Web browsers.

[dragula53]

I think there have probably already been a million threads about web browsers, but I wanted to make my own.

Netscape is so slow as to be unusable, and we won't talk about IE..

I love the Opera web browser, but every time it beach balls on a page that takes too long to load I want to gouge out my eyes.

I wanted to love camino and firefox, but it's behavior in Outlook Web Access hurts my soul, among other issues, mostly I think java not working properly is the biggy.

Safari is solid all around, but it doesn't seem to remember names and passwords for sites as well as the others. some sites I have to enter my data in regardless of whether I have the names and passwords block checked.

I'm still searching for one that makes me happy, but I wanted to rant.

And the point of this thread is to discuss the different web browsers and why all of them are really good, but none of them are suitable for every task, which is a problem.

peace

[risc]

I don't know what the point of this thread is but it looks like you haven't tried OmniWeb (http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omniweb/).

[stevietheb]

Safari is my everyday browser (especially great with some nice plug-ins like Sogudi, and with my GUI Uno-fied). But, I've been playing around with Flock lately—cool idea, can't wait to see it get developed further.

[dragula53]

as far as omniweb goes.

I think the graphical tab bar is a neat idea, but in practice, it is just distracting.

A simple title of the web page is much more eye friendly than a thumbnail representation of said webpage. and when you get more than about 4 tabs having to scroll to get to your tab sorta defeats the purpose... and the drawer just consumes massive amounts of real estate.

edit: 6 tabs before I have to scroll. and omniweb uses an older version of webcore than safari, that's bad.

it is also hard to justify paying for what is a free experience on every other browser, especially with an older version of webcore.

[JDar]

You won't find the perfect browser. For my purposes OmniWeb is as close as it gets. Give it a try. It has an occasional problem with display but they all do, and its other features make up for it. It's free to demo as long as you like with the only limitation being the start page.

My favorite features are the site specific preferences and cookie control.

[Edit} You were not spared, yet convincing that you will never find the perfect browser, and it's no ad, only an opinion different from yours.

[radiantm3]

I wanted to love camino and firefox, but it's behavior in Outlook Web Access hurts my soul, among other issues, mostly I think java not working properly is the biggy.


Don't blame mozilla, blame microsoft for that.

[dragula53]

You won't find the perfect browser. For my purposes OmniWeb is as close as it gets. Give it a try. It has an occasional problem with display but they all do, and its other features make up for it. It's free to demo as long as you like with the only limitation being the start page.

My favorite features are the site specific preferences and cookie control.

[Edit} You were not spared, yet convincing that you will never find the perfect browser, and it's no ad, only an opinion different from yours.

above post was in response to person whose presentation offended my delicate sensibilities. edited to remove sensitivity.

And why should we not expect a perfect web browser?

I have yet to hear "I couldn't get on to my banks site using internet explorer, so I had to use firefox" from any of my windows using friends. That's a problem.

[dragula53]

Don't blame mozilla, blame microsoft for that.

OWA works fine in safari.

Is it microsoft's fault for not being compatible with macintosh web browsers? Your bank too? That site that hosts a movie you can't view? The flash game you can't play?

Points to ponder. I'm done with my rant.

[thedude110]

OWA works fine in safari.

There's no functional difference between OWA in Safari or a Mozilla browser. If you want a fully functional OWA, you need to be running IE and Windows.

Or you could just download Thunderbird and pop, pop, pop ...

[Vanilla]

I quite like Shiira. Worth a try.
http://hmdt-web.net/shiira/en

[dragula53]

There's no functional difference between OWA in Safari or a Mozilla browser. If you want a fully functional OWA, you need to be running IE and Windows.

Or you could just download Thunderbird and pop, pop, pop ...

it behaves differently.

view an email, click reply.

in a mozilla based browser, it appears at the bottom.

in safari, it appears at the top.

[JDar]

It's a fact as you say that sometime you have to start IE to access especially a bank website or fill in some IE specific application. Isn't that more the effect of how the web site is structured rather than the browser? I, too, wish it wasn't that way.

While we're waiting for the perfect browser to come along (and world peace, zero defects, and no accidents) we'll have to settle for one which subjectively fills our needs as well as possible.

Having to start IE, even on the iMac, makes me have uncomfortable sensations. :D

Cheers!

[MisterMe]

....

Is it microsoft's fault for not being compatible with macintosh web browsers? Your bank too? That site that hosts a movie you can't view? The flash game you can't play?

