Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Oats

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 8, 2003
194
1
New York
There are plenty of web browsers to choose from for Mac OS X, my favorite is Firefox. Also, Opera, Mozilla, and Firefox are all cross-platform. Why should Apple keep developing Safari? It doesn't seem to offer any great advantages over the other browsers.

I understand that http rendering technology is important for Apple for the dashboard widgets, and is probably a nice engine to have available for app developers, but it is a bit of a hassle to keep up website compatibility with so many different browsers, especially one that is Mac-only. I would prefer if they dropped the stand-alone Safari browser altogether, and adopted Firefox as the default browser for OS X.

Anyone else agree? Anyone absolutely love Safari for some reason?
 

WildCowboy

Administrator/Editor
Staff member
Jan 20, 2005
18,375
2,801
I use Safari almost exclusively. It does just about everything I want and it has that great OS X feel to it that I haven't seen any other browser come close to.

I play around with about ten other browsers occasionally, but Safari is the one I keep coming home to.
 

iBookG4user

macrumors 604
Jun 27, 2006
6,595
2
Seattle, WA
I love using Safari, it looks a lot better than firefox and opera and basically does the same thing. I tried firefox but couldn't stick with it and went back to Safari.
 

adrianblaine

macrumors 65816
Oct 12, 2006
1,156
0
Pasadena, CA
I'm certainly not an expert on this, but they are probably still developing Safari for a lot of the same reasons Microsoft is still developing Explorer. I have no idea what those reasons are and they probably don't have the same motives (or do they?). Maybe apple will revolutionize the HTML world or something, who knows...
 

Scarlet Fever

macrumors 68040
Jul 22, 2005
3,262
0
Bookshop!
safari is quick booting, has a simple but effective interface, reliable... it hasn't given me any reason to switch

on windows, firefox is my browser of preference, but for Mac, i'll stay with Safari
 

Rojo

macrumors 65816
Sep 26, 2006
1,328
241
Barcelona
I like Safari. I know people keep saying FireFox is better, but I tried it and found it to be not as pleasant as using Safari. I like the look and functionality of Safari better, and it seems to work faster for me.

Once in a blue moon, there will be something I can't seem to view on a website via Safari, and I'll go there using FireFox. But 99.5% of the time, I'm using Safari.
 

lmalave

macrumors 68000
Nov 8, 2002
1,614
0
Chinatown NYC
Apple wants its own HTML rendering engine maybe?

I think the main reason is apple wants its own rendering engine that it can embed into other software like iTunes, QuickTime, etc. I don't know if this is really the reason though, since obviously iTunes and QuickTime are both also available for the PC.

P.S. My browser of choice is Firefox 2.0. If Apple has no reason such as I stated above for implementing their own browser, then I really would prefer that they just throw their weight behind Mozilla and specifically Firefox. Since Firefox is customizable, I'm sure Apple could pre-install on the Macs a Firefox customized with a more OS X look and feel.

Plus Firefox is so close to critical mass, why won't Apple add their Safari 3% or whatever market share to what Firefox already has? That might be enough to push more Web Developers to make sure their websites are Firefox-compatible, which would get more people to switch to Firefox and create a virtuous cycle where Firefox could gain some serious marketshare. I don't see what Apple has to gain by adding to the fragmentation of the non-IE world...
 

kretzy

macrumors 604
Sep 11, 2004
7,921
2
Canberra, Australia
I used to use Safari almost exclusively, but I've found FF loads pages much faster. So now I sort of switch between the two, if Safari were a bit snappier I would always use it because it just feels better.
 

bousozoku

Moderator emeritus
Jun 25, 2002
15,603
1,760
Lard
I don't like or use Safari but it's absolutely necessary for getting to the browser preference. ;)

The one reason to keep developing Safari is to keep the music store browser in iTunes up-to-date and displaying some nice effects.

Besides, Apple is seeing some big numbers for Safari users on certain websites. Developing Safari's version of KHTML gives them an opportunity to return the source code to the KHTML people and give them fits in trying to integrate the changes. :p It gives them some presence in open source software that has nothing to do with Apple-created software.
 

radiantm3

macrumors 65816
Oct 16, 2005
1,022
0
San Jose, CA
There are plenty of web browsers to choose from for Mac OS X, my favorite is Firefox. Also, Opera, Mozilla, and Firefox are all cross-platform. Why should Apple keep developing Safari? It doesn't seem to offer any great advantages over the other browsers.

I understand that http rendering technology is important for Apple for the dashboard widgets, and is probably a nice engine to have available for app developers, but it is a bit of a hassle to keep up website compatibility with so many different browsers, especially one that is Mac-only. I would prefer if they dropped the stand-alone Safari browser altogether, and adopted Firefox as the default browser for OS X.

Anyone else agree? Anyone absolutely love Safari for some reason?

As a web designer, I prefer Safari. It renders css very well and text and input buttons look so much better. You are also forgetting that a lot of Mac OS technologies rely on Webkit (the engine behind Safari). iTunes (the store) and Dashboard widgets just to name a few. And tons of third party developers use webkit for their applications.
 

aloofman

macrumors 68020
Dec 17, 2002
2,206
3
Socal
I think it's just because Apple likes to integrate the computing experience, and web-browsing is probably the most common thing people do on a computer these days.
 

maxrobertson

macrumors 6502a
Jun 15, 2006
581
0
Jakarta
um... maybe because Safari actually looks and works decently on Mac OS X. Okay, Camino, Shiira, and OmniWeb are actually very good. But Camino is rather unstable, OmniWeb isn't free, and Shiira is based on Safari's rendering engine, so there's really nothing that puts these so far above Safari. I use Safari all the time, and love it.
 

iMeowbot

macrumors G3
Aug 30, 2003
8,634
0
I think the main reason is apple wants its own rendering engine that it can embed into other software like iTunes, QuickTime, etc.
They don't use it in QuickTime or iTunes. They do have other stuff (the help system, Dashboard, Mail, etc.) that needs it.

They kind of need a browser shell (Safari) to test out the engine, so why not release that part too? It's almost a freebie in that way.
 

SuperSnake2012

macrumors 6502a
Oct 11, 2005
824
19
NY
I would use Firefox on my Mac but I really dislike the way it renders fonts. Webkit browsers (Safari, OmniWeb) has nice full, bold fonts while Gecko browsers (Firefox, Camino) has thinner, worse looking text and it's really bad on the eyes. If anyone knows how to fix this I'd appreciate it :p
 

radiantm3

macrumors 65816
Oct 16, 2005
1,022
0
San Jose, CA
They don't use it in QuickTime or iTunes. They do have other stuff (the help system, Dashboard, Mail, etc.) that needs it.

They kind of need a browser shell (Safari) to test out the engine, so why not release that part too? It's almost a freebie in that way.

I'm pretty sure they use webkit for the itunes music store.
 

Catfish_Man

macrumors 68030
Sep 13, 2001
2,579
2
Portland, OR
I'm pretty sure they use webkit for the itunes music store.

It would make a ton of sense, but weirdly enough they don't. The store gives an xml description of the UI and iTunes does its own thing with it.

WebKit is a fantastic project; one of the best things Apple is doing these days, imo.
 

radiantm3

macrumors 65816
Oct 16, 2005
1,022
0
San Jose, CA
It would make a ton of sense, but weirdly enough they don't. The store gives an xml description of the UI and iTunes does its own thing with it.

WebKit is a fantastic project; one of the best things Apple is doing these days, imo.

Ah, that makes sense. And I agree about WebKit. :)
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.