Firefox vs. Camino
I'm sitting on the fence between Firefox and Camino. I have no idea which to use.
Camino and Firefox fans, please feel free to do your best to sway me in your direction.
I won't consider OmniWeb because I have to pay for it, and it offers no compelling advantages over free browsers.
In my opinion, Safari is inferior in every way to Camino and Firefox. However, I'll give Safari 3.0 an honest try once Leopard comes out since it does seem to have a substantial number of new features.
Opera may be vastly superior to all Mac browsers. However, as much as I tried to like it, the interface is just too alien to me. Again, this is a matter of personal preference.
The reason I'm torn between Firefox and Camino.
Firefox pros:
1) Full extension support, including the del.icio.us plugin.
2) Keyboard shortcuts that make sense, like Control-Tab and F6 to access URL bar.
3) Spell-checking (non-native to Mac dictionary, but I don't care).
4) Superior preferences, including Cookie management, which lets you enter sites to allow cookies.
5) Link to extensions page within menu.
Firefox cons:
1) Slowest browser on Mac
2) Freezing issues, especially with Bookmark Bar bookmarks
3) non-Cocoa app without integration into Mac dictionary and other OS X API's
4) Ugly GUI
5) Inferior bookmark manager with no Bookmark Bar section
Camino pros:
1) Cocoa app
2) Blazing fast
3) Mostly stable
4) Much prettier than Firefox
Camino cons:
1) No spell-checking (to be added in 1.1)
2) Stupid keyboard shortcuts (Control-Option Left and Right for tab scrolling and Command-L instead of F6 for URL address field)
3) Inferior cookie management preferences. I can't enter sites exception sites for cookies. I can only remove them and let them get added automatically. (This is not fixed in 1.1
)
4) Inferior extensions manager and need to search for extensions page. There's no link in the preferences
I'm sure I'm missing out other little details.
Pros of both:
1) Keyboard shortcuts to webpages, like gg {search term} for Google. Safari doesn't have this and Opera's implementation associates it to a one-letter shortcut.
2) Type-ahead find. No other browsers I know of have this.
3) Support for userContent.css content-blocking. Opera's feature, which is GUI driven, is superior to all other browsers, however.
Anyway, you can't accuse me of not having put a lot of thought into this.
Camino and Firefox fans, please feel free to do your best to sway me in your direction.
I won't consider OmniWeb because I have to pay for it, and it offers no compelling advantages over free browsers.
In my opinion, Safari is inferior in every way to Camino and Firefox. However, I'll give Safari 3.0 an honest try once Leopard comes out since it does seem to have a substantial number of new features.
Opera may be vastly superior to all Mac browsers. However, as much as I tried to like it, the interface is just too alien to me. Again, this is a matter of personal preference.
The reason I'm torn between Firefox and Camino.
Firefox pros:
1) Full extension support, including the del.icio.us plugin.
2) Keyboard shortcuts that make sense, like Control-Tab and F6 to access URL bar.
3) Spell-checking (non-native to Mac dictionary, but I don't care).
4) Superior preferences, including Cookie management, which lets you enter sites to allow cookies.
5) Link to extensions page within menu.
Firefox cons:
1) Slowest browser on Mac
2) Freezing issues, especially with Bookmark Bar bookmarks
3) non-Cocoa app without integration into Mac dictionary and other OS X API's
4) Ugly GUI
5) Inferior bookmark manager with no Bookmark Bar section
Camino pros:
1) Cocoa app
2) Blazing fast
3) Mostly stable
4) Much prettier than Firefox
Camino cons:
1) No spell-checking (to be added in 1.1)
2) Stupid keyboard shortcuts (Control-Option Left and Right for tab scrolling and Command-L instead of F6 for URL address field)
3) Inferior cookie management preferences. I can't enter sites exception sites for cookies. I can only remove them and let them get added automatically. (This is not fixed in 1.1
)4) Inferior extensions manager and need to search for extensions page. There's no link in the preferences
I'm sure I'm missing out other little details.
Pros of both:
1) Keyboard shortcuts to webpages, like gg {search term} for Google. Safari doesn't have this and Opera's implementation associates it to a one-letter shortcut.
2) Type-ahead find. No other browsers I know of have this.
3) Support for userContent.css content-blocking. Opera's feature, which is GUI driven, is superior to all other browsers, however.
Anyway, you can't accuse me of not having put a lot of thought into this.
Comments
2) Blazing fast
Just to check out your statement I downloaded Camino. Your definitely right. Very fast.
