Safari
Apple’s Safari — which was actually ported to Windows PCs for two entire years before it was stripped — has actually made some ground in the browser market. Obviously, Safari isn’t available on any computer not running Apple’s macOS except for the two versions that were released at one point on Windows. So its market share isn’t great.
But who cares? Safari is great.
For Apple users, Safari is the fastest browser. Native apps run significantly quicker and more efficient on Apple’s products (Final Cut Pro runs better than Adobe Premiere, etc) and Safari is no exception. Apple made Safari the fastest browser in the world for Mac in 2017 and hasn’t given that up.
Not to mention, it’s safe and secure — one of the biggest draws to using Safari. With the release of macOS 11 Big Sur, Apple added new features like customization and the ability to see transparency from websites who are tracking you.
It’s a great option for Apple users and easily the best-looking browser on iOS and iPadOS.
Firefox
Mozilla’s Firefox hasn’t been the most-used internet browser since before 2011. Even copying Chrome’s success, they tried launching a mobile operating system — FirefoxOS. Sadly enough, this project lost investors and never saw the light of day.
Either way, Firefox is a completely capable browser.
Microsoft Edge
Yeah, you read that right.
I’m fairly certain that Microsoft’s own employees refused to use the company’s previous browser, Internet Explorer. It was the joke for years while I was in high school and anyone who used it was made fun of almost like they had an AOL account.
Internet Explorer was glitchy, had a slew of security issues, and didn’t look great at all. Now, Microsoft Edge has made some huge gains.
Some are calling it the browser with the most potential. It looks sleek, it’s design is clean. It fixed most of the security problems Internet Explorer faced. Besides the fact that the default search engine is Bing, it’s actually kind of neat and cool to use.
Opera
Normally, I’d refrain from adding Opera to this list, but the way that Opera designed their browser is pretty interesting.
It’s a little cluttered at first, but they have a feature similar to Apple’s Handoff where you can send webpages through devices, making it easier for multi-device users who want to pick up a webpage or internet search on a separate device.
I’m definitely not saying that Opera will outperform benchmarks or anything (although the way Opera loads webpages is so non-traditional to other browsers that in some capacity, it’s actually really fast), but — Opera is fully-suited for casual internet browsing of all kinds.