....Well, yes it is Microsoft's fault. Do you think that the Redmond Monopoly is some sort of unwitting pawn in all of this? Hardly. Early in the life of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Microsoft deliberately chose to break the standing rules for rendering HTML. Nitwit website developers chose to design sites that behaved "correctly" in IE, but not other sites. The effect snowballed.

The W3C publishes web standards. Most browser developers do their best to follow W3C standards. Currently, Apple's Safari is the most W3C-compliant browser available. However, the Gecko-based browsers (Mozilla, Camino, Firefox, etc.) are close. If website developers wrote to W3C standards rather than to the specific Microsoft browser, the world would be a better place. Unfortunately, some developers require IE for using their sites. Substitutes will not work.

[radiantm3]

OWA works fine in safari.

Is it microsoft's fault for not being compatible with macintosh web browsers? Your bank too?

Not just macintosh. All non-ei browsers. And yes it is microsoft's fault. They are using proprietary code that only works in their browser. Safari, mozilla, and opera all are working towards following web standards. Web standards has been around forever and microsoft and your bank have had plenty of time to make cross-platform websites that support standards. I'm assuming you don't know much about how the web works.

[radiantm3]

Well, yes it is Microsoft's fault. Do you think that the Redmond Monopoly is some sort of unwitting pawn in all of this? Hardly. Early in the life of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Microsoft deliberately chose to break the standing rules for rendering HTML. Nitwit website developers chose to design sites that behaved "correctly" in IE, but not other sites. The effect snowballed.

The W3C publishes web standards. Most browser developers do their best to follow W3C standards. Currently, Apple's Safari is the most W3C-compliant browser available. However, the Gecko-based browsers (Mozilla, Camino, Firefox, etc.) are close. If website developers wrote to W3C standards rather than to the specific Microsoft browser, the world would be a better place. Unfortunately, some developers require IE for using their sites. Substitutes will not work.
Beat me to it. :D

[bousozoku]

OWA works fine in safari.

Is it microsoft's fault for not being compatible with macintosh web browsers? Your bank too? That site that hosts a movie you can't view? The flash game you can't play?

Points to ponder. I'm done with my rant.

Actually, a lot of the problems were initially related to Microsoft's resistance to web standards. Now, projects started that way linger. I never had a problem with OWA and Mozilla.

If you look at page info, you'll notice that Firefox has a web standards mode and a quirks mode. Unfortunately, a lot of sites are coded improperly and require quirks mode. If MS would fully embrace web standards, both with their browsers and their development products, the incompatibilities would dwindle quickly.

[dragula53]

Not just macintosh. All non-ei browsers. And yes it is microsoft's fault. They are using proprietary code that only works in their browser. Safari, mozilla, and opera all are working towards following web standards. Web standards has been around forever and microsoft and your bank have had plenty of time to make cross-platform websites that support standards. I'm assuming you don't know much about how the web works.

No need to be condescending. Yes, I understand that IE is not standards compliant. and web pages aren't standards compliant. But when your browser is 80% of the market, you are the standard.

The fact that safari passes the acid2 test doesn't help it render my bank.

Using the excuses "Web designers are sloppy, it's their fault" "Microsoft tried to change the standards, it's their fault" doesn't improve my functionality, it just gives me a scapegoat. I don't need one of those.

I need a web browser that will render everything properly.

[radiantm3]

I need a web browser that will render everything properly.

As I need a car that will never break down. ;)

[dragula53]

As I need a car that will never break down. ;)

When your car only works at 80% of the gas stations you go to, and one of the non-functioning gas stations is on the closest corner to your house, our analogy will be complete.

Bitching and wishing the other 80% of the world would change is a lot more work than actually changing.

[MisterMe]

No need to be condescending. Yes, I understand that IE is not standards compliant. and web pages aren't standards compliant. But when your browser is 80% of the market, you are the standard.

....This is the kind of backward thinking that keeps users under the thumb of Microsoft. First off, Microsoft did not bring about this situation by introducing a new or competive standard. It created this situation by corrupting the existing standard. While other browsers required properly written HTML, Microsoft allowed badly written HTML to be rendered in a predictable way. But even if you are willing to accept badly written code as a "standard," Microsoft's market share does not require web designers to specifically target IE. There are many sites that work perfectly well in IE as well as just about every other browser. The websites for your bank, university, government office, etc. can do so as well.

