Chrome v Safari Why do I need two apps?

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Introduction In the desktop world there are four browers that fight

out for top spot: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome

and Safari

In the iOS world there really only is two: Apple’s own

Safari, and Google’s Chrome.

Both are very similar and most users often switch

between the two browers to find a favourite. The below information provides the differences in the

two browsers.

Features Both browsers contain a lot of features. In either you can have multiple tabs open, both allow you

to browse in ‘Private Mode’, both have a host of sharing options, allow for easy bookmarking and

more.

Tabs

Both allow multiple tabs to be open at once.

In Safari, click on the + button and a fresh tab

will open displaying your “favourite

bookmarks”

In Chrome click on the mini tab button and a

fresh tab will open to your homepage

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Private Mode

When you browse the internet, your device will store information in the form of cookies and in

your browsing history. When you’re in Private or Icognito Mode, the browser will not store this

information on your device. This is excellent for shared devices, as the person using the device after

you is unable to view any pages that you were recently looking at.

It’s worth noting however, that this history is only not available locally on the device. Therefore, for

a System Administrator could still look up your history via your devices IP address at the server end.

Safari: Private Mode:

When you open a new tab, you’ll notice a

little button called “Private” at the bottom

left hand corer.

Click on to activate Private Mode.

Safari will ask if you want to close all your

current tabs, keep them, or cancel Private

Mode

If you click on Keep All all tabs open will

go into Private mode.

Notice the colour of the header screen is

now dark indicating you’re in Private

Mode

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Chrome: Incognito Mode:

When in Chrome click on the Settings

button

Select New Incognito Tab

A new tab will open

Notice now there is a little Private

Detective visible in the Tab Bar

Type in the web address you wish to go

to and browse as usual

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Safari’s Reading List

One area that Safari leads over Chrome is in its Reading List feature. This allows you to quickly add

any article to a dedicated list of things you may want to read later, and it makes it available on all

your devices where Safari is installed. It’s much handier than using standard bookmarks.

In Safari, click on the Share Button

Then click on Add to Reading List

When you’re ready to view the

item, click on the Bookmarks

button

Then select the article

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Settings Both browsers offer the standard set of

settings. However Safari’s settings are

not located within the browser and form

part of the iOS settings. Whereas

Chrome has the settings located within

the browser itself.

Safari

On the device homepage, click on

Settings

Click on Safari and navigate

through your settings

Chrome

Within Chrome, click on the Tools button

Then click on Settings

Navigate through and amend any

settings.

To

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Design Both browsers offer a fairly minimalist design, however Safari’s is just a bit more minimalist. The

reason being, it’s designed and built by Apple and built into every iOS device, so of course it’s going

to be designed to look as much as iOS as possible. It is thin, has clean lines and lots of space to view

websites. When you’re scrolling through a website, the toolbar and address bar slide away, giving

the entire screen to view the content of the webpage.

Speed and Reliability Depending who you talk to and how much attention you pay to is, Safari is known to have the better

browsing speed, meaning it will load webpages faster.

However, Safari is also known for not loading quite a number of webpages and will just hang,

whereas Chrome will load the same page with no drama. Therefore Chrome has the greater

reliability for browsing.

Cloud syncing When you login to your browser, Cloud Syncing allows you to sync your usernames and passwords

between devices, along with bookmarks, browsing history and tabs. Both browsers offer this

support very well. Safari does this through iCloud integration, where Chrome accomplishes this

through your Google account information.

However, Cloud Syncing only works for the one browser. That meaning, what you store and use in

Chrome will not easily sync to Safari and vise versa. Therefore to maximise use of Cloud Syncing,

it’s best to choose one browser over the other.

Winning Browser Choosing one browser over the other is a tough thing to do. Both

browsers perform well on iPads and iPhones and offer a wide range

of features. However, I think if I personally had to choose, I’d choose

Chrome, simply because it integrates well with my Google account

and cloud synching is seamless. Although, I do like the idea of the

Reading List in Safari and tend to use Safari on my iPhone over

Chrome. It’s worth noting too that iOS doesn’t allow you to change

your default browser, and if you click a link in an email it will always

open in Safari.

Ultimately I’d advise if you use Safari on your desktop, Mac or PC

then use Safari on your iOS device. However, as a lot of us do, if you use Chrome on your desktop

or PC, then I highly recommend using Chrome on your iPad (or iPhone). The one thing Safari can’t

beat is Google Now integration.