Apple’s latest Safari ads look like they were pulled from 2006. One presenter stands in front of a plain backdrop, something annoying about the web keeps crowding him, and Safari clears it all away. Anyone who remembers the Mac vs PC spots will recognize the setup right away.
The two 15-second videos belong to the Switch to Safari campaign and are tagged #SwitchtoSafari on Apple’s YouTube channel. Both point viewers to Apple’s comparison page against Chrome, which is where the actual numbers live.
Both Safari Ads Run 15 Seconds With One Presenter and a Plain Backdrop
The first video, Safari Helps Keep Trackers Away, covers Intelligent Tracking Prevention. Apple describes it as built-in protection that helps block data trackers from following you around the internet.
The second, Safari Helps Keep Distractions Hidden, is about Distraction Control. Sign-up banners and spin-to-win style offers pile up around the presenter until Safari hides them. Apple says Safari remembers what you hid and keeps it hidden on your next visit.
The same man in the same green jacket appears in both ads against the same blue backdrop. There are no product shots and no spec sheets, only the problem and the fix.
The Mac vs PC Ads Used a Similar Stripped-Down Setup for 66 Spots
Apple’s Get a Mac campaign ran from May 2006 to October 2009 and produced 66 TV spots. Justin Long played the relaxed Mac, John Hodgman played the stuffy PC, and the two stood against a blank white backdrop while the PC kept running into problems the Mac never had.
The new browser ads trade two characters for one presenter. The stuffy PC role now belongs to the clutter around him, and Safari plays the part of the Mac that makes it go away.
Hodgman did bring the PC character back once more. He appeared at the very end of Apple’s One More Thing event on November 10, 2020, right after the first Apple silicon Macs were unveiled.
Apple Backs the Ads With a Long List of Chrome Comparisons
The comparison page uses a checkmark chart that marks Chrome with a No on every row. Four of the claims carry most of the weight:
- Up to 5 hours more video streaming on a Mac than Chrome
- Up to 35% faster loading of frequently visited websites on a Mac
- Blocks third-party cookies from tracking you by default, which Apple says Chrome does not
- Lets you hide distractions and remembers your preferences, which Apple says Chrome does not
Apple is also testing Safari code that tracks Chrome promotions on Google’s own pages, so the push against Chrome is showing up in more than one place.
All of the battery and speed figures come from Apple’s own August 2026 testing. The tests ran on a 15-inch MacBook Air with Apple M5 and 16GB of memory, using prerelease macOS 27 Golden Gate, Safari 27.0, and Chrome version 151, with 1080p video for the streaming test.
Our Take
I think Apple went back to the Mac vs PC formula because it still works. Those were successful ads that focused more on experiences with the two platforms rather than technicalities and features. A 15-second clip of one person getting buried in pop-ups explains Distraction Control much better than any feature list.
