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Firefox vs. Safari
- Thread starter SnowLeopard2008
- Start date
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you might just give firefox 3.1 beta a try (will be called 3.5), it has multi-touch for new macs, actually provide more gestures than safari's multi-touch.
How's the stability/speed? I gave Safari 4 Beta a try and it crashes everytime I load a flash/java page and then close it.
Holy ****, you have really no idea ;-) ;-)
A web developer must support currently more or less only two and a half browser.
The web-standards compliant browser Firefox, Opera, Safari and then IE 8 are one.
The other one is IE 6 - and IE 7 is the half (something between the IE 6 nightmare and IE 8)
And sooner or later will be the support for IE 6 discontinued.
So, what do you want? Should Safari simulate a death browser zombie.
It can`t be true that someone write such stupid stuff - shame on you ;-)
------
And again,
the Acid 3 test represents nothing.
A real web-standards test, which indicate which browser has the best web-standards support should have thousands and thousands of tests and not only 100 like the Acid 3.
You should really not believe the Apple marketing lies .. not one Webkit developer would say the Acid 3 is the proof that they are better than Gecko or whatever .. only stupid fan-boys use this Acid 3 argument.
Regards
i think its pretty good, since with firefox, you can always setup a new profile for the test to see if you like it.
addons might not be compatible, so you might need to do some tweak for them, if you have any.
Thats not how it works, its not how engine is developed, and its not how browsers incorporate standard.
You are zooming in on a static image of fonts. Firefox's font is largest in that image so when you zoom in it has less to do in terms of being blown up. You can't really claim it is best because of this or indeed it is best for everyone to read.
At the size the font is being displayed by the browser to me firefox looks the worst and is the hardest to read.
honestly, firefox improves much faster, feature wise, than any other browsers, most things that realistically needs attention, they normally get it.
I quite like Safari 4. However, that doesn't mean I also dislike Firefox 3. Far from it... I just don't use it as much as Safari as of late. I do wonder, though, when the next major Firefox update (3.1 or 3.5, whatever Mozilla calls it) will be released. I'm anxious to try that out.
Getting in to the realms of opinion here. Firefox is developed quite quickly through addons but in terms of the core browser I am not really sure your statement holds true. Safari is a slow adopter in terms of the big browsers but it seems to follow keeping things minimal and adding the features that are taking hold rather than the lots and lots of features the other browsers seem to follow.
keeping things minimal is a very subjective idea. exactly what would be minimal, and what would be necessary?
In safari 4, apple added top sites, bookmark/history cover flow, while I applauds the first function, many of these additions are eye candy, its far from being minimal, and far from being simple, it even demands good enough video card to function properly on windows.
at the same time, many basic features that can greatly enhance the user surfing experience, apple just doesn't seem to care, multiple password remembrance, single window mode w/o holding cmd key, a drop down history list at url bar, a notification bar for password remembrance, rather than a pop up box... etc.
I have to say, I have no clear idea of apple's safari developing priority.
I think I could have made my comment regarding firefox development being fast more precisely.
What I think is that firefox is much clear about what it will do, and much more responsive to users demands. users complain about non-mac-ish of firefox 2, take a look at firefox 3, its by no means perfect, but its a hell lot more mac-ish than 2. User complains about memory leak? Firefox 3 fix it, full page zoom? done, awesome bar? done. better integration of addons system? yes. ...
In the end, I think safari's development environment is too closed, by apple, too many major bugs disappear behind the curtain, lack of response to the community feedback and insisting on its own agenda. I dont think its a healthy environment and doesn't lead to a promising future.
safari users, IMHO, should just go to apple and complain more, and there are much to be complaining about. They don't get anything from standing there throwing flowers all the way.
Safari: Too minimalistic for my liking. It's just..... simple. I like my buttons upon buttons because I know what they all do!
FireFox: I have nothing against FF. It does what it needs to for those who love it.
Internet Explorer: It "helps" people "surf" the "Internet"!
Opera: My personal fav. Love it, use it, abuse it. However, I will say the Mac version is s**t in GUI compared to the Windows version.
SO..........OPERA is my cup of tea
FireFox: I have nothing against FF. It does what it needs to for those who love it.
Internet Explorer: It "helps" people "surf" the "Internet"!
Opera: My personal fav. Love it, use it, abuse it. However, I will say the Mac version is s**t in GUI compared to the Windows version.
SO..........OPERA is my cup of tea
It is, very much so, to an extent, how much web compliance a browser developer team chooses to implement.
Okay, well lemme put this in perspective for you.
I go to a tech university, therefore know a lot of web developers. When a web developer makes a JS app, or a flash app, or a page with SQL queries, they check 3, maybe 5 browsers. Usually they're not using mac (usually in windows) so they check it with firefox first (some have been switching to chrome so they've been checking it with that first). Then they see if it works with IE. Then later, if they both care, and have the time, they find somebody with a mac and test it with Safari. I suppose they could download it for Windows, but most of them don't, same goes for Opera.