Roy Rogers
Here's a Video that also helps explain why I use Camino. It's so Sad
Sebastian
Mike Pinkerton didn't seem to tell the whole story. I'm under the impression that AOL cancelling Camino's launch at MacWorld was at least partially responsible for Apple going with KHTML instead of Camino for Apple's browser. It's too bad, because Safari, IMHO, is clearly inferior to Camino, at least, as Camino is today at 1.0.
I'm wondering if there's a possibility of Camino being re-merged with Firefox. The codbases would seem to be incompatible (XUL vs. Cocoa), but I can dream, can't I? 8)
I say Camino. Unless there are tons of Firefox extensions you can't live without, just go with the one that integrates into Cocoa and doesn't take half a century to open. Besides that, the more extensions you have the more unstable it becomes.
Here's a Video that also helps explain why I use Camino. It's so Sad
Sebastian
I've been having issues with Safari not wanting to connect & seems to be running slower, Firefox seems faster but I was told 2.0 for the Mac isn't the best way to go. Any thoughts?
Wow! That is sad
Mike Pinkerton didn't seem to tell the whole story. I'm under the impression that AOL cancelling Camino's launch at MacWorld was at least partially responsible for Apple going with KHTML instead of Camino for Apple's browser. It's too bad, because Safari, IMHO, is clearly inferior to Camino, at least, as Camino is today at 1.0.
I'm wondering if there's a possibility of Camino being re-merged with Firefox. The codbases would seem to be incompatible (XUL vs. Cocoa), but I can dream, can't I? 8)
Hmm, they could have still shown off Camino at Macworld. But Camino doesn't need to be re-merged with Firefox. Hell they were never merged to begin with.
Personally I hope WebKit picks up more development because when you compare the Mozilla and the WebKit project pages, the Mozilla page is a mess and WebKit is more focused but it's still missing some essential stuff (mostly full or at least most of CSS, Support) and if the WebKit project picks up enough steam, it'll leave Gecko in the dust and Camino will be able to cut off ties with Mozilla.
Sebastian
I was going to ask a similar question, Safari or Firefox 2.0?
I've been having issues with Safari not wanting to connect & seems to be running slower, Firefox seems faster but I was told 2.0 for the Mac isn't the best way to go. Any thoughts?
Camino
Sebastian
Firefox has established itself as the premier cross-platform browser. Users can expect a mostly homogenous browsing experience across Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, and OS X. It will be very difficult to unseat it.
On the other hand, Firefox seems to be losing a lot of momentum with all the defections of their contributors to Google. I've noticed a substantial slowdown in the development of the browser from a year ago.
Hmm, they could have still shown off Camino at Macworld. But Camino doesn't need to be re-merged with Firefox. Hell they were never merged to begin with.
Personally I hope WebKit picks up more development because when you compare the Mozilla and the WebKit project pages, the Mozilla page is a mess and WebKit is more focused but it's still missing some essential stuff (mostly full or at least most of CSS, Support) and if the WebKit project picks up enough steam, it'll leave Gecko in the dust and Camino will be able to cut off ties with Mozilla.
Sebastian
Users can expect a mostly homogenous browsing experience across Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, and OS X. It will be very difficult to unseat it.
I disagree. I've used Firefox on XP since version 1.0. On OSX, it's as if I'm using a different browser. If my first experience with Firefox has been on the Mac, I would never have continued using it. I keep hoping that there are some core development issues that will be fixed to elevate its performance such that it is as good on the Mac as it is on XP.
Thanks for the link to Mike Pinkerton video. It was a very useful learning experience.
I just took a look at the WebKit page. It doesn't really seem to be cross-platform, aside from a young GTK+ port and a pledge to start supporting Windows.
Firefox has established itself as the premier cross-platform browser. Users can expect a mostly homogenous browsing experience across Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, and OS X. It will be very difficult to unseat it.
On the other hand, Firefox seems to be losing a lot of momentum with all the defections of their contributors to Google. I've noticed a substantial slowdown in the development of the browser from a year ago.
Um yeah, that's why I was talking about this for Camino and not Firefox.
Sebastian
Slewis,
Thanks for the link to Mike Pinkerton video. It was a very useful learning experience.
You're welcome.
Sebastian
So much nicer just to click on a few live bookmarks in Firefox to see what the latest headlines are instead of going to ad-laden pages or wading through horrific "Web 2.0" layouts.
This was posted using Safari, because for some twisted reason I like its appearance the best. I usually bounce between the three browsers, spending most of my time in Firefox. I've heard constantly about it being a memory hog and being dog slow on the OS X platform, but I have yet to see any serious deficiencies.
Not a huge deal, but another minus for Camino.
does Camino has this features?
And I happen to like the bookmarks. I actually hate Safari's use of bookmarks. Maybe it's just personal style, I don't know, but I would choose Firefox over them all.
(Although it is a memory hog....)