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What is the best browser for Mac?
- Thread starter damiengolding
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I use Chrome mostly. When I got my mac at first, I was using safari all the time because it's only in mac. However, Chrome is super fast. You will love it!
Opera
I'm really liking Opera. The browser is fast and the entire interface is very customizable (which can be a little confusing at first, but you just have to play with it to see what it can do).
Opera also has a built-in email app that works very well with Gmail's IMAP - I've ditched Apple's Mail with no regrets whatsoever. It's very convenient to have my mail sitting up in a tab along with the rest of my browser tabs.
I'm also using Opera's cloud features (called Opera Link) which allow me to sync bookmarks, contacts, notes and passwords, making them available to my netbook PC when I'm on the road running the Window's version of Opera.
I'm really liking Opera. The browser is fast and the entire interface is very customizable (which can be a little confusing at first, but you just have to play with it to see what it can do).
Opera also has a built-in email app that works very well with Gmail's IMAP - I've ditched Apple's Mail with no regrets whatsoever. It's very convenient to have my mail sitting up in a tab along with the rest of my browser tabs.
I'm also using Opera's cloud features (called Opera Link) which allow me to sync bookmarks, contacts, notes and passwords, making them available to my netbook PC when I'm on the road running the Window's version of Opera.
I hope I don't sound like I'm trolling, cause it's a serious question. But does anyone else here find youtube/flash performance to be almost unusable in safari? I mean safari is my first choice, but I'm forced to load up youtube clips in firefox to have them work, not always, but it'd becoming a common occurrence.
I don't have a problem with Flash on Safari.
For Flash-related issues:
- Find your Flash version and make sure it's the latest version available. Never install or update Flash from a pop-up on a website. Always go to Adobe's site to get Flash or updates.
- Install ClickToFlash (Safari), Flashblock (Firefox) or FlashBlock (Chrome) to control which Flash content plays on websites.
- Try using the YouTube HTML5 Video Player to watch YouTube videos, when available. (May impact fullscreen viewing. See link for details.) As far as performance impact, YMMV.
Firefox for the amount of extensions and compatibility.
Chrome for speed
Safari is crap imo, it is slower then Chrome and does not have the addons that Firefox has.
Chrome for speed
Safari is crap imo, it is slower then Chrome and does not have the addons that Firefox has.
Oh I do have clicktoflash installed, and have enabled html5 on youtube a long time ago (although not all clips play via their html5 player). Just seems youtube performance every now and again is unwatchable in safari, but the same clip works fine in firefox.
I figured it might've been something to do with ATI's drivers decoding the stream, but its just as bad when using gfxcardstatus to force the laptop into using the hd3000.
But one of your suggestions might actually be a big help. It could be click2flash's auto html5 conversion causing it. Next time it happens I'll look into it more. See if its click2flash's html5 conversion, youtube's html5 player, or youtube's flash player. I really should've looked at it more before asking questions. Thanks for the tips.
UPDATE: Just tried playing the latest assassins creed trailer (which I remembered caused issues earlier today). I narrowed the performance issues down to html5. Using youtube's own html5 player works horribly bad for me, as does clicktoflash's internal html5 conversion from flash. By leaving the html5 trial and just using flash its fine. I'll keep an eye on it though incase I'm off target.
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For 8 months I tried to like Safari but got tired of the beachballs, page reloading when going back, and the blank page when going back in Google images. Switched to Firefox and have had no issues.
Browsers
So I guess that makes Firefox the Mistress, Chrome the Trophy Wife, and Opera the old girlfriend you happen so see once in awhile.
[Please feel free to change to Husband / Partner / Boyfriend or whatever works for you]
Safari for life like the perfect wife. Faithful and sure certainly secure.
So I guess that makes Firefox the Mistress, Chrome the Trophy Wife, and Opera the old girlfriend you happen so see once in awhile.
[Please feel free to change to Husband / Partner / Boyfriend or whatever works for you]
I'm still slumming it with a PowerPC based Mac from a decade ago so I use a custom build of Firefox called TenFourFox. I like a lot of the add-ons for it so once I get an Intel based Mac, I'll very likely be using Firefox.
Safari the Wife
lol you got it exactly there. couldn't have said it any better.
So I guess that makes Firefox the Mistress, Chrome the Trophy Wife, and Opera the old girlfriend you happen so see once in awhile.
[Please feel free to change to Husband / Partner / Boyfriend or whatever works for you]
lol you got it exactly there. couldn't have said it any better.
If you have the latest OS Mountain Lion, and you run its Safari on a MBP, you can use the swipe gesture to move across different tabs. This is one reason to stick with Safari as well as other OS integrated software in general.
Safari 6 for Mac is really fast and well designed. Ditto for Chrome on Windows. It all depends on what you really like, though.
I recently cranked up Chrome for the first time and it's ok. My first choice for browsers has been Firefox for namely the addons- AdBlock, Better Privacy, NoScript, Netcraft Anti-Phishing Bar, Xmarks, and Web of Trust. I also like how it restores my last session when I restart it and at times, I use a theme. I believe some of these addons are available for Safari, but how about Chrome? I don't know if NoScript is really necessary, but I've gotten into a habit of going to a new browser page and checking the scripts I want to allow to run in the background.
Are these things easily attainable in Safari or Chrome?
Are these things easily attainable in Safari or Chrome?
Safari 6 is much better than Safari 5, but it still has a problem loading Google images for me and the pop-up blocker is all or nothing (there's no way to whitelist certain websites and the setting is buried now). If those issues get resolved I would probably switch back because the bookmark syncing is nice and Safari is more polished on OS X than Firefox.
I stopped using safari because I can't download youtube videos from it.
I went to chrome, which also had problems with that, but the main reason I stopped using chrome is because it doesn't have java (!!!).
I'm on firefox right now, which isn't bad, has good addons, syncronizes with my android (chrome does that too), and has flash, java, everything is working!
But that comes at the cost of a slower browser compared to safari and chrome.
I went to chrome, which also had problems with that, but the main reason I stopped using chrome is because it doesn't have java (!!!).
I'm on firefox right now, which isn't bad, has good addons, syncronizes with my android (chrome does that too), and has flash, java, everything is working!
But that comes at the cost of a slower browser compared to safari and chrome.
For some reason, Google refuses to make Chrome 64-bit and thus support the 64-bit only Java plugin. That's why.
With the much needed update to Safari (v6.0) for Mountain Lion, its now become my every day browser... nice performance, everything I need.