firefox is beginning to win me over

rokrok
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
sure, they need a few pointers on the mac interface, but they are close, the speed is nice, and man-o-man, the EASE of installing extras is something netscape 6 only prayed for when (remember teh full-page ads for netscape's new "themes," which broke with EVERY incremental upgrade, so we only ever had, like 3 good themes)?



i am running the web developer's toolbar now, and to be able to spot the class and id sections on a well-designed site with just a dropdown menu, or measure elements on-screen, etc. well, like i said, this is becoming a great web browser.



just hope it makes it out of the realm off technophiles and some windows-box maker starts shippign with it preinstalled. the ripple effect it would have on web-based standards would be huge.



but i am reminded that, too often, companies go for the profit first, hoping innovation will come along for the ride. so it may still be a while...

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 17
    Quote:

    Originally posted by rok

    just hope it makes it out of the realm off technophiles and some windows-box maker starts shippign with it preinstalled. the ripple effect it would have on web-based standards would be huge.



    but i am reminded that, too often, companies go for the profit first, hoping innovation will come along for the ride. so it may still be a while...




    well, it has been in the news a lot lately, and some people (not technophiles) are starting to be clued in about it and are switching.
  • Reply 2 of 17
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    It's so much better than Safari. I'm using the Deer Park G5-optimized beta right now.



    Oh, and download Firefoxy. It fixes up the UI widgets to look less Windows 95 and more Mac OS X.
  • Reply 3 of 17
    i actually prefer camino over firefox
  • Reply 4 of 17
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by TigerWoods99

    i actually prefer camino over firefox



    i haven't tried camino since its earliest days as navigator... has it seen many changes since then? it seemed that firefox has gotten the lion's share of attention since then, and i assumed development as well. plus, reading down the features list, i just don't see anything camino does that firefox doesn't. i'm sure it's capable, but are there big differences?



    for the record, i split my time evenly between safari and firefox. i just started the thread because i used to only kick on firefox occassionally, until katrina happened, and firefox could check my work exchange webmail, while safari couldn't, and i've been using it more and more often for that reason, so i have been exposed to it more.
  • Reply 5 of 17
    mrmistermrmister Posts: 1,095member
    " i just don't see anything camino does that firefox doesn't. i'm sure it's capable, but are there big differences?"



    Camino is a native Cocoa app, and firefox is in an XUL wrapper--so Camino behaves exactly like an OS X app because it is one, while Firefox is inconsistent and un-Mac-like, though it is getting better, and if you skin it you can fake it into acting correctly.



    I also find Camino faster for raw browsing.
  • Reply 6 of 17
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Well, if Camino is Cocoa and thus supports the Mac OS X spellcheck, god, I am switched.



    What other advantages over Safari/FF does it have?
  • Reply 7 of 17
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Alright, installed Camino, but for some reason the Appleinsider reply textboxes are behaving strangely, this also happened in Firefox. Might be something with the Courier font? It's just really weird, it buffers over itself without cleaning the stuff it just deleted , the cursor is appearing in the middle of words as I type them, very strange...dunno what is causing it.
  • Reply 8 of 17
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Placebo

    Alright, installed Camino, but for some reason the Appleinsider reply textboxes are behaving strangely, this also happened in Firefox. Might be something with the Courier font? It's just really weird, it buffers over itself without cleaning the stuff it just deleted , the cursor is appearing in the middle of words as I type them, very strange...dunno what is causing it.



    this exact thing used to happen to me too, in just about anything rendering a form text box in courier and using a mozilla-based rendering browser.
  • Reply 9 of 17
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    And in Camino, the cursor kind of flickers very quickly while it's in such a text box.



    Ah well.



    No spell check it seems, no themes, no extensions, I must say I'll be returning to Firefox. So long, Camino.
  • Reply 10 of 17
    mrsinmrsin Posts: 163member
    I'm running Camino, Version 2005101404 (1.0a1+), and Loving it! In fact, I'm getting ready to install the latest nightly build (November 2, 2005), or Version 2005110204 (1.0a1+)!



    On my Micro$oft Windows XP PC, I do use Firefox and love that too. I chose Camino for my iBook because it is being developed specifially for the Mac OS X interface, before discovering Camino, I was using the Mac version of Firefox. Just wanted to add my 2 cents and hope that's OK?



    iBook G4 14" Tiger 10.4.3
  • Reply 11 of 17
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    I'm using like four browsers on and off at this point: Firefox, Firefox G5 nightly, Safari, and Camino. So far, none of them are fitting the bill 100%.



    Safari: nice interface, I like the draggable links that appear in the little grey boxes as you drag them, I like the bookmark organization and the download manager's alright. Has some inconsistent Javascript problems and weird problems with some sites. Doesn't shrink images to fit.



    Firefox: I love having themes and it's overall pretty polished when I reskin the form widgets with Firefoxy. Nice download manager, I like the concept of the "live" RSS bookmarks.



    Firefox G5: Firefox but faster. I'm having some instability, but overall it's good enough to be my main browser.



    Camino: Really nice and quick, but pretty barebones with no extensions, themes, and it only half-uses the Mac OS X cocoa functionality, not providing spellcheck.
  • Reply 12 of 17
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Will they add spellcheck? Otherwise, why bother with Camino instead of FireFox?



