Web Browser Showdown: Safari vs Chrome vs Brave vs Edge vs Firefox

🔄 Updated October 2024

In this article, I will compare the main and most popular browsers.

The versions tested are as follows:

• Chromium 130 (this includes Chrome, Brave, Edge, and other browsers that share this engine)
• Firefox 131
• Safari 18

First, I will test the supported features of HTML5 using the html5test.co website and summarize the differences. Differences in features that have been rejected or replaced by more modern ones will be ignored. For simplicity, as Chromium-based browsers share the same features, I’ll group them under the Chromium name.

Then, with Twitch loaded, I’ll look at the memory each browser is using with all extensions disabled.

Let’s go!

HTML5test scores (from best to worst)

• Chromium: 581
• Safari: 555
• Firefox: 546

Differences in elements

                                  Safari   Chromium   Firefox

ping attribute on the a element     ✅        ✅        ❌

accessKeyLabel attribute            ✅        ❌        ✅

Differences in forms

                             Safari   Chromium   Firefox

input type=month               ❌        ✅        ❌

input type=week                ❌        ✅        ❌

Differences in sensors

                             Safari   Chromium   Firefox

Generic Sensor API             ❌        ✅        ❌

Accelerometer                  ❌        ✅        ❌

Gyroscope                      ❌        ✅        ❌

Linear Acceleration            ❌        ✅        ❌

Absolute Orientation           ❌        ✅        ❌

Relative Orientation           ❌        ✅        ❌

Differences in hardware

                             Safari   Chromium   Firefox

Web Bluetooth                  ❌        ✅        ❌

Web USB                        ❌        ✅        ❌

Differences in performance

                             Safari   Chromium   Firefox

window.requestIdleCallback     ❌        ✅        ✅

Differences in resource loading

                             Safari   Chromium   Firefox

link rel=prefetch              ❌        ✅        ✅

Differences in payments

                             Safari   Chromium   Firefox

Web Payments                  ✅         ✅        ❌

Differences in video

                             Safari   Chromium   Firefox

Audio track selection          ✅        ❌        ❌

Video track selection          ✅        ❌        ❌

MPEG-4 ASP support             ✅        ❌        ❌

H.265 support support          ✅        ✅        ❌

Ogg Theora support             ❌        ❌        ✅

WebM with AV1 support          ❌        ✅        ✅

Differences in audio

                             Safari   Chromium   Firefox

Speech recognition             ✅        ✅        ❌

Dolby Digital support          ✅        ❌        ❌

Dolby Digital Plus support     ✅        ❌        ❌

Ogg Vorbis support             ❌        ✅        ✅

Ogg Opus support               ❌        ✅        ✅

Ogg FLAC support               ❌        ✅        ✅

Differences in streaming

                                   Safari   Chromium   Firefox

HTTP Live Streaming / HLS            ✅        ❌        ❌

TS with H.264 support                ✅        ❌        ❌

WebM with AV1 support                ❌        ✅        ✅

MP4 with Dolby Digital support       ✅        ❌        ❌

MP4 with Dolby Digital Plus support  ✅        ❌        ❌

Differences in 2D graphics

                             Safari   Chromium   Firefox

WebP support (export)          ❌        ✅        ✅

HEIC support                   ✅        ❌        ❌

Differences in 3D and VR

                             Safari   Chromium   Firefox

Web GPU                        ❌        ✅        ❌

Web XR                         ❌        ✅        ❌

Differences in web applications

                             Safari   Chromium   Firefox

Custom scheme handlers         ❌        ✅        ✅

Memory consumption after loading Twitch

In this test I open the Twitch home page, rejecting all cookies, in a private window with all extensions disabled.

              macOS Sequoia       Windows 11

Chrome           602 MB            313 MB

Edge             861 MB            376 MB

Safari           736 MB

Brave            787 MB            415 MB

Firefox          1173 MB           579 MB

I’m surprised to see the difference in memory consumption between macOS and Windows. I’m not sure why. They are very different systems, and in the end, all browsers work well on both, but the numbers are twice as high on macOS.

On the other hand, the consumption is very stable in macOS, while on Windows, a process can use 300 MB and, in a few seconds, jump to double, then go down a little, then go up again, etc. I found it easy to get an average in macOS, but on Windows, they are very changeable values. In that case, I got the average most stable value.

Conclusion

One browser has come out the clear winner in both tests: Chrome. Although it has the same score in HTML5, its memory consumption is lower. So, if you want the best browser based on Chromium, with the Blink engine developed by Google, Meta, Microsoft, Opera, Adobe, Intel, IBM, and Samsung, that browser is Chrome.

If ad blocking is very important to you, instead of installing an extension, I recommend Brave, which already integrates this functionality, and you will save memory.

Edge is a unique option, being ideal if you use Microsoft services. It has unique options, such as Bing Chat support or screen splitting to load two websites in the same tab.

Safari keeps up quite well, rubbing shoulders with Chromium-based browsers. Remember that Safari is the only one that integrates with iCloud+ if you are in the Apple ecosystem and pay for this service.

With its Gecko engine, Firefox is the lowest rated in the HTML5 test. It also consumes the highest amount of memory.