7 Best Safari Alternatives for Your Mac

Safari is a minimalist browser with built-in privacy features to enable users to surf the Internet at blazing fast speeds without worrying about how their data is used. It is designed for Apple devices so its look and feel are uniforms across the platforms. That notwithstanding, some Mac users prefer to work with other browsers and there are a handful of excellent alternatives.

Although some will argue that Safari is the best browser for macOS because it was built for it, others prefer to use a different option. In today’s article, I present you with a collection of web browsers that can replace Safari’s functionality in your workflow. Criteria include but aren’t restricted to its UI/UX, built-in/extra features, and performance with regards to battery and memory consumption.

1. Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is a free and open-source web browser designed with simplicity, beauty, speed, security, and customizability in mind. Combined with its Internet surfing and data protection features, it offers users a family of products to facilitate their workflow. These apps include Monitor, Send, Lockwise, and Pocket.

Firefox Browser for Mac
Firefox Browser for Mac

2. Brave

Brave is a fast and secure browser developed based on Google Chrome. Its main outstanding features include a beautiful clutter-free UI, a built-in ad blocker, optimized data and battery experience, and tracking and security protection.

Brave exists to give users back their power by taking control of how their data is collected. Users can also opt into its privacy-respecting ads to earn rewards and it is completely free.

Brave Browser for Mac
Brave Browser for Mac

3. Opera

Opera is a beautiful, security-conscious, privacy-respectful, and always-evolving web browser. It has the most unique features built into any web browser and even forks of Google chrome cannot say that inspiration is not drawn from Opera.

It boasts some of the nicest animations and shortcuts for activities and apps. Examples include a pop-out for streaming online content undisturbed even when switching between tabs, Instagram in the sidebar, an automatic currency and time-zone converter, a VPN, etc.

Opera Browser for Mac
Opera Browser for Mac

4. Edge

Microsoft Edge is a new recently revamped web browser designed for efficient browsing, world-class performance, privacy & data protection, and better productivity. The Redmond Giants have learnt a lot over the years from Google Chrome and Firefox and have commendably figured out how to make Edge a “best of both worlds” for some.

Edge Browser for Mac
Edge Browser for Mac

5. Google Chrome

The most popular browser is the blazing fast Google Chrome browser designed to be customizable, fast and reliable. It has had an excellent performance and feature record for so long that it has virtually become the standard for web browsers.

All the forks of Chrome e.g. Brave and Vivaldi enjoy the features that it has and just go a step further to include features you’ll typically need extensions for by default. If you want the original, user-friendly browser then Chrome is inescapable.

Google Chrome Browser for Mac
Google Chrome Browser for Mac

6. Vivaldi

Vivaldi is a modern browser intended for all users but targeted at technically-inclined users, given that it was started to please web surfers dissatisfied with Opera’s switch from the Presto layout engine to a Chromium-based one.

Among its many features includes a built-in ad-blocker, download manager, tracking and data collection protection, enhanced performance to minimize energy consumption, etc.

Vivaldi Browser for Mac
Vivaldi Browser for Mac

7. Waterfox

Waterfox is a high-performance Mozilla-based indie web browser built to provide 64-bit users with speed. Its flag features include limited data collection, no telemetry, NPAPI plugins, bootstrapped add-ons, and themes.

Waterfox Browser for Mac
Waterfox Browser for Mac

All these browsers feature a beautiful user interface, sufficient customizability, synchronization across devices, relative performance speed, and memory friendliness. I can already hear someone scoffing at Google Chrome being battery and memory friendly. That’s a topic for another day. The fact is that Google Chrome is amazingly efficient and no list of reliable web browsers will be complete without it.

Which browsers do you use on your Mac setup?  What do you like about your favourite browser? Share your thoughts with us in the discussion section below. And remember that you can format your comments in HTML.

Divine Okoi is a cybersecurity postgrad with a passion for the open-source community. With 700+ articles covering different topics in IT, you can always trust him to inform you about the coolest tech.

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