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Safari vs Firefox etc on apple M soc macs

mousesnob
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Is there any significant difference between using safari and Firefox on the newer m-soc based Macs? Ive bought an m2 air and would prefer not to use safari, but there seems to be a consensus that safari is more efficient than other browsers on macOS. Is this the case?

 

 

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You already got the hardware, so just test it yourself. I'm using Chrome and Firefox on an M1 Pro and can't complain. Maybe there's some efficiency difference in benchmarks, but if so, that's nothing affecting me in day to day usage.

Remember to either quote or @mention others, so they are notified of your reply

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i have a M2 Pro and use chrome on a daily basis, no downsides that I noticed, battery life is still reasonable and performance is what I expected.

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12 minutes ago, mousesnob said:

Is there any significant difference between using safari and Firefox on the newer m-soc based Macs? Ive bought an m2 air and would prefer not to use safari, but there seems to be a consensus that safari is more efficient than other browsers on macOS. Is this the case?

I'm using Firefox on a MacBook Air M1 and I haven't noticed any difference in performance compared to Safari. I rarely have Safari open, Firefox does it all for me. Chrome works well too but I mainly use Firefox.

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I use Firefox on an M1 MBP. Works very well, all day+ battery life. I do get some chugging when I don't refresh an infinite scrolling page, but I do have an 8GB RAM version.

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I use Chrome and Safari on my M Apple machines, and they both perform about the same. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Firefox is awesome!  It has about:config to tune performance and cache.  For instance, usually you can set

 

doc.frequency.check or whatever it is called, at 2 for using cached versions of a page, instead of always checking for a new version.  At least half the time, you can load a page without internet access from cache, which can be useful if the content changing is not important.

 

Look into the mozilla kb about:config articles for more ideas.

: JRE #1914 Siddarth Kara

How bad is e-waste?  Listen to that Joe Rogan episode.

 

"Now you get what you want, but do you want more?
- Bob Marley, Rastaman Vibration album 1976

 

Windows 11 will just force business to "recycle" "obscolete" hardware.  Microsoft definitely isn't bothered by this at all, and seems to want hardware produced just a few years ago to be considered obsolete.  They have also not shown any interest nor has any other company in a similar financial position, to help increase tech recycling whatsoever.  Windows 12 might be cloud-based and be a monthly or yearly fee.

 

Software suggestions


Just get f.lux [Link removed due to forum rules] so your screen isn't bright white at night, a golden orange in place of stark 6500K bluish white.

released in 2008 and still being improved.

 

Dark Reader addon for webpages.  Pick any color you want for both background and text (background and foreground page elements).  Enable the preview mode on desktop for Firefox and Chrome addon, by clicking the dark reader addon settings, Choose dev tools amd click preview mode.

 

NoScript or EFF's privacy badger addons can block many scripts and websites that would load and track you, possibly halving page load time!

 

F-droid is a place to install open-source software for android, Antennapod, RethinkDNS, Fennec which is Firefox with about:config, lots of performance and other changes available, mozilla KB has a huge database of what most of the settings do.  Most software in the repository only requires Android 5 and 6!

 

I recommend firewall apps (blocks apps) and dns filters (redirect all dns requests on android, to your choice of dns, even if overridden).  RethinkDNS is my pick and I set it to use pi-hole, installed inside Ubuntu/Debian, which is inside Virtualbox, until I go to a website, nothing at all connects to any other server.  I also use NextDNS.io to do the same when away from home wi-fi or even cellular!  I can even tether from cellular to any device sharing via wi-fi, and block anything with dns set to NextDNS, regardless if the device allows changing dns.  This style of network filtration is being overridden by software updates on some devices, forcing a backup dns provuder, such as google dns, when built in dns requests are not connecting.  Without a complete firewall setup, dns redirection itself is no longer always effective.

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