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FireFox vs. Safari (and IE I guess)

mkrishnan said:
Out of curiosity, what is it that bothers you about FF bookmarks? Is it the bookmarks manager? I think the one in Safari is definitely better on that front. But mostly they seem pretty equivalent to me. I routinely refresh whichever one I hadn't been using with the bookmarks from the other one, and I seem to be able to practically use bookmarks in a very similar fashion in both.
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I can use command-key shortcuts in Safari. Less than 5 seconds and I have all the browsing I'm gonna do in the next 15 minutes open. (Gmail, MacRumors, various RSS feeds combined into one) and also the folder system in terms of creating and adding bookmarks to the folders is so much easier. I have had issues figuring out how to do that in Firefox. Safari is much more intuitive.
 
I don't know why everyone is saying Safari needs an adblock plugin - it certainly doesn't need one. Just download the adblocking CSS sylesheet at http://floppymoose.com/ and apply it in the Safari prefs. Boom! instant adblocking that even kills Google ads. :D

As for what browser I use, I almost always use Safari. The only exceptions is when I'm testing my own browser (surfDude) or the occasianal site that won't work in Safari, then I use Camino. Under --no-- circumstances would I use Firefox on the Mac - it still has a LONG way to go before it's truly Mac friendly.
 
I use FireFox, Camino and Safari - each has their own advantage and it depends on what I am doing. FF is pretty versatile so I like that aspect. Camino is a great alternative and cross between FF and Safari, I recently started using it and really like it. Safari is simple, elegant and powerful in its own right, plus it just "feels" right, I know what that other poster meant by that, completely.

So I always have 3 browsers going at any given time, I'm indecisive, what can I say? :p
 
Safari is awesome. I really love it :)
I used IE when i first bought my Mac but then i discovered safari and have been using it ever since.

I never really need to use another browser. Once or twice i've had to use firefox because a site hasn't worked with safari but this rarely happens.

I'm still on Panther btw, so looking forward to Safari 2.0 :D
 
buryyourbrideau said:
safari = winner

IE blows in all aspects including security

FF is not even needed, if you want to, you can enable debug mode on safari and have it operate as a different browser for a specific site

here is how to do it

Quit Safari.

Turn on Debug mode.

Then restart it. You'll see a "Debug" menu. Once at the banking site's main page, select Debug->User Agent->Windows MSIE 6.0. Edit: you might need to select this before going to the main page; some trial and error should work it out. Your encryption is fine; the bank just doesn't recognize our browser.

Odds are the site will work fine. Note that you need to do this every time you visit - the User Agent only is valid for that session/window.


here is the code to enter in terminal

defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1

0 instead of 1 to turn it off

you are welcome :D
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And this is easier than just having FF lying around for cases when needed?!
 
Windowlicker said:
And this is easier than just having FF lying around for cases when needed?!
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Actually, the agent thing is really not a solution for the same kinds of problems as having FF around. FF is good when there is a site that the Safari engine doesn't like for some reason (usually this means the site flaunts standards and FF is more forgiving than Safari). The agent spoofing is good for when a site has JS or somesuch that tries to make sure you are using IE for compatibility, but in fact doesn't do anything that really needs IE.
 
Windowlicker said:
And this is easier than just having FF lying around for cases when needed?!
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You get quite a bit more with the Debug menu than just that stuff.

Here's a screenshot of the menu (Did this by: opened the menu, Command+Shift+4, then Spacebar, then clicked on the menu)
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That transparent screen option is freakin' awesome! But entirely useless. :confused:
 

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Mechcozmo said:
That transparent screen option is freakin' awesome! But entirely useless. :confused:
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It was meant originally for Panther users using Safari as a test lab for widgets that had strange shapes, so you could see the strange shape floating rather than containerized....

But just to back up the always insightful Mechcozmo, yes, the debug menu does tons-o-neat stuff, even if I still say the agent thing solves an almost completely different problem than keeping FF as a backup does.
 
mkrishnan said:
But just to back up the always insightful Mechcozmo, yes, the debug menu does tons-o-neat stuff
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Talkin' about me?

Yeah, the thingamajigs in that menu are amazing. I love the "Go to about:blank Soon" one. It is just... :rolleyes:

Anyways, the Debug menu is also great for that Snippet editor but I don't get the difference between the two buttons. One converts and one shows you the HTML you typed in the top in the bottom. Eh? :confused:
 
Mechcozmo said:
Talkin' about me?

Yeah, the thingamajigs in that menu are amazing. I love the "Go to about:blank Soon" one. It is just... :rolleyes:

Anyways, the Debug menu is also great for that Snippet editor but I don't get the difference between the two buttons. One converts and one shows you the HTML you typed in the top in the bottom. Eh? :confused:
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Hmmm...the go to about:blank one doesn't seem to have any obvious use to me. LOL, it's very Mission Impossible, with its pinging sound. This thread will self destruct in five, four, three, two, one! :D I assume a developer might use it for something though. Maybe there are cases where it will rescue Safari from an apparent lockup because of bad flash/js/applet code?

