Firefox vs. Safari

I like everything about Safari, except its slowness. If I'm impressed by the speed of Safari 2.0 in Tiger, I will switch back.

What's type ahead find?

I use safari. It's great.

I wish they made something like the search terms buttons on the GoogleToolbar (probably Yahoo and MSN have them too.) What I'm talking about is how when you type stuff into the search bar it will make buttons, one for each term, and you can click on them, and it will seach for it on the current page. This would be really handy to have built into the browser.

That's where it will begin searching for and highlighting the words as you are typing it in.

I don't like firefox in MacOS X since the display of text tends to blur a bit. Or is this only for me?

Now I am using Camino browser and I think it is great.

This has been thoroughly discussed many times already...

Apple's design philosophy is to keep everything as simple as possible. As a result, customizability and advanced features are often omitted.

If you're like me and like to customize and control everything, then Firefox is much better. Others prefer simplicity, in which case, Safari is the browser of choice.

Just compare the number of options in both browsers and you will see what I mean. Further, Firefox has many more hidden options.

The same goes with most of the other programs as well...

• I don't use Safari, but use Firefox
• I don't use Mail, but use Thunderbird
• I don't use iChat, but use AdiumX
• I don't use iPhoto, but use iView Media

All for the same reason. I can't customize things as much as I can with the Apple programs.

Things like type ahead find, rudimentary RSS and the ability to rearrange tabs can be added to Safari by installing Safari Stand. Make sure you also get hold of Pithhelmet for adblocking, and Acid Search to add extra search channels to safari.

i know you dont wanna start a flame war, but this topic has been run into the ground several times. appleinsider has a handy dandy search tool.

Safari is slow. I don't know why, since its relative Konqueror is much faster, and with so many more options, but I find that irritating. So I use Firefox, and sometimes Camino. I use Firefox in my Linux box as well, so it feels nice to have a kind of consistency.

What I dislike about Safari, and any browser in general (except Gecko based browser), is the de-centralized extentions. You have to go to 15 different pages to install add-ons. Where as with Firefox or other Mozilla browsers, you have addons.mozilla.org and you can install anything you want there.

I know this is not Apple's fault, but they could host something like this in their website. Little extentions that make Safari do things it otherwise wouldn't do. Maybe it's against their UI 'philosophy', but not every user cares about it either.

Safari 1.3 (in OS X 10.3.9 released just now) is much, much faster for me than 1.2 (or FireFox, for that matter).

the web developer bar in firefox makes it number one for me alone.

plus the tabs work better press apple + 2 takes you to the tab your second tab etc, much better than safai.

Firefox still feels faster to me.

If you don't think Firefox is fast, perhaps you need to do this to really speed it up:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1299854/posts

The new safari does blaze through pages.

Safari 1.3 that came with OS X 10.3.9 is a lot faster. The only thing I wish Safari had is a button for HOME. It would be so much easier to use rather than having to go to history and click home.

Can't you just go to the View menu and push Home to make the Home button appear? Or press the Home key. This always pisses me off, because I often press it expecting it to go to the beginning of a line of text.

Safari has a little house here, and I can click it to go to home-page.

White Rabbit,

Thanks for the tip. I had forgotten all about that. I clicked on Home and the symbol appeared on my menu bar. Thanks once again.

What a complex topic...

It's really all opinion, so I'll give mine.

I wish Apple would have chosen the Gecko renderer, the engine that powers Mozilla-based browsers.

Choosing Gecko would have given web developers one less target to worry about.

I'm not sure of the reasoning behind the KHTML vs. Gecko choice... but here are a few guesses:

Apple & Linux. To me, there are two different ways to say OS X: OS "ten" and OS "x" as in the letter. This was really a brilliant move on Apple's part.

I wasn't an Apple user/owner before OS X. But I was a UNIX user in my profession. To me, the "x" in OS X meant UNIX. Long story short, I bit because of UNIX.

So the point of this story is this: Apple wants to attract UNIX and UNIX-like (Linux) OS users, and is doing a damn good job.

Thus KHTML. That K is KDE. One of the big guns in the Linux desktop space. KDE is gaining corporate attention because of strong Windows lookalike/actalike themes.

