Firefox vs. Safari
Sunday, April 27, 2008 by Rob
I will always be partial to Firefox. I think its a great browser with a ton of add ons that really improve the functionality. Switching from IE to Firefox to was a breeze and actually improves my searching. My main problem is that my work is a Microsoft addict so I need to develop pages that work with IE as it is the supported browser, talk about hassle. I don't care what any of the experts say IE is a crappy browser, its slow, there are no add ons and it crashes a lot.
Anyway this post wasn't to slam IE it was more to talk about Safari, Apples browser. I decided to try it out for the first time yesterday, although I used it all the time when I had a Mac several years ago. I have to say the Safari is WICKED fast (wicked is a Mainer term, if you ever take a trip to Maine you will definitely hear people saying wicked). I downloaded it and installed the newest WebKit addon (which buy the way gets a perfect score on the Acid 3 test!) and the speed of my surfing seemed to double (probably didn't but it was still wicked fast). I also love that it uses some CSS3 such as box-shadow and border-radius. Why is it that none of the other browsers (sans Firefox for border-radius) implement this? If you don't know what either of those are just check out our staging port in Safari: Higher Colleges of Technology
So why don't I advocate for use of Safari, well it sucks hardcore in other areas. For instance there are almost zero plug ins for the windows version. I'm not really surprised as it was designed for OSX but come on, zero plug ins? I also hate their tab system, whenever you click on a link it opens in a new page instead of a new tab. In order to get it to open in a new tab you need to do "CNTRL-Click", also incredibly lame. It does have a developer tool, which is initially turned off you need to go to the advanced tab under preferences to turn it on. Its better than the developer tool in IE but its still pretty week compared to the Firefox one.
I like Safari but not enough to change from Firefox. It certainly is faster loading pages but the lack of plug ins kills the who experience for me, its one of the reasons I enjoy using Firefox so much.
Anyway this post wasn't to slam IE it was more to talk about Safari, Apples browser. I decided to try it out for the first time yesterday, although I used it all the time when I had a Mac several years ago. I have to say the Safari is WICKED fast (wicked is a Mainer term, if you ever take a trip to Maine you will definitely hear people saying wicked). I downloaded it and installed the newest WebKit addon (which buy the way gets a perfect score on the Acid 3 test!) and the speed of my surfing seemed to double (probably didn't but it was still wicked fast). I also love that it uses some CSS3 such as box-shadow and border-radius. Why is it that none of the other browsers (sans Firefox for border-radius) implement this? If you don't know what either of those are just check out our staging port in Safari: Higher Colleges of Technology
So why don't I advocate for use of Safari, well it sucks hardcore in other areas. For instance there are almost zero plug ins for the windows version. I'm not really surprised as it was designed for OSX but come on, zero plug ins? I also hate their tab system, whenever you click on a link it opens in a new page instead of a new tab. In order to get it to open in a new tab you need to do "CNTRL-Click", also incredibly lame. It does have a developer tool, which is initially turned off you need to go to the advanced tab under preferences to turn it on. Its better than the developer tool in IE but its still pretty week compared to the Firefox one.
I like Safari but not enough to change from Firefox. It certainly is faster loading pages but the lack of plug ins kills the who experience for me, its one of the reasons I enjoy using Firefox so much.
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Personally, I think the whole IE vs. Firefox debate is similar to the Mac vs. PC debate. People prefer to use what they are familiar with, whether is it the "best" is subjective and/or irrelevant, since it gets the job done.
I always use IE, though I have Firefox & Safari on my computer. While it is probably easy to change, the graphics and particularly the fonts on Firefox look really dull and chintzy to me. I've played around with settings a little, but it doesn't fix the problem. I've never had a problem with IE crashing, and if it is slow, it isn't enough that it hinders productivity.
So after all the debate, I think it comes down to most people choosing a browser that works for them (sometimes for the silliest reasons), and once done, that will be where all their settings and bookmarks are, not to mention what they are comfortable navigating.
That said, it is interesting to read a concise comparison of Safari, since I have hardly even opened that browser besides to quickly test a web page in it.
You are correct that it comes down to choosing a browser that works for you. Whatever is most comfortable you should use. I have several problems with IE though. For one it is difficult to designs web pages for. Everything may look correct in Firefox/Safari/Opera however in IE the alignment may be off or something that doesn't show in Firefox shows in IE. Its the reason you often need a separate style sheet for IE, and don't get me started on IE6 it doesn't like anything. My other problem with IE is that there are zero add-ons. I have no way to customize it to my liking. Firefox though is open source and there is a thriving community that creates some great add-ons. Don't like the font no problem you can change it. Want Gmail to be black instead of white again no problem.
Regardless in the end it comes down to what you are comfortable with and what you need to do with it. Don't feel like your locked into IE though just because it came with windows. Try some of the add-ons available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/