Apple has stopped hinting. On October 13, the company put up a page titled “Switch to Safari” that says what its privacy ads used to only suggest: “Safari is a more powerful and private browser than Chrome.” The page lists more than ten reasons to leave Google’s browser, includes a feature-by-feature comparison table where Chrome gets a “No” in every row, and comes with two new YouTube spots, “Safari Helps Keep Trackers Away” and “Safari Helps Keep Distractions Hidden.”
Some of the claims are solid. Others rest on Apple’s own lab tests run under narrow conditions. And all of it comes with an awkward backdrop: Google pays Apple tens of billions of dollars a year to be the default search engine inside the very browser Apple is now pushing. Here is what the campaign says, what holds up, and how to switch if you want to.
The short version
- Apple’s new “Switch to Safari” page claims up to 5 more hours of video streaming and up to 35% faster loading of frequently visited sites compared with Chrome on a Mac.
- Both numbers come from Apple’s own August 2026 tests on a 15-inch M5 MacBook Air, and the page load figure uses just 12 websites on a simulated network.
- The privacy argument is the strongest part: Safari blocks third-party cookies by default, and Chrome still does not after Google abandoned its plan to phase them out.
- Google still pays Apple to be Safari’s default search engine (more than $20 billion in 2022, according to trial evidence), and a 2025 court ruling lets those payments continue without exclusivity.
- Switching takes three taps on an iPhone, and a Mac can pull in Chrome bookmarks, history and passwords automatically.
What Apple’s “Switch to Safari” page actually claims
The page lives at apple.com/safari/switch, though its headline reads “Stay on Safari,” which hints at the real target: people who own a Mac or iPhone but installed Chrome anyway. The top of the page makes four comparisons. Safari “offers up to 5 hours more video streaming on your Mac compared with Chrome.” Safari is “up to 35% faster than Chrome when loading frequently visited sites on Mac.” Chrome “doesn’t remember which distractions you want to keep hidden.” And Chrome “lets more third-party trackers follow you across the web and collect and sell your data to advertisers.”
Below that, a comparison table checks off nine features for Safari and none for Chrome, including blocking third-party cookies by default, using machine learning to fight tracking, blocking known trackers in Private Browsing, and 4K HDR playback on Mac for YouTube, Netflix and Apple TV. It also calls Safari “the world’s fastest browser” and pitches Apple Pay, passkeys, Profiles and Reader Mode.
The two ads lean on humor. The distraction spot shows pop-up offers and sign-up prompts dissolving, a nod to Distraction Control, the feature Apple added in iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia that lets you tap to hide a page element and have Safari remember the choice on later visits.
Read the footnotes
Apple’s fine print is unusually specific, and it matters. The battery claim comes from tests Apple ran in August 2026 on production 15-inch MacBook Air systems with the M5 chip, 16GB of memory and a prerelease build of macOS Golden Gate. Video streaming used 1080p content, with prerelease Safari 27.0 against Chrome 151. The 35% page load figure measured “snapshot versions of 12 popular websites under simulated network conditions.” The “fastest browser” line rests on averaged scores across three benchmarks: Speedometer 3.1, JetStream 3.0 and MotionMark 1.3.2.
None of that makes the numbers false. Safari has been the more power-efficient browser on Apple Silicon for years, largely because Apple tunes it for its own chips and media engines. Speedometer 3 was developed jointly by the major browser makers, Google included, so it is not an Apple-only yardstick. But these are vendor tests on a single laptop with an unreleased OS, and no independent lab has published a comparison yet. Every performance claim on the page is also about the Mac. On an iPhone, Chrome has long been required to use Apple’s WebKit engine (outside the EU), so the gap there comes down to features and defaults, not raw speed.
| Apple’s claim | What the fine print says | How it holds up |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 5 more hours of video streaming than Chrome | Apple test, Aug 2026, 15-inch M5 MacBook Air, 1080p video, prerelease Safari 27.0 vs Chrome 151 | Plausible and consistent with past results, but Mac only and not yet independently verified |
| Up to 35% faster loading of frequently visited sites | Snapshot versions of 12 popular sites on a simulated network | Narrow lab scenario; real browsing will vary |
| “The world’s fastest browser” | Average of Speedometer 3.1, JetStream 3.0 and MotionMark 1.3.2, run by Apple | Industry benchmarks, but Apple chose the hardware and ran the tests |
| Blocks third-party cookies by default; Chrome does not | No footnote needed | Accurate. Chrome kept third-party cookies after Google reversed course in 2024 and 2025 |
| Chrome lets trackers “collect and sell your data” | No footnote | Right about cookies enabling cross-site tracking; the “sell” framing is Apple’s characterization |
| Distraction Control remembers what you hide | Requires iOS 18, iPadOS 18 or macOS Sequoia or later | Useful for static pop-ups, but it is not an ad blocker; rotating content can return |
The privacy case is the strongest part
On tracking, Apple has the facts on its side. Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention has blocked third-party cookies by default since 2020. Google spent years promising to do the same in Chrome, then in July 2024 dropped the plan in favor of a user-choice prompt. In April 2025 it scrapped the standalone prompt as well, and in October 2025 Google vice president Anthony Chavez announced that the company was retiring its remaining Privacy Sandbox technologies, citing “low levels of adoption.” The upshot is that Chrome, the browser most of the world uses, still allows third-party cookies out of the box.