[dragula53]

This is the kind of backward thinking that keeps users under the thumb of Microsoft. First off, Microsoft did not bring about this situation by introducing a new or competive standard. It created this situation by corrupting the existing standard. While other browsers required properly written HTML, Microsoft allowed badly written HTML to be rendered in a predictable way. But even if you are willing to accept badly written code as a "standard," Microsoft's market share does not require web designers to specifically target IE. There are many sites that work perfectly well in IE as well as just about every other browser. The websites for your bank, university, government office, etc. can do so as well.

As opposed to the other way, where we claim to be right because W3C says so, and accept a substandard browsing experience because of it?

I have never ever successfully petitioned a website to make them support non-ie browsers, and yes, I've tried. So what do we do then?

If the providers of online resources and entertainment refuse to support our browser of choice, we either a) live without, or b) change so we can partake in their entertainment.

[dragula53]

another behavior of firefox that just makes me cringe is the fact that it gets stuck with no windows open, no way to open preferences, etc, even though no other windows are open. quitting and restarting fixes this annoying behavior, but it happens far to frequently.

[jadekitty24]

Camino, anyone?:o

[dubbz]

So what do we do then?

Go to another site.

[vamp07]

Does anybody know of something similar to Roboform on the PC? It's basically an automated form filler that has pluggins for all the major browsers on the PC. It can auto fill forms and it will also remember all the login info per site. It's one of those apps that I installed withing the first hour of rebuilding a machine. I am in the process of coming back to the mac world and its the only app I really am having a tough time of doing without so far.

Thanks

[zap2]

I wanted to love camino and firefox, but it's behavior in Outlook Web Access hurts my soul,


peace


Then Download ThunderBird, Mozillas eMail Client(or use Mail)

[EricNau]

You will not find a browser that is perfect. All browsers have their own way of interpreting html code. And therefore, some websites just won't work. If you've ever made a website, you know how hard it is to get it so it works properly on MOST browsers. Some browsers even have their own tags that only work on their browser.
Most recently I was making a website (school project) and I made it on my Mac (all hand coding) and it worked perfectly on Safari, Mozilla (Firefox), and Netscape. Then tried in on IE, nothing worked right. It is simply a nightmare.

For the record; I use Safari 99% of the time, because it is simply the best (my opinion). The other 1% is Firefox.

[solaris]

Camino, anyone?:o
Sure!
My own G4 optimized trunk build.

:)

[kainjow]

You should use RealPlayer's browser :D

[dandrums]

You should use RealPlayer's browser :D

Ha Ha.

Oh my god. What if he's right! :eek:

[terriyaki]

shiira because of tab expose

it's a shame that it isn't compatible with keychain.. yet.. but having tab expose for a laptop is easily worth the trade off

[Nermal]

You should use RealPlayer's browser :D

Heh.

It appears to use Safari's engine, or can at least read Safari's cookies.

[3lions]

I'm using Opera at the moment for the reason that it saves my session so when I quit (or it quits) I can restart it with all my tabs just as they were ( I have many tabs open) I prefer firefox and safari to opera in many ways but they don't have the session saving feature:mad:

[kainjow]

Heh.

It appears to use Safari's engine, or can at least read Safari's cookies.
I think it does, since it's a Cocoa app too. It's not really bad, but since it's RealPlayer...

[dragula53]

I'm using Opera at the moment for the reason that it saves my session so when I quit (or it quits) I can restart it with all my tabs just as they were ( I have many tabs open) I prefer firefox and safari to opera in many ways but they don't have the session saving feature:mad:

You're in luck. Firefox has a session saving plug-in.

And omniweb saves sessions too.

[3lions]

You're in luck. Firefox has a session saving plug-in.

And omniweb saves sessions too.

thanks alot for that plug-in, looks great!:D

[oober_freak]

You should use RealPlayer's browser :D

Anything is better than IE 5.

I had the courage to download IE 5 for mac and tried the acid2 test on it :D

Voila! No image at all.. :p

That just shows how bad microsoft is with its coding. They try the muscle tactics to make people code their sites for IE. One of my friends had to change his custom blog theme because it didn't render well with IE.

And so much for transparent PNGs. Have you ever tried it with IE. They display perfectly in Opera, FF, Safari, Camino, Omniweb. But just try one of those with good ol' IE.

