On a Mac, Safari is the best browser (as defined by being fast, battery efficient and native app) by a far margin compared to other mainstream choices, only matched by the Orion browser (but I may be biased).
Since Internet Explorer is not supported anymore by most websites Safari has become the new worst browser in regards to having really bad CSS and Web API Support.
Yeah maybe you as a developer want some fancy CSS and bleeding fresh Web API but I as a user don't.
The web is too bloated as it is, I feel that Apple is on my side putting a damper on that.
Safari is powerful enough as it is. You want voip, notifications, codecs and so on - do the work and learn to write a native app. I'd rather pay for that than paying with my attention to ads in your "free" web app.
I was a web developer in a previous life. You can write basic standard code and Firefox/Chrome/even old Edge works fine, but Safari has a million little things that are buggy or don't work, or break at random in new versions. I wasted so much time hacking random bits of code to support iPhone. In 2021 now that IE is finally dead, I'm sure Apple is singlehandedly keeping BrowserStack in business.
The first one that comes to mind is the <input> select method doesn't work[1], although MDN claims it does. It works _sometimes_, for reasons I couldn't discern. I'm not sure about you, but I wouldn't call selecting text a fancy or bleeding edge feature.
Why? I want it to run on all platforms. That's one of the best things about the web. I'd rather just not support Safari than write and deploy separate MacOS, Windows, and Mobile applications.
+ I don't want my users to download to have download a native binary that has unrestricted access to filesystem and I need a Apple Device to develop even if it's the smallest thing in the world.
Web browsers are the best of both worlds, secure enclaved sandboxes, easily reachable by just a link, and powerful enough to do many basic tasks, and cross compatible.
Web browsers are also huge, complexity-ridden, resource-hungry monsters long past their original mandate and currently well on their way to become a gigantic mess that include everything and the kitchen sink.
As an user, I do not mind downloading and installing slim and fast native application which take advantage of the hardware my devices provide and integrate nicely with my OS.
I personally do not mind the state of web browsers anymore, to be a web browser today is quite akin to the operating itself now (Let's not talk about Chromebooks), It's a very complex, resource heavy monster that abstracts away hardware differences from the software, and I love it. Web today is a mess, What we thought a browser will do, read HTML and render it on the screen, has been well offloaded to well, "web apps", and web browser just is a tool that runs them, quite similar to what the OS does.
What I like about web is how "safer" it is compared to well running binaries on the OS, me visiting a site would not give it access to all my private photos, and potentially allow it to add itself to startup everytime I open the OS without my permission.
Well I as a developer just want a browser which doesn't break existing features: localstorage, indexeddb were completely broken for months this year.
Like CSS containment is feature that was shipped in Chrome in 2016, Firefox 2019 so how many years have to pass for Safari to implement it so it isn't just 'some new shiny' feature anymore?
Yeah, this is the kind of entitled mentality that is going to sink the MacOS ship. I'm not writing a native app just for basic web browser functionality. If the choice comes down to re-writing everything for MacOS or dropping support altogether, I have no qualms cutting out less than 20% of the desktop market share.
As an end user, I felt like Safari should have done better. And extension for Safari are gated behind app store only (no sideloading the extension).
Also I came across a few sites that Safari couldn't render it correctly whereas Firefox and Vivaldi show the site just fine. I only use Safari as a last resort and only used it for Zoom/Doxy/Whereby/etc.
It's interesting that your list defining the "best browser" doesn't actually include properly rendering web pages and the general issues that safari has as a web browser outside what you mentioned. "Fast" is interesting, as if something doesn't work, is it really fast? I routinely see how Safari fakes speed. Being able to read a web page before someone else doesn't make it faster if you can't also interact with that web page. And while battery efficiency is critical, rarely do I know someone who is only using safari. And while being "native" is nice, it also means its use is limited to just the Apple ecosystem.
Best means different thing to different people. I have opted to define exactly what best means to me, so that we can get comments like yours to further the discussion.
Yes - Chrome, Brave, Edge, Firefox... all use non-native UI components in their macOS apps (even iOS), which makes them look and feel out of place on a Mac.