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

🔄 Updated June 2024

In this article, I will compare the main and most popular browsers. I know there are more (Vivaldi, Opera, Arc, etc.), but I wanted to focus on the most popular ones to avoid making the article too long.

The versions tested are as follows:

• Safari 17.5
• Chrome 125
• Brave 1.66 (Chromium 125)
• Edge 125
• Firefox 126

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.

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

Let’s go!

HTML5test scores (from best to worst)

• Chrome: 581
• Edge: 581
• Brave: 576
• Safari: 555
• Firefox: 546

Differences in elements

                                  Safari   Chrome    Brave   Edge    Firefox

ping attribute on the a element     ✅       ✅       ✅      ✅       ❌

accessKeyLabel attribute            ✅       ❌       ❌      ❌       ✅

Differences in forms

                             Safari  Chrome   Brave   Edge   Firefox  

input type=month               ❌      ✅      ✅     ✅      ❌

input type=week                ❌      ✅      ✅     ✅      ❌

Differences in sensors

                             Safari   Chrome    Brave   Edge    Firefox  

Generic Sensor API             ❌       ✅       ✅      ✅       ❌

Accelerometer                  ❌       ✅       ✅      ✅       ❌

Gyroscope                      ❌       ✅       ✅      ✅       ❌

Linear Acceleration            ❌       ✅       ✅      ✅       ❌

Absolute Orientation           ❌       ✅       ✅      ✅       ❌

Relative Orientation           ❌       ✅       ✅      ✅       ❌

Differences in hardware

                             Safari   Chrome    Brave    Edge   Firefox 

Web Bluetooth                  ❌       ✅       ✅      ✅       ❌

Web USB                        ❌       ✅       ✅      ✅       ❌

Differences in peer to peer

                             Safari   Chrome    Brave    Edge    Firefox 

ObjectRTC API for WebRTC       ✅       ✅       ✅      ✅       ❌

Access the webcam              ✅       ✅       ✅      ✅       ❌

Screen Capture                 ✅       ✅       ✅      ✅       ❌

Enumerate devices              ✅       ✅       ✅      ✅       ❌

Differences in performance

                             Safari  Chrome   Brave   Edge   Firefox 

window.requestIdleCallback     ❌      ✅      ✅     ✅      ✅

Differences in resource loading

                             Safari   Chrome    Brave    Edge    Firefox 

link rel=prefetch              ❌       ✅       ✅      ✅       ✅

Differences in payments

                             Safari   Chrome    Brave    Edge    Firefox 

Web Payments                   ✅       ✅       ✅      ✅       ❌

Differences in video

                             Safari   Chrome    Brave    Edge    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   Chrome    Brave    Edge    Firefox 

Speech recognition             ✅       ✅       ✅      ✅       ❌

Dolby Digital support          ✅       ❌       ❌      ❌       ❌

Dolby Digital Plus support     ✅       ❌       ❌      ❌       ❌

Ogg Vorbis support             ❌       ✅       ✅      ✅       ✅

Ogg Opus support               ❌       ✅       ✅      ✅       ✅

Ogg FLAC support               ❌       ✅       ✅      ✅       ✅

Differences in streaming

                                   Safari   Chrome    Brave    Edge    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   Chrome    Brave    Edge    Firefox 

Blending modes                 ✅       ✅       ✅      ✅       ✅

WebP support (export)          ❌       ✅       ✅      ✅       ✅

HEIC support                   ✅       ❌       ❌      ❌       ❌

Differences in 3D and VR

                             Safari   Chrome    Brave    Edge    Firefox 

Web GPU                        ❌       ✅       ✅      ✅       ❌

Web XR                         ❌       ✅       ✅      ✅       ❌

Differences in web applications

                             Safari   Chrome    Brave    Edge    Firefox 

Custom scheme handlers         ❌       ✅       ✅      ✅       ✅

Memory consumption after loading YouTube

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

On Windows I have excluded Chrome, because my system is ARM and there is not a stable version for ARM yet.

I’m surprised to see the difference in memory consumption between macOS and Windows. I don’t know why. They are very different systems, and in the end, all browsers work well on both systems, 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. So after about 10 seconds, I wrote down the average value that seemed more stable to me.

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 on macOS.

Also published here.