And some people actually are proud to use IE. These are the same people who say Microsoft Shell is the most l33t thing to hit the market and it will kill Bash :p

Imagine one day all browsers are killed and we will only have to use IE :eek:

I will quit the net that day

<offtopic>Microsoft did it with xbox 360 too :D </offtopic>

[Nermal]

And so much for transparent PNGs. Have you ever tried it with IE. They display perfectly in Opera, FF, Safari, Camino, Omniweb. But just try one of those with good ol' IE.

Surprisingly, the Mac version of IE renders them properly. And they've fixed it in IE 7 for Windows.

[calyxman]

Camino, anyone?:o

Yes. It is my number one choice for browsing the web on my Mac. Safari comes in at a close second, but what I like about camino--especially the more recent builds--is the ability to turn off much of the web advertisements that hog up precious computing resources, which makes the browser slightly quicker than safari.

I try to avoid IE like the plague unless I absolutely have to use it. And besides, when's the last time MS had an update for IE on the Mac? I think the last update was in 2002, if I'm not mistaken. Seems like the Redmond gang isn't too eager to improve it's web browser on the Mac platform anyway.

[RacerX]

And so much for transparent PNGs. Have you ever tried it with IE. They display perfectly in Opera, FF, Safari, Camino, Omniweb. But just try one of those with good ol' IE.Transparent PNGs have been supported in Internet Explorer for Mac since the release of version 5.0 back in early 1999. In fact, that was one of the things that rubbed so many people the wrong way... why would Microsoft correctly implement PNGs in the Mac version of IE back in 1999 but wait years to finally do it in IE for Windows?



As for what browser I use... OmniWeb. Been using it since version 2.4, and it is the default browser on six of my systems (four are running 3.0/3.1, one is running 4.5 and one is running 5.1.2).

as far as omniweb goes.

I think the graphical tab bar is a neat idea, but in practice, it is just distracting.

A simple title of the web page is much more eye friendly than a thumbnail representation of said webpage. and when you get more than about 4 tabs having to scroll to get to your tab sorta defeats the purpose... and the drawer just consumes massive amounts of real estate.

edit: 6 tabs before I have to scroll. You can change the thumb nails to just titles if you want. And the drawer is scalable (so you can make it smaller) plus you get the page title as you mouse over any of the thumbnails.

My favorite part of Omni's implementation is that I can drag a ling from the page I'm viewing to the drawer and it'll start rendering that page while I'm still reading the current page. Drag-n-drop may not be that big a thing for most Windows people, but as a life long Mac user... it is a requirement for me. :D

and omniweb uses an older version of webcore than safari, that's bad.

it is also hard to justify paying for what is a free experience on every other browser, especially with an older version of webcore.The version of WebCore in OmniWeb is modified to do things that OmniWeb needed from their rendering engine.

Besides, the way Apple implements WebCore, the only way to upgrade Safari is to buy a new operating system ($129)... that is a little steep for a browser don't you think? I use OmniWeb 5.1.2 in Mac OS X v10.2, Apple doesn't provide anything even close to the current version of WebCore for this OS and none of the other browsers that use Apple's current WebCore will run on a system that is "that old" (we live in an odd world when a Mac OS that was current back in October 2003 is is not supported today while Windows XP which came out in 2001 is still supported by most venders).

But yeah, the Safari version of WebCore is anything but free! I'd rather pay the $19 for OmniWeb 5 that I paid than pay $129 for a new OS to replace an OS that is working perfectly for me. Sure looks to me like Apple took a page out of Microsoft's play book when implementing their browser!


As for features in OmniWeb that I now can't live without... the fact that OmniWeb gives me access to all the services on my system, that I can zoom out text fields (like the one I'm typing into right now) into their own window, the HTML editor (fell in love with it back in version 2.x), site preferences, and more. OmniWeb has more than paid for itself in my web design work and the fact that it has let me stay reasonably up to date as far as rendering without having to pay Apple for a new OS to get that functionality is a major plus in my book!

[radiantm3]

You're in luck. Firefox has a session saving plug-in.

And omniweb saves sessions too.

So does Safari with a little thing called Saft.

[oober_freak]

Surprisingly, the Mac version of IE renders them properly. And they've fixed it in IE 7 for Windows.


Ah tried only on IE 6 for Windows. I never thought IE 5 for Mac would render them perfectly :p It is really surprising... thanks for the info.

[bi0metric]

I only use safari for everything ;-) It works great! :cool:

[dragula53]

You can change the thumb nails to just titles if you want. And the drawer is scalable (so you can make it smaller) plus you get the page title as you mouse over any of the thumbnails.