Here is your warning/notice: Linux desktops will happen! Apple will need to address the problem. Using KHTML, and contributing innovative development back into it, causes Apple to gain some type of foothold into the Linux desktop.

No, I'm not expressing myself perfectly, but I hope you see the point.

Apple is very busy blurring the lines between OS X and Linux. The most blurred lines are under the hood, especially on the server end.

UNIX is the trump card of OS X in my honest opinion.

I look forward to see how Apple continues to address the oncoming Linux desktop.

I think I read somewhere that the reason they chose KHTML was because Gecko was very slow at the time that they started development on Safri.

It wasn't till Firefox that it was vastly spead up. Before, they only had the full blown Mozilla browsers and the Netscape browsers based off it. Those two browsers take ages to start up compared with Firefox.

Firefox takes an age to start up on both the Mac and the PC. It also doesn't comply with the apple GUI rules. The two reasons I don't use it.

There's always Camino which is supposed to follow Apple UI conventions/rules and also uses the Gecko engine... I just wish it had the extension mechanism that Firefox has.

Firefox is my primary browser on Windows, Linux, and OS X. Consistency across the platforms that I use every day is nice.

Now that Safari 1.3 is out, what have your experiences been?

A site my company has been working just started having major Javascript problems. Some stuff works same as before, but some Javascripts totally break. At least I'll have that JavaScript console now.

Anyone else have problems?

none here, so far

The Firefox not following Apple GUI excuse is very old and baseless. None of the Apple apps ported to Windows follow Windows GUI rules. Yet people use them. Not because they're good (QuickTime is an abomination of an app in Windows) but because they need them (QuickTime for .mov) and iTunes (a horrible app when compared to the Mac version) for buying music.

And contrary to popular belief, there is a thing called Windows GUI. It may not be the prettiest, but it's there and it's not being respected by a company that asks developers to respect it's own GUI.

what does it not comply with for interest? I think the reason is to make it the same as the Mac version. Anyway that's not the point. It's Mozilla who I'm complaining about

For the record Firefox winds. Apple have taken out the contextual menu for images that allowed you to save as.. in Safari 1.3. If this is not back in Safari 2 I'm switching to firefox, but i need the spell checker. Bloody Apple, first they change the shortcuts and then they reduce the functionality.

They don't comply with the Windows GUI. You should not make a Windows App Mac-like because it doesn't fit in well. You should respect the native GUI. iTunes with its Aqua buttons and brushed interface doesn't fit in, QuickTime is like an old lady with it's dull interface, and both of them perform even worse.

At least Firefox looks more like a Mac app. It has different buttons for the Mac version while in Linux and Windows they're the same.

Another FF user www.spreadfirefox.com

Safari here! Safari is much cleaner than and faster than firefox. Also i like the safari plug-ins better. I really only use sogudi and acid search. But there are a plethora of plug ins at www.pimpmysafari.com. Also, safari has a nice spell check and no undo support. great for typing in forums.

Safari does require maintenance to stay faster than all the competition. I frequently clear my cookies and bookmark icons. Also I wish that the safari interface had a traditional way to customize the toolbar. Maybe this changes in Tiger.

I was knew I saw various import and export bookmarks menu options, but then I realized it was in the Debug menu and not a standard menu.

Gotta love that Debug menu. If only every app had one!

They didn't take it out, they changed the default which is now Save Image to "Downloads". If you hold down the Option key it changes to Save As...

I don't use it anyway, Drag and Drop is so much easier.

thank you! I didn't know about that - it's a bit hidden. I find drag and drop isn't as good because I have lots of windows open and i like to change the names as well.

I think you don't understand the separation between rendering engine (Gecko) and the surrounding GUI and cruft.

Gecko is small. It's everything surrounding which is the slow part. Mozilla includes everything including the kitchen sink. Firefox ejected mail, news, IRC, html editing, and got it down to "just a browser".

I believe Apple's choice had little to do with any of this. Mozilla has large pools of developers; Apple couldn't control. KHTML had far less, Apple has more control.

We all know how much of a control freak Apple is.