- A post about Microsoft Edge sparked a fierce debate over X
- The message asked who is running Edge on Apple’s macOS platform
- Users have both praised and criticized Edge, but I still prefer Firefox
Apple and Microsoft are known for being big rivals in the tech world, so when user X Macfolio asked his followers “what kind of monster uses Microsoft Edge on a Mac?” They might have expected the debate to be partisan, with groups of rival fans lining up to berate each other.
But while there was vigorous debate, it was not as intense as one might have expected. Instead, many users explained the reasons why they like using the combination of Microsoft’s web browser and Apple’s macOS operating system.
User X @wiedymi, for example, described Edge as “the best browser for Mac.” User @secretised explained that when he used it, it was “the only browser that didn’t consume 4GB of RAM with four tabs”, while @osxdaily said “It’s actually pretty good!”
For others, the reason was more prosaic, with @asikunaa pointing out that “some internal government sites require you to use Edge because they don’t distribute security certificates for Chrome.”
Meanwhile, user @tarekmohmd9 summed up what many people apparently felt, saying that Edge on macOS has “the speed boost of Chromium without Chrome’s horrible RAM management, it’s awesome (faster than Safari, uses fewer resources than Chrome, supports most Chromium extensions unlike Opera and Firefox).” They finished succinctly by saying “this is excellent”.
Of course, not all responses have been positive. User @rafalo said: “I just downloaded it and uninstalled it after [five seconds].” And @LansorHQ simply asked: “What kind of monster does Edge usually use?”
Why I use Firefox instead
I’m a long-time Firefox user and have been using Mozilla’s browser for over 20 years. I’ve tried other browsers, from big dogs like Chrome and Safari to more specialized offerings like Opera and Vivaldi. And yes, I also spent a lot of time with Microsoft Edge.
Despite all this, I always come back to Firefox. There are several reasons for this, and I must admit that one of the major reasons is inertia. After so many years of use, Firefox feels comfortable and familiar. I like the way it works and changing would be a chore considering how many extensions and tabs I have running.
But there are many other things I like about Firefox. I use both a Mac and a PC in my daily life and Firefox works on both, unlike Safari only on Mac. I can also send tabs between any of my devices, which is useful when I find something interesting on my iPhone and want to read it later on my Mac or PC.
As I’ve written before, this is also a true privacy-focused browser that goes to great lengths to protect your data, which I really appreciate. It isolates cookies to prevent them from creating a detailed picture of you, and Firefox limits access to my data that could be used to create a digital “fingerprint” of my browsing habits.
So, despite the debate over X, I won’t be switching to Microsoft Edge anytime soon. But the discussion highlights that just because you use one operating system or another, you don’t have to be exclusively loyal to that developer’s products – you can even switch to those made by its main rival.
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