The best browser for your Mac is the one that comes with your Mac. Safari is faster and more energy efficient than other browsers, so sites are more responsive and your notebook battery lasts longer between charges. Built-in privacy features help keep your browsing your business. Handy tools help you save, find, and share your favorites. And Safari works with iCloud to let you browse seamlessly across all your devices.
Longer battery life and faster performance.
With a blazing-fast JavaScript engine and energy-saving technologies, Safari is a faster, more enjoyable way to explore the web.
Browse longer. Watch more.
Safari is engineered specifically for Mac, so it takes advantage of the powerful technologies built into every one. And Safari offers native support for Netflix and plays HTML5 video everywhere it's available. So compared with Chrome and Firefox, you can browse for up to two hours longer1 and watch Netflix videos up to four hours longer.2
browsing compared to Chrome and Firefox
watching Netflix videos compared to Chrome and Firefox
Faster than Chrome and Firefox.
Browsing with Safari is blazing fast thanks to advanced JavaScript engine optimizations that make websites and web applications feel snappier.
JetStream: JavaScript performance on advanced web applications3
Speedometer: Web application responsiveness4
MotionMark: Rendering performance of animated content5
JSBench: JavaScript performance on popular websites6
Defending your online privacy and security.
Privacy and security aren’t just something you should hope for — they’re something you should expect. That’s why features to help protect your privacy and keep your Mac secure are built into Safari. For example, Safari gives you the option to search the Internet using DuckDuckGo — a search engine that doesn’t track you — as a built-in option.
Privacy
Third-party cookie blocking.
The web pages you visit often leave cookies from third-party websites. These cookies can be used to track where you go on the web, target you with ads, or create a profile of your online activities. Safari was the first browser to block these cookies by default. And by default it also prevents third-party websites from leaving data in your cache, local storage, or databases.
Private Browsing windows.
When you use Private Browsing, Safari doesn’t remember the pages you visit, your search history, or your AutoFill information. Each tab in a Private Browsing window is isolated from the others, so websites you view in one tab can’t see your cookies from websites in another tab. This helps prevent websites you’re logged in to from tracking you as you browse.
Security
Sandboxing for websites.
Sandboxing provides built-in protection against malicious code and malware by restricting what websites can do. And because Safari runs web pages in separate processes, any harmful code you come across in one page is confined to a single browser tab, so it can’t crash the whole browser or access your data.
Protection from harmful sites.
Safari helps protect you against fraudulent Internet sites and those that harbor malware — before you visit them. If a website looks suspicious, Safari prevents it from loading and warns you.
Pay easily and securely with Apple Pay.
Your Mac has always been the perfect place to sit down and do some serious online shopping. Now it’s an even easier and more secure place to pay using Apple Pay in Safari. Look for Apple Pay on your favorite shopping sites, then complete your purchase with Touch ID on your iPhone or by double-clicking the side button on your Apple Watch. Your credit card details are never shared when you use Apple Pay, and your transactions are protected with industry-leading security.
Not only does Safari come on every Mac, it comes on every iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, too. And thanks to iCloud, your passwords, bookmarks, history, tabs, and Reading List are always up to date no matter which device you’re using.
Features in Safari help you surf smarter and easily manage and share what you find.
Pinned Sites.
Keep websites you visit often — like your webmail, Facebook page, or Twitter feed — open, up to date, and easily accessible by pinning them. They’ll stay active in the background, and they’ll stay put on the left side of your tab bar.
AirPlay web video.
Play video from a web page to your TV with Apple TV — without showing everything else on your desktop. Just click the AirPlay icon that appears on compatible web videos and you can watch your video on the big screen.
Picture in Picture.
Float a video window from Safari over your desktop or a full-screen app. Play the video in any corner of the desktop and resize it to see more or less of what’s behind it. So you can catch up on your favorite show while you catch up on email. Or watch the big game while playing a game yourself.
Mute a tab.
Want to stop the music without hunting for the tab it’s coming from? You can mute it right from the Smart Search field. If you’re listening to audio in one tab and another website starts to play, you can mute the one you don’t want to hear. And if what you really want is silence, you can mute all audio from your browser, too.
Safari suggestions.
With Spotlight built into every Mac, you’re never far from the information you want. As you type in the Smart Search field, you’ll see Safari suggestions from sources like Wikipedia, news sites, Maps, iTunes, movie listings, weather, stocks, and sports.7
Share menu.
Share anything you come across on the web without leaving Safari. Just click the Share button, then choose how you want to send it off. Use Mail, Messages, or AirDrop or add it to a note. Tweet or post to Facebook and even include comments and locations. A single sign-on sets up sharing to Facebook and Twitter, so you only need to sign in once.
Reader.
View news stories and other articles in a layout that’s optimized for easy reading. Reader lets you focus on the text without being distracted by ads. You can customize your view by selecting your font size and style, and choose Sepia and Night themes.
Developers
Safari is built on WebKit, the industry-leading open source rendering engine. It includes powerful built-in tools, like Web Inspector, that let developers create advanced web applications. And it continues to support technologies that enable innovation on the web.