Safari Browser for macOS 16.4

Safari is the best way to experience the internet on all your Apple devices. It brings robust customization options, powerful privacy protections, and optimizes battery life – so you can browse how you like, when you like. Safari can only be used on Apple devices. It also only allows browser extensions that come from the Apple App Store.

Is Safari better than Chrome?

Both browsers are updated every few weeks, so it’s hard to compare them over time. Perhaps the most important difference is that Safari is limited to Apple devices and syncing effortlessly across all your Apple devices, while Chrome has excellent cross-platform compatibility and better customization, making it a better all-round browser choice if you use multiple devices with different operating systems.

Privacy-wise, Google’s browser always raises privacy concerns due to the fact that everything you do in Chrome, including every character you type into the address bar, is recorded by Google and linked to you. As part of Apple’s defense of user privacy, Safari includes a Privacy Report to help you find out exactly which websites are collecting your data.

Does Safari use Google as a search engine?

Yes, Google pays hefty royalties to Apple for making them the default search engine in Safari. However, Apple doesn’t restrict you from changing it to a different one.

Is Safari compatible with Windows?

Apple no longer offers Safari updates for Windows. You can still download Safari 5.1.7 for Windows which was the last version made for Windows and completely out of date by now.

What are the best Safari alternatives?

There are tons of good and free alternatives for browsing the web. If you want private browsing, you can opt for Firefox. If you don’t want to use Google services, you can use Ungoogled Chromium. Opera, Microsoft Edge and Vivaldi are other great options.

Features

Performance

More with the battery. With a blazing-fast JavaScript engine, Safari is the world’s fastest browser. It’s developed to run specifically on Apple devices, so it’s geared to make the most out of your battery life and deliver long-lasting power. And with Apple silicon, it’s even faster than ever before.

4K video streaming

See your favorite shows and films in their best light. Safari supports in-browser 4K HDR video playback for YouTube, Netflix, and Apple TV+.6 And it runs efficiently for longer-lasting battery life.

Privacy is built in.

Online privacy isn’t just something you should hope for — it’s something you should expect. That’s why Safari comes with industry-leading privacy protection technology built in, including Intelligent Tracking Prevention that identifies trackers and helps prevent them from profiling or following you across the web. Upgrading to iCloud+ gives you even more privacy protections, including the ability to sign up for websites and services without having to share your personal email address.

Privacy Report

Safari makes it simple to see how your privacy is protected on all the websites you visit. Click the Privacy Report button in your toolbar for a snapshot of cross-site trackers currently prevented from profiling you on the website you’re visiting. Or view a weekly Privacy Report to see how Safari protects you as you browse over time.

Customization

Safari is more customizable than ever. Organize your tabs into Tab Groups so it’s easy to go from one interest to the next. Set a custom background image and fine-tune your browser window with your favorite features – like Reading List, Favorites, iCloud Tabs, and Siri Suggestions. And third-party extensions for iPhone, iPad, and Mac let you do even more with Safari, so you can browse the way you want across all your devices.

Extensions

Safari Extensions add functionality to your browser to help you explore the web the way you want. Find and add your favorite extensions in the dedicated Safari category on the App Store.

Smart Tools

Built-in tools create a browsing experience that’s far more immersive, intuitive, and immediate. Get detailed information about a subject in a photo with just a click, select text within any image, instantly translate an entire web page, and quickly take notes wherever you are on a site – without having to switch apps.

Security

Strong security protections in Safari help keep you safe. Passkeys introduce a safer way to sign in. iCloud Keychain securely stores and autofills passkeys and passwords across all your devices. Safari also notifies you when it encounters suspicious websites and prevents them from loading. Because it loads each web page in a separate process, any harmful code is always confined to a single browser tab so it won’t crash the entire application or access your data. And Safari automatically upgrades sites from HTTP to the more secure HTTPS when available.

Continuity

Same Safari. Different device. Safari works seamlessly and syncs your passwords, bookmarks, history, tabs, and more across Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch. And when your Mac, iOS, or iPadOS devices are near each other, they can automatically pass what you’re doing in Safari from one device to another using Handoff. You can even copy images, video, or text from Safari on your iPhone or iPad, then paste into another app on your nearby Mac – or vice versa.

Designed for developers.

Deep WebKit integration between Mac hardware and macOS allows Safari to deliver the fastest performance and the longest battery life of any browser on the platform, while supporting modern web standards for rich experiences in the browser. WebKit in macOS Ventura includes optimizations that enable even richer browsing experiences, and give developers more control over styling and layout — allowing for more engaging content.

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What’s New

New Features

• Added dark mode support for plain text files.
• Added fingerprinting countermeasures for querying the permission state of the Notifications API.

CSS

• Added support for :user-invalid and :user-valid pseudo-classes.
• Added support for currentColor with color-mix().
• Added support for margin-trim.
• Added support for outline following the curve of border-radius.
• Added support for CSS Properties and Values API with support for @property.
• Added support for CSS relative color syntax.
• Added support for new named colors to match CSS Color Level 4.
• Added support for the :dir() pseudo-class.
• Added support for the :modal pseudo-class to match fullscreen elements.
• Added support for the lh and rlh units.
• Added support for the range syntax from Media Queries level 4.
• Added support for the unprefixed :fullscreen pseudo-class.
• Added support for the unprefixed absolute size keyword xxx-large.

HTML

• Redesigned form controls in iOS.
• Added support for the theme-color meta tag to change the tab bar background and over-scroll area in macOS and iPadOS, and the status bar in iOS.
• Added support for the media attribute to specify theme-color meta tags for Dark Mode and light appearance.

JavaScript

• Added top-level await.
• Added support for ES6 Modules in Workers and ServiceWorkers.
• Added support for Error.cause.
• Added support for private class methods and accessors (Safari 14.1 added support for private data member syntax).
• Added support for BigInt64Array and BigUint64Array.

Media

• Added support for the MediaSession API to enable SharePlay experiences.
• Added Playback Speed and Chapters menus to built-in media controls.
• Added hardware accelerated VP9 and WebM in MSE on all iPads that support iPadOS 15.
• Added support for the Opus audio codec in WebM containers.

Security & Privacy

• Added support for automatic HTTPS upgrades.
• Added IP address hiding from known trackers which users can enable in Safari Preferences.
• Private Click Measurement enhancements for privacy-preserving ad click attribution:
• Updated attribution reporting to also send reports to the click destination.
• Added click fraud prevention with un-linkable tokens.
• Added IP address protection for attribution reports.

Payments

• Added support for indicating an estimated arrival date for shipping methods.
• Added support for the user to enter a coupon code.
• Added support for marking the shipping method as in-store pickup.

WebAssembly

• Added support for streaming compilation.
• Added support for bulk memory operations.
• Added support for reference types.
• Added support for non-trapping conversions from float to int.

Web APIs

• Added support for WebGL 2. The implementation of WebGL runs on top of Metal for better performance.
• Added support for Web Share level 2 enhancements to Web Share that enable sharing files from a web page to an app. See Web Share API for more information.
• User gestures now propagate through requestAnimationFrame with a one second time limit.

Web Extensions

• Added support for Safari Web Extensions in iOS and iPadOS.
• Added support for declarativeNetRequest in Safari Web Extensions.
• Web Inspector
• Added an inspected page overlay for visualizing and debugging CSS grid contexts.