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Watabou

macrumors 68040
Feb 10, 2008
3,425
755
United States
YouTube got really buggy once they "upgraded" (peed on) the interface, and it sometimes doesn't load. When that happens, Click2Plugin in Safari dodges all Flash and HTML5 BS from YouTube by opening YouTube videos as regular old MP4s in QuickTime Player. I've actually not used Flash in a long time.

I can understand you not liking Chrome because I do find it buggy (still better than FF IMO), but have you actually used Safari without dismissing it as default and evil?

I really like Safari's Click to Flash and Youtube5 extension. I wish something like that existed for Firefox. Mozilla has been talking about bringing h264 support on mobile Firefox and slowly to the Desktop as well so hopefully, we get it soon. The only bad thing about Firefox is they push out new features really slowly, especially for the Mac.

And yes, I have extensively tried Safari 6. To be honest, I love it. It's faster than either Firefox or Chrome. But, it takes up way too much memory. I once had Safari taking over 2.5GB of memory. I'm serious. I think I posted the screenshot over at The Safari RAM thread on here. Every time I use Safari, the whole OS slows down and then Safari gives me the message "all tabs have to be force reloaded". Then I get all my free memory back and the OS feels fast again. That's the only big thing I don't like about Safari. I also don't like how it doesn't have cookie exceptions which I use in Firefox and NoScript. I tried the nojavascript(I forget what it was called) plugin but it's wonky and you have to pay for it after a trial.

I never get that problem with Firefox. Even though I run Nightly, I have had 0 crashes. Actually, I don't even remember the last time Firefox has crashed on me. I think it was something like 2 versions back and the TabMixPlus plugin broke and crashed. It's super stable though. And despite its memory problems in the past, it has gotten really good now.
 

John.B

macrumors 601
Jan 15, 2008
4,192
705
Holocene Epoch
Not sure about Firefox, but on Chrome your bookmarks & settings are synced, so you don't have to export the bookmarks on other computers or on Windows.
Sorry, not willing to let Google track my bookmarks. But you go right ahead.
Also I don't know of any other browser that has a Web Store, or the ability to play games and run applications right on your browser.
I'm not familiar with this. Google sells you web "applications" that only run in their Chrome browser? What, sort of like a modern day IE6? But I'm sure it's great for the Google Uber Alles crowd...
 

Mackilroy

macrumors 68040
Jun 29, 2006
3,906
539
Sorry, not willing to let Google track my bookmarks. But you go right ahead.

I'm not familiar with this. Google sells you web "applications" that only run in their Chrome browser? What, sort of like a modern day IE6? But I'm sure it's great for the Google Uber Alles crowd...
What proof do you have that Google is tracking your bookmarks?

And no, Google doesn't sell them. At least I've never paid for one, and I have a fair few.

At any rate, I'm using Safari 6 at the moment. Under Mountain Lion I generally only launch Chrome if there's a YouTube video I can't see under Safari.
 

mentaluproar

macrumors 68000
May 25, 2010
1,759
209
Ohio, USA
Of course - Since Google has the most $ out of anyone for development, marketing, advertising etc... Apple has a lotta $ too, however their browser is only for Mac OSX and their game isn't software applications.

Chrome is just modified chromium. Don't give google too much credit.
 

Fatalbert

macrumors 6502
Feb 6, 2013
398
0
I never get that problem with Firefox. Even though I run Nightly, I have had 0 crashes. Actually, I don't even remember the last time Firefox has crashed on me. I think it was something like 2 versions back and the TabMixPlus plugin broke and crashed. It's super stable though. And despite its memory problems in the past, it has gotten really good now.

Yes, FF is very stable, but I don't like that it's slow. The Safari RAM hog thing is strange (never happens to me), but I can see it happening to others since Safari sometimes has issues on certain computers for unknown reasons. It's fine for my desktop, luckily, not as good on my laptop though.
 

X5-599

macrumors regular
Oct 28, 2012
110
15
Huh...? :eek:

It seems like it was yesterday when I was using Firefox 3 - And I'm only 16! When the hell did they rack up 19 releases?

I guess they wanted to "keep up" with Chrome and their ridiculously hight version numbers... Same with Microsoft/Playstation namings. It's not a coincidence that it was not called the XBox 2 but XBox 360. Because XBox 2 sounds outdated next to a Playstation 3.
 

John.B

macrumors 601
Jan 15, 2008
4,192
705
Holocene Epoch
What proof do you have that Google is tracking your bookmarks?

Dude. Google indexes everything. You believe Chrome bookmark syncing would somehow be off limits?

Microsoft is running an ad right now ripping on Google for indexing keywords in peoples' Gmail for use in targeted advertising. "Don't be evil", my arse!

