Why I can't use Safari anymore.

> I am almost forced to use Chrome these days because it is so slick and does what I need it to do.

I'm kind of with Mac Jim here.. use whichever tool works best for you... however, I'm unsure as to whether this is a comment on Safari, or an ad for Chrome? I can't quite figure it out...

> try setting up a set of standard web pages to open every time Safari opens.

granted, this isn't a major use case for me, but it seems that creating a tab group, and setting Safari -> Settings -> General -> New windows open with: to that tab group works 100% of the time for me. Maybe you're not setting it up right...?

> Is that specific enough?

Not really.

You haven't explained how you're trying to set it up, nor what happens when you do.. does it work sometimes? none of the time? 50%?

What does happen? Do all the tabs open? or just some of them?

> Also, Safari gets wrapped around the axle and gets taken over in this so-called secure environment called Safari

I literally have no idea what you're talking about here. What 'axle' are you referring to?

> It gets completely controlled by web pages popping up with pop-ups so badly that I eventually have to close it down.

This literally never happens to me.. Maybe you don't have pop-ups blocked (Safari -> Settings -> Websites -> Pop-up Windows -> When visiting other websites: Block

The other alternative is that you've installed some Safari extensions that are interfering (Safari is no more immune than Chrome when it comes to social engineering and malicious extensions, other than the smaller target radius).

Check Safari -> Settings -> Extensions to see what's installed and disable any you're not 100% sure about to see if that helps.

It gets completely controlled by web pages popping up with pop-ups so badly that I eventually have to close it down.

This seems to be your main complaint/problem.

Yes, persistent ads and sites that insist on filling a page with them will make sites sometimes deathly slow to load as the browser is more time handling the ads being fed to it rather than what you went to the site for.

Chrome is faster because like all browsers based on the open-source Chromium base code, it has an ad blocker built in. Safari does not.

To fix that, download a free ad blocker from the App Store to use with Safari. 1Blocker is very good. There are in-app purchases for it, but if all you need is the basic ad blocking, it's free. That's what I do. Once you cut out 99% of the ads from loading, Safari will be much, much faster.

Otherwise, two other very fast Chromium based browsers work well. Those are Vivaldi and Helium. Ad blocking built in, amazingly fast web page loads, and unlike Chrome, no data harvesting.

Use whatever browser you wish, and that works best for you. For me, I have the opposite experience and the data harvesting done by Chrome is much more of a security concern for me. I don't get pop-ups on Safari with them blocked in Settings. Some things you see on a web page are not pop-ups at all and use the Overlay function in HTML where it may look like a popup, but those appear on Chrome as well.

Feel free to post a link of a website where you have a poor user experience with Safari when compared to Chrome. Most all websites adhere to the Webkit standard for viewing which is what Safari is based on. There are a few Google centric sites that will recommend a Chromium based browser, but that is usually due to its data harvesting capabilities that is not possible when using Safari.