Apple’s web browser, Safari, is kinda funny. It’s by far the most widely deployed and used mobile web browser on the planet. It is the genesis of WebKit, which is the engine that Chrome uses for rendering and display. And on Mac OS X, Safari has become almost totally unusable.

Don’t get me wrong: the rendering is dead on, the JavaScript performance is awesome, and the damn thing color manages by default. This is great stuff. However, with the release of Safari 5.0, performance has gone through the floor. It’s incredibly common for me to open 50 or 60 tabs while browsing photoblogs. However, after opening 5 or 10 tabs, things start to bog down. Switching between tabs often causes ever other window and tab I have open to go solid white, and then reload it’s contents from the internet. Closing tabs can take 15 or 20 seconds. Scrolling is abysmal.

So, I’m walking away from the excellent UI, the integration with iCloud, and all the other nice bits of Safari until the performance returns to a level where the browser is useable again. I’m not a huge fan of FireFox anymore, so I guess it’s going to be Chrome for the foreseeable future.