Let me ask you the opposite question: What proof do you have that Google isn't tracking synced bookmarks in Chrome?
 

Bill Killer

macrumors 6502
Dec 29, 2011
495
98
Dude. Google indexes everything. You believe Chrome bookmark syncing would somehow be off limits?

Microsoft is running an ad right now ripping on Google for indexing keywords in peoples' Gmail for use in targeted advertising. "Don't be evil", my arse!

Let me ask you the opposite question: What proof do you have that Google isn't tracking synced bookmarks in Chrome?

So your proof is an ad from a company that owns Bing, which also is in the advertising business?
 

RMo

macrumors 65816
Aug 7, 2007
1,252
280
Iowa, USA
Most notably, this update includes a built-in PDF viewer, making former PDF viewing plug-ins obsolete. The viewer was built using HTML5 and will provide a quicker, more secure way to read PDFs in the browser.

Does anyone know how the compatibility is with this? I'm sure it will be fine for most users, but I've occasionally seen problems with PDF forms in other browsers' or PDF viewers' implementations before. (I'm talking ones with a Submit button that may do something like shove the contents to an ASP or CGI page or whatnot for processing. This is probably crazy to do nowadays, though perhaps there are still reasons to create them, but I've seen enterprise environments that still have some of these around.)
 

ksgant

macrumors 6502a
Jan 12, 2006
797
710
Chicago
Sorry, not willing to let Google track my bookmarks. But you go right ahead.

Why not? What's the big deal, seriously? You can turn this feature off if you think big, bad Google is invading your privacy (OMG, I've been screwgled!). Then turn off Safari's feature too that keeps that your bookmark settings in the cloud. Also, Firefox offers this feature.

Oh, and make sure you get an independent email provider that has zero spam filtering...because if any provider protects against spam, they're reading your emails. I mean, that's the way it sees if something is spam. So don't let them do that! (OMG, They're tracking your email along with your bookmarks!!!!).

This whole privacy this is way way WAY overblown.
 

mrsir2009

macrumors 604
Sep 17, 2009
7,505
156
Melbourne, Australia
So your proof is an ad from a company that owns Bing, which also is in the advertising business?

MS is not so much of a problem, because although they have small stakes in personal data (Bing), their main game is selling software. Google's main game is advertising, so they are much more of a threat to privacy.
 

JGRE

macrumors 65816
Oct 10, 2011
1,012
664
Dutch Mountains
You must be mistaken — Firefox is on version 19, and Safari is still on 6. So Firefox is obviously over three times more advanced! :eek: (At least that's what the folks at Mozilla would apparently want us to think.)

Dream on, if they are going to increase the version number for every small change they will be at number 745 next month. This does mean anything however.

----------

Well, they don't have it on the Apple website for download anymore... I guess Apple realised Safari for Windows sucks.

Anything from Apple on Windows sucks. Just give iTunes for Windows a try and you will see.
 

Bill Killer

macrumors 6502
Dec 29, 2011
495
98
MS is not so much of a problem, because although they have small stakes in personal data (Bing), their main game is selling software. Google's main game is advertising, so they are much more of a threat to privacy.

This does not mean that Microsoft doesn't sell online activity to advertisers. The same way being a hardware company doesn't stop Apple from utilizing iAds for the same purpose.

At the end of the day, it's a conflicting viewpoint.
 

JGRE

macrumors 65816
Oct 10, 2011
1,012
664
Dutch Mountains
"-Built-in PDF viewer"
It didn't have this before?! I remember when I thought Firefox was a cool browser, before I had used it... Is it just me, or is it very slow compared to Safari and Chrome and even IE?

I used FF on Windows for years and I was pleased. When I switched to OSX, I was astonisched how slow FF is on the MAC. I tried Chrome for a period, but when comparing the IE-fischy tank test, it appread that Safari was much faster in rendering. Where Crome only got to about 25 FPS, Safari was running about 50 FPS. So now I just use Safari and with Glimms installed, I have about anything I need (I do not care about skins and other crap).

----------

Not for me, it isn't - I use Chrome Canary regularly with dozens of tabs open, and it's great. Perhaps, since you only use it for Flash, it is FLASH that is the buggy piece of crap, and not Chrome overall? And why do you actually use a separate browser for Flash, anyway? If you don't want Flash ads and all that garbage loading up while you browse, just install a Flash-Blocker on Firefox.

----------



Yeah - Chrome has had PDF viewing built-in for ages.

Yeah and it sucks :mad:
 
Last edited:

trustever

macrumors 6502
Jan 14, 2013
290
0
I have been a long time user of Firefox since it was released for windows back in the days and when moved to macs in 2008 I just found it there, awesome and usefull. Since then I have never readdressed the question if I need any other browser but after reading all this discussion I might re address the question and see...
 

rmwebs

macrumors 68040
Apr 6, 2007
3,140
0
Meh. Firefox releases mean bugger all these days. A minor upgrade and they call it a whole new version number.