Ya got me on the snippet editor. :) Oooh, actually, I found a strange difference. If you put an a href tag in, in convert, it shows you text formatting, but no links. In show, the link is also preserved.... But I don't get what the point is. To what is convert converting??? :D
 
FireFox is much more reliable than Safari 2, but Safari has inbuilt spell checking and a better RSS reader (although the 2 finger scroll doesn't work very well when viewing an RSS feed). So at the moment I need both, at least until Safari gets more reliable.

Another thing that Safari does not support is the "contentEditable" attribute. Apple really should add this, wysiwyg editors rarely work in Safari.
 
witness said:
FireFox is much more reliable than Safari 2, but Safari has inbuilt spell checking and a better RSS reader (although the 2 finger scroll doesn't work very well when viewing an RSS feed). So at the moment I need both, at least until Safari gets more reliable.
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iScroll 2 works great for me. Play with your settings? Or do you have a Rev. D 12"/17" or Rev. C 15"? (Latest and Greatest)
 
mkrishnan said:
Hmmm...the go to about:blank one doesn't seem to have any obvious use to me. LOL, it's very Mission Impossible, with its pinging sound. This thread will self destruct in five, four, three, two, one! :D I assume a developer might use it for something though. Maybe there are cases where it will rescue Safari from an apparent lockup because of bad flash/js/applet code?

Ya got me on the snippet editor. :) Oooh, actually, I found a strange difference. If you put an a href tag in, in convert, it shows you text formatting, but no links. In show, the link is also preserved.... But I don't get what the point is. To what is convert converting??? :D
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I think the about:blank is a great way to get your friends to freak out by using some as-yet hidden code. Command+Option+[Build #]+Control+S ? :p

The snippet editor is a handy tool to see what some HTML will look like without firing up an editor like Nvu. I always just press both the buttons... :rolleyes: ...worked so far. :D
 
Mechcozmo said:
iScroll 2 works great for me. Play with your settings? Or do you have a Rev. D 12"/17" or Rev. C 15"? (Latest and Greatest)
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I have the latest 17" PowerBook with the new style touchpad. Everything scrolls fine except for RSS pages in Safari, I'm sure that it's a software problem with Safari, I've had 3 of these powerbooks in the last month and they all had the same problem.
 
I'm not 100% sure on this, but the reason I don't use Firefox is because I can't use the back keyboard shortcut like I can in safari.
 
I use Safari, but I think its just as bad as FF (buggy), IE(outdated), because you can't right click in the browser to get "Back" "forward" "reload" options. Having to move my mouse to the top of the browser everytime SUCKS!
 
This may seem caddy but I prefer firefox over safari because of the ease of switching between tabs in FF. Alt-tab can be done with one hand and is a lot easier than shift-apple-arrow keys. If it is possible to remap this control in safari then i would probably use safari.

BTW is there a utility out there that could sync my bookmarks betweeb ff and safari?
 
gangst said:
I'm not 100% sure on this, but the reason I don't use Firefox is because I can't use the back keyboard shortcut like I can in safari.
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What are you talking about? I can use cmd-leftarrow in both Safari and Firefox... :confused:
 
At first, before Firefox, I used Safari, and I was fine. Later, when firefox came out, I abandoned Safari, because firefox was faster. And it had other cool features like more themes, extensions etc.

But it wasn't stable as safari, especially in other sites apart from the english and american ones.

Now, with Tiger, I use Safari 2. Surprisingly, it is a lot faster than the older safari, and a little more fast than Firefox. Also, it is more stable. Although many people say that safari crashes a lot under tiger, I haven't had such problems. Safari is able to open more tabs at once than Firefox does, and some sites perform better in safari, too.

I see no reason why I should get back to Firefox.

There was a time I used Microsoft's IE. Well, I must congratulate microsoft... It should have taken much effort to develop a program such crappy as this one. Aren't they ashamed of what they have done?
 
Mechcozmo said:
The snippet editor is a handy tool to see what some HTML will look like without firing up an editor like Nvu. I always just press both the buttons... :rolleyes: ...worked so far. :D
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I should use it when I'm putting HTML into my MySpace or something like that... :)

Mitthrawnuruodo said:
What are you talking about? I can use cmd-leftarrow in both Safari and Firefox...
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Cmd-left/right works consistently in Safari and FF, but in Safari and IE, backspace also takes you back a page.
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
I use Safari exclusively, with no add-ons other than a modified hosts file. I also keep Shiira around just in case I feel like using it.
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Totally forgot about that one! It's been ages since I last tried it. Got to check out what's new.

poundsmack said:
we cant forget Opera. now thats a great browser
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It's a great browser on Windows, but IMO it just doesn't fit very well into Mac OS X. I haven't tested Opera 8 on OS X, so maybe it's improved.

One thing I love about Opera is its session handling. Even if it crash, it really doesn't matter. It will remember and reopen all the sites, even remembering where on the page I was!
If FF or Safari crash with a lot of tabs open, I silently curse to myself. If Opera crash, I just shrug and reopen it, and everything is well.
I've tried an extension for FF that provides some of the same abilities, but it doesn't always work right and was kind of buggy last time I tried it.
 
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