The drawer is still HUUUUUUUUUUUUGE. if the drawer was movable to the bottom or something instead of eating up my limited horizontal screen real estate, I would be a happy camper.

I actually enjoy the browsing experience in omniweb more than safari, generally... Except for the tabbed browsing, which is pretty much a deal breaker.

Also, my window sizes/locations never seem to save, but that is being nitpicky.

Far less problems with omniweb than firefox.

Has anybody figured out why, when you have a theme applied to firefox, and you switch between tabs, your scroll bar gets stuck wherever it was on the previous tab? You don't actually get stuck down there, just the bar. If you click anywhere in the scroll bar, it miraculously reappears at the top.

[shadowmoses]

I was a Camino addict, but recently i have switched back to Safari, it is a faultless browser and apart from the few pages which are incompatible it is very good especially the built in dictionary feature which camino doesnt have,

Shadow

[vamp07]

Safari is very good but you just can't use gmail keyboard shotcuts with it. Cant use any site that uses keyboard shortcuts (Bloglines).

Steve

[Will Cheyney]

You should use RealPlayer's browser :D
Woah! Another browser to contend with during web design... Unless it behaves exactly the same as Safari?
EDIT: Which it does...

Odd, why include a browser with a media player? I didn't even know it was there.

[vamp07]

Hi Dragula,

Most people lack vertical space, not horizontal space when browsing (no jokes please).

Window size/location can be saved with:

under the window menu there is an option for : Save Window Size

You can also use workspaces to save you environment from one session to another. Omniweb is cool. I wonder if it came before irider on the pc which does something very similar. I mostly like it because it has the most options for helping save form info to be reused. Roboform on the PC is so nice.





The drawer is still HUUUUUUUUUUUUGE. if the drawer was movable to the bottom or something instead of eating up my limited horizontal screen real estate, I would be a happy camper.

I actually enjoy the browsing experience in omniweb more than safari, generally... Except for the tabbed browsing, which is pretty much a deal breaker.

Also, my window sizes/locations never seem to save, but that is being nitpicky.

Far less problems with omniweb than firefox.

Has anybody figured out why, when you have a theme applied to firefox, and you switch between tabs, your scroll bar gets stuck wherever it was on the previous tab? You don't actually get stuck down there, just the bar. If you click anywhere in the scroll bar, it miraculously reappears at the top.

[vamp07]

I just realized that omniweb uses the same keychain for saving passwords as safari. Another plus for omniweb in my book. Any hacks for firefox to save passwords in the mac keychain instead of its own mechanism?

[dragula53]

Hi Dragula,

Most people lack vertical space, not horizontal space when browsing (no jokes please).

Window size/location can be saved with:

under the window menu there is an option for : Save Window Size

You can also use workspaces to save you environment from one session to another. Omniweb is cool. I wonder if it came before irider on the pc which does something very similar. I mostly like it because it has the most options for helping save form info to be reused. Roboform on the PC is so nice.

Thanks for the tip.

And you are correct, but when the tab bar is horizontal it only takes one row, when it is vertical, it takes as many rows as you have allotted to the tray. And even then you are likely limiting the length of the tab that you can view. Not to mention all of the real estate you are wasting on empty space where there are no tabs (the entire height of your browser minus the tabs that you have in the tray). A vertical tab bar just consumes copious amounts of real estate, no bones about it.

[jadekitty24]

I'd love the newer version of Safari but I'm running Jaguar...one OS below the minimum requirements. The version I have now hangs up quite a bit, a problem I don't have with other browsers.

[maestro55]

Firefox works great on our school computers, but I don't suppose I have ever tried Java there. I use Mozilla Suite here on Linux, with no Java. I just don't encounter the need to use it. I think Mozilla is great, but I use IE on Windows and on my old Macs. I just use what works for me, so yes as said by others you won't find the perfect browser. It also depends on what you do. If it works, use it.

[FadeToBlack]

I decided to give Firefox another try and I'm VERY glad I did. This is coming from a former Safari die-hard. I downloaded the newest Release Candidate of Firefox 1.5 and it's great. As far as I can tell, it fixed all of my complaints with Firefox (middle button on Mighty Mouse no longer activates back and forward when you try to side-scroll, etc.) It's way snappier than any other version of Firefox I've used and seems to be very stable. I've only been using it one day, though, so far, but I really love it.

EDIT: It also doesn't seem to leak as much memory as Safari.