Firefox is still a bloated pile of crap. You cant beat a good webkit based browser right now. Safari, Chrome, Chromium, etc all do a great job IMO.

----------

Presently, Firefox does javascript faster than Chrome, but Safari does it faster than Firefox.

And as Webkit is opensource, you'll probably find that Apple's javascript engine is as well, thus Chrome & Chromium will eventually get it.

----------

Dude. Google indexes everything. You believe Chrome bookmark syncing would somehow be off limits?

Microsoft is running an ad right now ripping on Google for indexing keywords in peoples' Gmail for use in targeted advertising. "Don't be evil", my arse!

Let me ask you the opposite question: What proof do you have that Google isn't tracking synced bookmarks in Chrome?

Oh not this load of rubbish again. People really need to do their research before posting :rolleyes:

- Google does not track your every move in chrome
- It tracks your search history and habbits, to build an anonymous profile that says "oh IP address 123.123.123.123 like Golf, lets show him/her Golf adverts".

Thats as far as it goes.

And before anyone starts the crap about Google selling your info, just stop and think for half a second, then Bing it and read.

Finally, for what it's worth, Safari on iOS tracks your browsing as well. Apple keep a pretty similar record to Google, which is used to show you iAds.

No big company is 'Good' and Apple is far from exempt.
 

SkyBell

macrumors 604
Sep 7, 2006
6,603
219
Texas, unfortunately.
Grr. I Remember FF2 being a big deal. I remember years-long wait for FF3 being torturous, and the final release hype beyond comparison to any web browser out there. It was near-salivation when a 2.x or 3.x update was released, even.

Nowadays, "Oh, a new FF version? Cool, I guess." Where's the fanfare, the build-up? I miss the tech world of... a few years ago. :(
 

SimonTheSoundMa

macrumors 65816
Aug 6, 2006
1,033
213
Birmingham, UK
Not sure about Firefox, but on Chrome your bookmarks & settings are synced, so you don't have to export the bookmarks on other computers or on Windows.
Firefox has synced since before Chrome. It's far better than Chrome or Safari for syncing. You can encrypt client side, unlike Chome where the EULA says Google will scan your address book for advertising purposes. You can run your own sync server, good if you're a business. Firefox syncs everything, bookmarks, adons, settings for browser and adons, and one thing totally lacking from Chrome is it syncs history.
 

Cod3rror

macrumors 68000
Apr 18, 2010
1,772
82
Firefox is still the best, however, they went crazy with versions.

They also have upgrade the HTML5 support, particularly the scroll bar replacement.
 

trustme

macrumors member
Apr 11, 2012
79
10
Damn. Not two or three years ago everyone used to be on Firefox's dick but now it's Chrome. I guess Chrome will die soon as well after some other browser comes into the picture. Maybe Opera.
 

Gallion

macrumors member
Aug 18, 2011
42
0
Huh...? :eek:

It seems like it was yesterday when I was using Firefox 3 - And I'm only 16! When the hell did they rack up 19 releases?

They changed the way they develop Firefox and in doing so, the frequency of the releases since... Firefox 6 I believe, or maybe a little bit later.

Now (as I remember) there are 3 teams, each of them working on a different upcoming version of Firefox. One works on the Alpha version, another one on the Beta version and another one on the current version. So when a new version comes out, the 2 upcoming versions have already been in the work for months. Frankly, with the pace at which things change in technology, it's really a good idea for them to do it that way, so they can adapt very quickly and also roll out features more quickly.
 

Manderby

macrumors 6502a
Nov 23, 2006
500
92
Ah, I remember ten years ago when I was the only one having a Mozilla logo on my win-desktop. This eventually became Firefox. Glorious! Victory! Finally a publicly distributed replacement for IE. And it caught on. IE went from 90% down to 10% over the coming years (according to my own statistics).

Ah yes. Those were the times where the browser-battle began. Now, I don't care anymore.

Since years now, I am running Safari on Mac for it's look and feel and Firefox on Win for it's stability. Why change. It does not matter to me.

PS: Using Firefox and Opera on Mac for development. Tools are much better suited for my development style.
 

Gallion

macrumors member
Aug 18, 2011
42
0
Meh. Firefox releases mean bugger all these days. A minor upgrade and they call it a whole new version number.

Firefox is still a bloated pile of crap. You cant beat a good webkit based browser right now. Safari, Chrome, Chromium, etc all do a great job IMO.

None of them can handle my very numerous tabs as well as Firefox does.
 
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