Safari also goes further against fingerprinting, the technique of identifying a device from details like screen size, CPU cores and installed fonts. Since iOS 26 and Safari 26, Advanced Fingerprinting Protection runs across all browsing by default, presenting what Apple calls “a simplified version of the system configuration so more devices look identical to trackers.” Link Tracking Protection, which strips tags like gclid and fbclid from URLs, is still automatic only in Private Browsing unless you turn on “All Browsing” in Safari’s advanced settings. Interestingly, the new campaign page does not mention fingerprinting at all, or iCloud Private Relay, which hides your IP address but requires a paid iCloud+ plan. If you are curious about that one, we explained what Private Relay does and does not protect last month.
This is not new territory for Apple. Its January 2019 CES billboard read “What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone,” and the new page borrows the line: “What happens in Safari stays in Safari.” A June 2026 ad depicted trackers as people in chrome-colored suits. The October campaign simply drops the subtext and names Chrome.
Why Apple is bothering: the market share picture
Chrome’s lead is enormous almost everywhere. StatCounter’s September 2026 figures put Chrome at 66.36% of browsing worldwide against Safari’s 18.27%. On desktops worldwide, Safari sits third at 8.06%, behind Chrome (65.09%) and Microsoft Edge (14.64%). The one place Safari is level is the US phone market, where Chrome holds 47.44% and Safari 46.38%, a reflection of the iPhone’s share in the country.
That desktop number explains why the campaign is so Mac-focused. Plenty of Mac owners install Chrome on day one, often because they use it at work or on a Windows PC.
The Google money in the background
There is an irony at the center of this campaign. When you switch from Chrome to Safari, your searches still go to Google by default, because Google pays Apple for that spot. Evidence from the Justice Department’s antitrust case showed Google paid Apple about $18 billion in 2021 and more than $20 billion in 2022, sharing 36% of its search ad revenue from Safari.
That arrangement survived the case. In his September 2, 2025 remedies ruling, US District Judge Amit Mehta declined to ban the payments. He did bar Google from exclusive contracts for Search, Chrome, Google Assistant and Gemini, and Google can no longer tie revenue sharing to keeping a Google service as the default for more than a year. Both Google and the Justice Department have appealed, so the arrangement could still change.
So Apple wins either way: a Chrome user who switches to Safari stays on Google search, and Apple shares in that revenue.
What you can do: switching takes about a minute
- Make Safari the default on iPhone or iPad: open Settings, tap Apps, tap Safari, tap Default Browser App, and select Safari.
- Make Safari the default on a Mac: open System Settings, click Desktop & Dock, scroll to “Default web browser” and choose Safari.
- Import from Chrome on a Mac: the first time you open Safari after using Chrome, a prompt at the bottom of the start page offers to keep your imported bookmarks, history and passwords. To do it later, choose File > Import From Browser > Google Chrome. Chrome must be installed on the Mac.
- Import on iPhone: go to Settings, Apps, Safari, and tap Import below History and Website Data, then choose the file or ZIP you exported from your other browser. Imported passwords land in the Passwords app. Apple warns the export file may contain unencrypted data, so delete it afterward.
- Tighten tracking protection: in Safari’s Advanced settings, set Advanced Tracking and Fingerprinting Protection to “All Browsing” so link tracking parameters are stripped everywhere.
- Move to passkeys: Safari stores passkeys in iCloud Keychain. If you are unsure what happens when you lose a device, read our explainer on passkeys versus passwords.
For people who live entirely on Apple hardware, Safari is a sensible default, and its privacy settings out of the box are genuinely stronger than Chrome’s. The battery and speed claims are believable but come from Apple’s own lab, on one laptop and an unreleased OS, so treat the exact numbers as a ceiling rather than a promise. And whichever browser you pick, the search bar will most likely still be sending your queries to Google, because that is the deal Apple keeps getting paid for.
Sources and further reading
- UNILAD Tech: Apple launches massive campaign urging users to ditch Google Chrome immediately
- Apple: Switch to Safari
- StatCounter Global Stats: Browser Market Share Worldwide
- 9to5Mac: Apple’s deals with Google largely unaffected in antitrust case ruling
- TechCrunch: Google avoids breakup, but has to give up exclusive search deals in antitrust trial
- Engadget: Google has killed Privacy Sandbox
- 9to5Mac: Security Bite, my favorite privacy features in iOS 26
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