Chrome on the desktop, you can sign into Chrome on your iPhone and have instant access to all your bookmarks, passwords, and browsing history. Gmail users will sign in to their accounts at the same time; this is useful if you choose not to use one of the mail apps. If you click a link in other Google apps, Google will preferably launch Chrome instead of Safari. These include apps like YouTube, Gmail, or the Google Search app, so it’s something to watch out for (it’s also one of the rare occasions where you can get some sort of “default” privileges to a non-Apple app that you can change to apps on Android). You can set whether this happens on a per Google app basis or not.

Chrome has handy swipe-down buttons; It is very handy for one-handed use.

Another thing Google does better than Apple is one-handed use. It’s especially useful on a phablet like the iPhone 6s Plus, where you can swipe and hold to reload the page without having to reach for the address bar like in Safari. When you pull it down, you will notice three icons appear at the top; release reloads, but if you swipe left or right you can open a new tab or close a tab respectively. It works really well even though it’s not on the iPad version.

Safari has a better interface

Both browsers offer a user interface similar to what you might see on the desktop. Whether you prefer the overall look and feel of one over the other is largely down to personal preference. That said, it’s hard to argue that Safari works better on larger screens like the 6s Plus (despite the note about one-handed use in the previous paragraph). This occurs when you need to open more than a few tabs; On iPhone, you can tilt to landscape and zoom out to see an overview of all your tabs on one screen. But with Chrome, you’re limited to perusing each tab until you find the one you want. The difference is even more pronounced on the iPad, where Safari’s pinch gesture is extremely useful.

Safari, shown here on an iPhone 6s Plus, uses larger screens more effectively than Chrome.

Additionally, Safari places many frequently used buttons (page left, page right, Share, Bookmarks, tab view) at the bottom of the screen that you can easily tap with your thumb. In Chrome they are more difficult to reach or hide in another menu.

Another plus of Safari is the iPhone’s new content blockers – apps and filters you can use to block certain types of internet ads or other web content. Currently, such features are only available if you are using Safari; The iOS part that Google uses to power Chrome cannot access them.

So which is the best iPhone browser?

This may sound a little silly, but it depends on the other types of services and platforms you use. If your life revolves around Apple – if you use Safari on your MacBook and iMac and you navigate with an iPad on the sofa – Safari is the right choice; It is better integrated into Apple’s services and iCloud. Also, if you’re a heavy iPad user, Clearly better browser; It manages multiple tabs on iPad in a much more intuitive and easy to browse way.

Browsing between tabs in Chrome is fine, but not as good as the system in Safari’s landscape mode.

However, if you’re more of an Apple user sometimes – if you use Chrome on a Mac (or more likely your Windows PC) and have an iPhone but not an iPad or maybe an Android tablet, then Chrome is the better browser. It syncs your browsing history and account information between your various Chrome installations, just as Safari does on a Mac. It also uses a similar and often superior voice assistant to the one you might already be used to in the form of Google Assistant.

If you’re somewhere in between, it’s probably easier to stick with Safari. Unless you’re fully in the Google ecosystem, moving your iPhone to Chrome won’t give you anything you don’t already have (except for Google’s voice engine). Check it anyway Free download on App Storeand let us know in the comments which iPhone browser you prefer: Safari or Chrome?