For the last few years Jen Simmons has been working for Safari. The last few years have also seen massive improvements in the development of Safari. This may be a coincidence. Credit probably goes to other people, such as Nicole Sullivan, as well. However, Jen Simmons has become the face of Safari in public and seems to be a driving force behind a lot of the improvements.

Recently, I saw a question from her asking for our biggest wishes for Safari in 2025. Since I have a lot to say, I decided to write a blog post about it.

Now, whenever we talk about browsers and wishlists, as developers, we tend to focus on web standards and missing features in Webkit itself. However, I think it is valuable to take a step back and think about what Safari is missing from a user’s perspective.

#Why I use Safari as my primary browser

I have been using Safari as my primary browser for years now. I have always had to use Chrome (or another Chromium-based browser) for certain use-cases, but in the last few years there have been fewer and fewer reasons to need Chrome.

On the flip side, there are a few features in Safari that make it difficult for me to switch away and why I could never fully switch to Arc or Brave.

#Reader Mode

Safari’s Reader Mode is one of the best features of Safari. It is a simple way to remove the clutter from a website and focus on the content. Further, it is possible to configure settings on a per-site basis so that certain websites default to Reader view. I have long been using this feature to avoid dealing with the overbearing ads and designs of certain (mostly news) websites.

#Some amazing Safari-only extensions

There are a lot of legitimate criticisms of how Safari handles extensions. You’re forced to package extensions as apps, deal with Apple’s notarization or worse, app review. However, this has also enabled the existence of extensions that can charge money in return for a more premium experience. I have a few such apps/extensions that keep me coming back to Safari:

• Vinegar - An extension that replaces the Youtube player with a fairly vanilla HTML5 <video> player, blocks ads and generally provides a much nicer experience. I have tried to find similar extensions for Chrome or Firefox but have yet to find anything that even comes close.
• Noir - is a browser extension that adds a dark mode to any website. There are of course many extensions that do this across all browsers, but nothing is even close to as good as Noir. Compared to other similar extensions, Noir is much better at detecting existing dark modes, keeping content readable and generally creating a much better color scheme when generating a new dark mode. Other extensions look like a hack. Noir is so good, I usually even forget that I’m using an extension. The results look that good.
• 1Blocker - is an ad blocker, but it’s the nicest ad blocker I have ever used. It does a great job at blocking ads while not affecting performance (more on this below) and has some really nice features to manually hide elements on a per-site basis. I paid for it back when it was a one-time purchase. Unfortunately, it has since moved to a subscription model, so I’m not sure I can continue to recommend it.

#The best content blocking

Safari was the first browser to ship a declarative content blocking system. (And despite the fact that it shipped years ago, it was more powerful than what Chrome is trying to ship in manifest v3.) This system, along with an extension like 1Blocker, is great at blocking ads and other annoying elements on a website and usually improving performance. It’s also great to have the peace of mind that the ad blocker can’t be used to track you.

#Scrolling performance

This is a subtle thing, but Safari has the smoothing scrolling performance of all browser engines. This has sometimes come at the cost of features, but I can feel how smooth the scrolling is

#The UI

This is obviously a lot more subjective, but I generally like how Safari looks, and I prefer many of the small UI details:

• I like that as the number of tabs increases, they become scrollable rather super tiny like they do in Chrome.
• I like how easy it is customize the toolbar
• I like the sidebar and how Tab Groups work
• I like how the browser chrome is more compact

And I know I’m in the minority here, but I’ve never liked the tabs on top design that Chrome pioneered. There was period of time (15 yeaes ago!) when Safari copied that design and I didn’t like Safari’s implementation either.

#Battery Life

This used to be the case, but Chrome has since caught up and Safari doesn’t have a battery life advantage anymore.

#How is this still missing?

#Custom Search Engines

There are many issues that Safari has outside of Webkit itself, but none are more infuriating than the fact that Safari still doesn’t support the ability to define your own custom search engines.

I have been using browser extensions such as xSearch to define custom search engines for years now and while it is functional it is far from being a seamless experience. Sorry to be cynical, but I think Apple is taking money from search engines to be included in the list of available search engines.

#SVG Favicons

The lack of support for SVG favicons is an embarrassment. Safari previously required SVG icons for “Pinned Tabs”, so it’s all the more baffling that Safari still doesn’t support SVG favicons.

SVG Favicons solve two major problems:

• Vector icons can be resolution-independent and look great on high-DPI displays.
• SVG can use media queries within to provide different icons for light and dark mode.

#Tabs on the side

Safari has supported a sidebar for many years and it is more powerful than it may seem. It shows Tab Groups and the tabs within them. The Tab Groups can be collapsed and expanded. You can even drag to reorder tabs.

However, there are two major missing features that makes using it as a workflow infeasible:

• There is no fast way to close tabs from the sidebar (although there is a context menu). There needs to be a simple X button.
• There is no way to hide the tabs at the top of Safari.

#Dev Tools extensions

Dev tools extensions, such as React Dev Tools, do not work in Safari. Safari itself seemingly supports dev tools extensions now, but I have yet to see one actually exist. This needs to be prioritized.

#How is this still so broken?

There are couple of things that have long been broken in Safari and I’m not sure why they haven’t been fixed.

• Reading List syncing across devices is badly broken and completely unreliable.
• Tab Group syncing is similarly broken and unreliable.
  • Shared Tab Groups is a great feature but it’s not something I can rely on if the sync is this broken.
• There is general bugginess when trying to enable extensions within specific profiles.

#The next top web standards

Safari has added a bunch of amazing features in 2024 or is already in the process of adding them. This includes my personal most important features:

• View Transitions API
• text-box-trim
• WASM GC
• Scroll Driven Animations

There are also a couple of amazing features that are seemingly only in Safari at the moment:

• text-box-trim
• Scalar division in calc()

So now, it’s the time to ask for the next set of features that I’m personally most excited about.

#Anchor Positioning

Anchor positioning is an amazing feature that will simplify so many layout concerns that currently rely on JavaScript. There are obvious use-cases for positioning various popovers, but it actually goes a lot further and can be used for esoteric use-cases like positioning a custom focus ring that isn’t clipped by a parent’s overflow: hidden.

#Actually ship Scroll Driven Animations

I think will happen soon, but I just want to reiterate how awesome this feature is.

#interpolate-size

Let us finally animate to height: auto. This is an obvious win.

#Bug fixes and performance improvements

Safari is keeping up when it comes to new features these days. View Transitions shipped months after Chrome. :has() and text-box-trim shipped months before Chrome.

However, Safari still has the lowest web platform test score of the three major browser engines. I don’t put too much stock in these scores. Firstly, the “tests that fail in exactly one browser” is a misleading metric to begin with, the overall percentage compliance is a much better metric. Secondly, not all features are equally important.

However, it is important to have good, stable implementations of the most important features. And among these, my biggest wish is for better SVG support.

#Webkit is right about masonry

Also in 2025, I would love to see Safari and Webkit win the debate that masonry belongs in Grid Layout. Ahmad Shadeed already wrote a great article making the case for why masonry layout belongs in Grid Layout, so I won’t rehash that here.

#Conclusion

There were some dark years for Safari where it lagged years behind the other browsers. Things have turned around massively. Here’s hoping that 2025 will bring more of the same and we will be able to retire the “Safari is the new IE” meme for good.