Disclaimer: The following is simply a collection of thoughts based on my own use cases over the past year or so.
Firefox
I absolutely love this browser, except on macOS. On Windows and even my iPhone, Firefox and Firefox Focus shine! For whatever reason, it is glitchy as hell on macOS (13.6.x). Sill I use it as my preferred browser for syncing websites between iOS and WindowsOS.
Final thoughts: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Edge
This works fairly well on the Windows side of things. And why not? It's designed for Windows. It also runs decently on iOS and fair on macOS. My primary issue I have with this browser is the constant pop ups where it asked things like: • What do you think of our new design? • How do you like our themes? • Isn't this a pretty button? • How would you rate your experience (Best out of 5, etc)?
I feel these detract from my experience, and while it 'technically' works on all of the platforms mentioned above, so too do the popups.
Final thoughts: ⭐️⭐️½⭐️
Safari
Honorable mention here. I used to love Safari. At least on the Apple side of things. The last time I used Safari for Windows, I had working eyesight, and I hated it then. However, before the webkit issues, Safari was boss. Not so much anymore. Still, if webkit ever gets fixed, it could be worth using again. The reader functionality is one of the things I enjoyed about Safari. Luckily, other browsers are beginning to adopt their own 'reader' functionality.
Final thoughts: ⭐️⭐️⭐️½⭐️
Duck Duck Go
This browser is fast! Pages load like they did back in the days of Safari in macOS Sierra. DDG is all about privacy and being as ad free as possible. This is, in part, why it is so fast. It also has a minimalistic media player that is absolutely a must for YouTube, unless you are a YT Premium subscriber, then who cares I guess. My only issue with DDG is the damned autocomplete. Currently VO struggles to read theautocomplete choices when you first begin typing in the address bar. Luckily you can disable this from within the address bar's context menu.
Overall, a decent, responsive browser that is great for streaming media and possibly a cleaner social media experience.
Final thoughts: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½⭐️
Chrome
For the longest time, I hated Chrome. It used to be that Chrome had a memory leak issue within macOS. Chrome has had a recent overhaul, and for the purposes of this post, I decided to give it another try. It runs remarkably well. It is quite responsive, and if there is any webkit issues (see: SNR), I have yet to notice it. It does have one issue, that I have noticed in other chromium browsers on macOS; the VO hotkey (FN + VO + Command + left or right arrow) to go to the top and/or bottom of a window is kinda broken in Chromium browsers. The same hotkey, minus 'Command', still works at least. 🫣 Overall, a decent alternative to the aforementioned browsers above.
Final thoughts: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
In closing
I realize there are more web browsers out there. These are what I have used successfully, and recently.
Thoughts? 🤨
Comments
Good to Know
Thanks for this post Brian. I've never used the DDG web browser before, but I'm willing to give it a shot. It's great that DDG has its own media player. I guess I'm more or less one of the lucky ones though, because I've rarely gotten that SNR message since the fix that was supposedly rolled out. What I have gotten, however, a lot of times when closing websites using Safari is some sort of weird open dialogue followed by some extraneous code. Safari and Chrome both seem to do okay on the OpenLearn website thus far, where I'm taking some free courses. I will say though, that I don't really like the fact that one cannot navigate via character/word in Chrome unless in a textfield. I look forward to trying all this stuff out with my eReader, now that I more or less know the proper way to connect it via USB.