    Safari...does not have a History. WTF. And half a download manager. WTF. That's so ridiculous it should have been fixed a year or two ago. Come on. I want to keep all my sites I was looking at for my paper, but delete the porn site I was just looking at!!! (Yeah, this is actually true. My girlfriend might be jealous, but then again she might want to look at them with me. Gotta play it safe.) And the download manager...doesn't manage anything. IE has a better one. And that is sad.



    I think eventually Camino and Safari will be the best of breed. Firefox will never fit in. Camino just needs more people or something. It's sad it doesn't support spell check. So currently Camino is kind of pointless but in the long run it will be a better fit for OS X than firefox.



    Oh and I heard MS IE 7:mac will be WICKED sweet man. It even has Tabs! Wow! 8)
  • Reply 13 of 17
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Aquatic

    Will they add spellcheck? Otherwise, why bother with Camino instead of FireFox?



    Safari...does not have a History. WTF.




    Sure looks like a history to me.
  • Reply 14 of 17
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Aquatic

    I think eventually Camino and Safari will be the best of breed. Firefox will never fit in. Camino just needs more people or something. It's sad it doesn't support spell check. So currently Camino is kind of pointless but in the long run it will be a better fit for OS X than firefox.



    Oh and I heard MS IE 7:mac will be WICKED sweet man. It even has Tabs! Wow! 8)




    Firefox will fit in for Windows, if not for Mac. IE just sucks way too much. I think no matter how good IE gets, some people will always want the alternative (IE's suckiness has caused permanent hemhorraging and distrust IMO)...not to mention Firefox is still getting better, so there's not much reason to believe IE will be catching up anytime soon. The only thing IE really has going for it is that it's included with Windows and it's integrated with WindowsExplorer (ie: type apple.com into address box while in My Computer or vice versa) which makes it convenient.
  • Reply 15 of 17
    pyr3pyr3 Posts: 946member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by mynamehere

    The only thing IE really has going for it is that it's included with Windows and it's integrated with WindowsExplorer (ie: type apple.com into address box while in My Computer or vice versa) which makes it convenient.



    I've heard of non techie people thinking that they aren't on the internet because they typed it into a Windows Explorer address field though. That's sort of a dangerous thing to be happening. Especially with all the spyware and adware out there.
  • Reply 16 of 17
    Quote:

    Originally posted by mrmister

    " i just don't see anything camino does that firefox doesn't. i'm sure it's capable, but are there big differences?"



    Camino is a native Cocoa app, and firefox is in an XUL wrapper--so Camino behaves exactly like an OS X app because it is one, while Firefox is inconsistent and un-Mac-like, though it is getting better, and if you skin it you can fake it into acting correctly.



    I also find Camino faster for raw browsing.




    Camino is native in the sense it has Cocoa wrapped interfaces.



    It uses Gecko which is not written in Cocoa. So no it is not a pure Cocoa application.
  • Reply 17 of 17
    pyr3pyr3 Posts: 946member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Aquatic

    Will they add spellcheck? Otherwise, why bother with Camino instead of FireFox?



    Everything inside of the webpage pane on the Camino window is XUL just like Firefox and Mozilla. The OS X looking widgets are just XUL widgets made to look like OS X widgets. They aren't native OS X widgets. That is why there is not spellcheck in the text box. It's not a native Cocoa text box.



    Quote:



    And the download manager...doesn't manage anything. IE has a better one. And that is sad.




    What exactly is it missing? What doesn't it manage?



    Quote:

    I think eventually Camino and Safari will be the best of breed. Firefox will never fit in. Camino just needs more people or something. It's sad it doesn't support spell check. So currently Camino is kind of pointless but in the long run it will be a better fit for OS X than firefox.



    The Camino developer was hired by Apple a while back. Just before Safari came out if IIRC. So development might have slowed. As for it being 'sad,' that it doesn't support spellcheck... it would require rewriting the Gecko engine in order to incorporate Cocoa widgets. Or else programming that functionality into the Gecko-engine. The reason most Cocoa apps have the spellcheck is because it's drag-and-drop. There isn't mountains of code that need to be produced to incorporate it into a program's text boxes.



    It's like me saying it's 'sad' that you haven't put 24K solid gold pistons into your car's engine. You'd have to take your engine apart and put it back together again to add new pistons to your car.



    Quote:



    Oh and I heard MS IE 7:mac will be WICKED sweet man. It even has Tabs! Wow! 8)




    lol Wicked sweet! Tabs! Awesome! I've never seen a web browser with that. What is it bringing to the table other than things that better browsers have had for a while now (Opera, Firefox, Safar, etc)? I'm pretty open-minded, but celebrating IE7 for the inclusion of tabs is like celebrating the US auto industry for including Air Conditioning in their cars for cheap. They only did this AFTER the Japanese auto industry came over here with cheap features like that and forced them to do it to compete. IE7's tabs aren't the 'wave of the future.' Tabbed browsing is the 'way of the present.' IE7 just had to catch up to other browsers. Though in reality lots of people out there that don't know any better are going to 'discover' tabbed browser with the advent of IE7 and praise the innovators at MS.
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