When I was still using 10.3.x Firefox was clearly the best browser, which I also have stated in one of the MANY Safari vs Firefox threads the last 6 months.
After upgrading to Tiger, though, Firefox has gotten slower (and I had serious problems with it at first because of a plug-in) so I gave the new Safari a go (which I always have said I would). And I must say: Safari 2.0 is much better than Firefox at the moment.
With AcidSearch and Taboo installed, the only thing I miss from Firefox is Adblock to take out those annoying (and, in Firefox, very CPU intensive) Flash ads. (I'm not interested in blocking all ads, and PitHelmet was both too hard to set up properly (and I'm a computer engineer), too general and it froze Safari and my machine several times in the short while I tested it.)
Safari's awesome RSS handling is almost worth the shift back alone. I've used RSS a long time, first with NetNewsWire Lite and then the live bookmarks in Firefox, and didn't expect too much difference, but again Apple managed to surprise and impress me with their ability to take a technology and make it highly usable and gorgeous at the same time.
And to finish: Safari 2.0 is much more compatible with those (very few) sites that refused to function properly with 1.x, like my internet bank, which after an "upgrade" stopped working with Safari 1.x and pushed me over on Firefox in the first place.
So, if Apple now just manages to prevent Safari from crashing every now and then, when I close tabs with pages with questionable CGI programming, I'm gonna be very happy...
After upgrading to Tiger, though, Firefox has gotten slower (and I had serious problems with it at first because of a plug-in) so I gave the new Safari a go (which I always have said I would). And I must say: Safari 2.0 is much better than Firefox at the moment.
With AcidSearch and Taboo installed, the only thing I miss from Firefox is Adblock to take out those annoying (and, in Firefox, very CPU intensive) Flash ads. (I'm not interested in blocking all ads, and PitHelmet was both too hard to set up properly (and I'm a computer engineer), too general and it froze Safari and my machine several times in the short while I tested it.)
Safari's awesome RSS handling is almost worth the shift back alone. I've used RSS a long time, first with NetNewsWire Lite and then the live bookmarks in Firefox, and didn't expect too much difference, but again Apple managed to surprise and impress me with their ability to take a technology and make it highly usable and gorgeous at the same time.
And to finish: Safari 2.0 is much more compatible with those (very few) sites that refused to function properly with 1.x, like my internet bank, which after an "upgrade" stopped working with Safari 1.x and pushed me over on Firefox in the first place.
So, if Apple now just manages to prevent Safari from crashing every now and then, when I close tabs with pages with questionable CGI programming, I'm gonna be very happy...