So in the order of operations that I've seen most web developers develop pages for compliance is:
Firefox or Chrome (usually FF) >> IE (whatever version is on their Vista or XP machine) >> Safari >> Opera
Ironically, Safari 4, and Opera, the 2 browsers that score 100 on the acid3, are usually tested last. If somebody was developing for web compliance, they'd be testing their pages with Safari and Opera first, but they don't.
So while firefox may not be "right" - it's what a lot of people do their primary testing with. Few web coders I know use OS X for web dev, and even then, most of them don't use webkit, and think Safari 3 sucks, so they test in FF anyway.
So all I'm saying is that while it may not be 100% web compliance, the 70% of what firefox gets on the Acid3, is what a lot of developers program for, and then they usually follow it up with a check on IE, which gets like a 20... So all I'm saying is the acid3 may not be the best way to rate a browser at most webSITES aren't developed to succeed on browsers that pass that Acid3.
Also, I have a problem with the fact that the developer of the Acid1-2-3 test opened what he was going to test in the browser. This gave Safari and Opera something to aim towards with Webkit. Thankfully, he said he ISN'T going to tell what tests he's using for the Acid4 test, this will create a whole new breed of browsers in my opinion.
Basically, I feel Opera and Safari targetted the Acid3 test to pass it knowing what tests were on it. For a browser to be "good" by those standards, I feel it should be created, polished, finished, THEN, if they did everything right, it should be able to pass the AcidX test.
I'm a little confused on this. Can somebody explain what the difference in text rendering is that's a problem in firefox? The three text samples look the same for all three in the attached image, to me. I'm sure I'm missing something, but the only thing I see is that Firefox looks slightly better than the other 2 because the letters seem a bit more solid, making it a tiny bit clearer. Though I don't think the difference is enough to warrant calling the other 2 bad...I'm obviously missing something here, anybody wanna clue me in?
OK two bigger examples.
Firefox to me is too bunched up, stretched vertically and thicker lines. When it is extended to larger documents on the whole it looks ugly and makes reading it slightly more difficult.
So there is a difference. Anyway to you it looks better, to me it looks worse. Personal preference.
Though I don't think the difference is enough to warrant calling the other 2 bad...I'm obviously missing something here, anybody wanna clue me in?
Neither one is bad per se, they are just different.
I prefer how Opera / Safari render the text and as most of my web browsing experience is reading text I prefer Opera / Safari. You may prefer Firefox.
Used Safari when I first got my Mac. Then I switched to Firefox. Then with Safari 4, I came back to Safari and I will be staying. The only thing is I cannot access my hotmail inbox through it for some emails, so I have to use Mac Mail.
I've been a Mozila guy since 4th grade so Firefox is just integrated into me. I think b/c of the addons Firefox has the edge. I've been doing many of the things through Firefox addons for a long time that safari 4 just released.
Now that Safari 4 is out, I am no longer using Firefox. Mozilla is going to have to come out with a good update before I start to use it again.
I had switched to Firefox 3.1 beta 2 befaore Safari 4 came out. I have been using Safari the last days and apart from a couple of things I am happy with it. Yesterday the beta 3 of Firefox3.1 came out and I have decided to test it again. Apart from the text rendering and the fact that Safari is more integrated to the Mac (the look and feel), I have the impression that Firefox works better as a browser. There is almost no speed difference between the two, they are almost identical. The plugins architecture of Firefox and the rendering engine make it the better browser...
Hi,
you have you still not understood, what the Acid3 meant and what it can do and what in particular not ;-)
Cheers
I tried Safari 4 for a few days. The ads all over the place were making my eyes bleed. I forgot what a difference AdBlock Plus makes. I tried to find a safari ad blocker, but none seems to integrate quite as well and required me to download a dmg, mount, run installer. On firefox i just go to the addons page, click install, and its done. Much more user friendly.
I used to use Firefox on my iMac, until Safari 4 Beta was released.
Safari 4 works for me.
- The look and feel is better than Firefox
- Seems to load pages faster
- I prefer the RSS handling of Safari over Firefox
Using Safari also has another advantage, it means not having another browser to update, patch etc. I don't need two browsers. Safari works flawlessly for everything I do and need.
Safari 4 works for me.
- The look and feel is better than Firefox
- Seems to load pages faster
- I prefer the RSS handling of Safari over Firefox
Using Safari also has another advantage, it means not having another browser to update, patch etc. I don't need two browsers. Safari works flawlessly for everything I do and need.
Well because I run a few websites I need all the browsers on my computer. I've stuck with Firefox as my default browser just because some of the extensions are so useful.
Plus it seems to work on just about every site I visit. A few (admittedly they tend to be more Windows centric) tend to have problems with Safari.
Opera is awful though. The GUI just does my head in.
Plus it seems to work on just about every site I visit. A few (admittedly they tend to be more Windows centric) tend to have problems with Safari.
Opera is awful though. The GUI just does my head in.
The default interface is quite ugly especially on OS X. It is something they are working on with Opera 10. As to the results we don't know and won't know for a little while yet.
However there are many different skins you can apply to Opera and you can change it around as much as you want.
