What browser do you run on your Mac?


  

210 members have voted

  1. 1. Which browser do you use?

    • Safari 4
      102
    • Firefox 3.0
      24
    • Firefox 3.5
      74
    • Flock
      1
    • Camino
      1
    • Camino 2
      0
    • Other
      8
    • 0


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No Camino users here? Most of the time, I'm using Firefox, just because there are a few extensions that I have come to rely upon in my day-to-day work. However, once in a while I want something that's simple and clean with powerful ad-blocking and Flash-blocking. In those cases, I usually fire up Camino.

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No Camino users here?

Camino's problem is not the idea but the people behind it and some of the hardcore users on the forums. The browser should have received a refreshed interface many months ago to bring it up to Leopard standards. Both Safari and Firefox got it, Camino on the other hand still looks like something coming out of the Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar age. I've never seen a bunch of developers so extremely reluctant to change. Every time someone requests an interface change, doesn't matter how small, they come up with a million reasons why not tot implement it and why things should stay exactly the way they are.

After Leopard was released I once emailed one of the devs with the simple request to change the bookmarks manager to include the new default light blue sidebar. Nowadays it's seen throughout the OS and many of its applications, including most third-party ones. Also in this case the Camino team felt there was no reason to implement it and had tons of reasons why. So today you'll still see the same dated elements while other applications do move forward and have phased them out by now.

After a while I just completely gave up on Camino and switched to Safari, a browser that is properly maintained.

PS I believe, after two years, they're finally putting in some effort to bring it up to Leopard standards.

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The browser should have received a refreshed interface many months ago to bring it up to Leopard standards. Both Safari and Firefox got it, Camino on the other hand still looks like something coming out of the Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar age.

I actually never noticed that until you mentioned it, but you're absolutely right. The bookmark bar below the address bar in particular looks like something that was dragged out of Netscape Navigator. I keep all of my bookmarks within Firefox (Xmarks in particular) and so I never needed to bookmark anything within Camino, but I just took a quick look at the manager, and yes, it is ugly as sin. I suppose their slogan of "Mozilla Power, Mac Style" is shameless false advertising.

I've used Safari on and off, but at the end of the day, I guess I just prefer the extensibility of Firefox over the style and rendering speed of Safari. I also like the fact that Xmarks for Firefox is an actual add-on for the browser, whereas Xmarks for Safari lives inside of your System Preferences. I realize how irrational that is, but it's just something that irks me. Good browser, though.

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PS I believe, after two years, they're finally putting in some effort to bring it up to Leopard standards.

I want to withdraw that. Their idea of bringing it up to Leopard standards is making the bookmarks and tab bar slightly darker and adding default folder icons to the browser instead of using their own custom ones. Bravo! Only took them 2 years.

It's saddening really. :p

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Firefox 3.5 2 for my external web traffic.

Safari 4.0.3 for my home intranet.

It's a tough call, Safari is faster bye a wide margin, but with as much web browsing as I do, simple options like Command+Return to add http:// and .com to a URL string have kept me on Firefox. Plus, the ForecastFox extension is just the greatest thing since the wheel in my book.

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Safari 4. I was a big fan of Firefox until I tried the Safari 4 Beta after buying my Mac, haven't gone back since(on the OS X side at least). I still use Firefox under bootcamp because Safari for Windows doesn't have an Ad-block add-on and it just feels sluggish still. It is definitely a lot better than it used to be under Windows though.

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I want to withdraw that. Their idea of bringing it up to Leopard standards is making the bookmarks and tab bar slightly darker and adding default folder icons to the browser instead of using their own custom ones. Bravo! Only took them 2 years.

It's saddening really. :p

Isn't Camino 2 going to be a fairly extensive overhaul of the UI and rendering engine?

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Firefox 3.5 2 for my external web traffic.

Safari 4.0.3 for my home intranet.

It's a tough call, Safari is faster bye a wide margin, but with as much web browsing as I do, simple options like Command+Return to add http:// and .com to a URL string have kept me on Firefox. Plus, the ForecastFox extension is just the greatest thing since the wheel in my book.

You don't need to write http:// or even .com in Safari.

Try just typing in "google" or "youtube" for instance. (you might as well clear your history before, or Safari's going to take the first website that matches "youtube" in the list)

It's going to assume it's a .com website. And every web browser nowadays assumes you wrote http://

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Isn't Camino 2 going to be a fairly extensive overhaul of the UI and rendering engine?

Camino 2's going to be a Gecko 1.9.something app (It's currently a 1.8.something app)

There are some differences though, in that Camino's Gecko version uses Cocoa widgets (normal Gecko 1.8 uses Carbon widgets). Gecko 1.9's Cocoa widget code actually came from Camino.

It's drawing and text handling still comes from QuickDraw and such, unlike 1.9 that uses Quartz and ATSUI.

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I switch between Safari 4 and Fx 3.5. Though to be honest, I really don't know why I continue using Fx... sure, the extensions were nice, but I really cannot think of any that I absolutely have to use these days. The only extensions I actually use are Evernote, 1password, and Xmarks which work on both browsers.

Though I really liked Safari 4 beta's tab placement, and I'm a bit disgruntled about them removing that and not even leaving in option. Once Chrome becomes a bit more stable, that may actually become my main browser. Xmarks also works on it.

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You don't need to write http:// or even .com in Safari.

Try just typing in "google" or "youtube" for instance. (you might as well clear your history before, or Safari's going to take the first website that matches "youtube" in the list)

It's going to assume it's a .com website. And every web browser nowadays assumes you wrote http://

Same for firefox. Actually typing a word in firefox address bar takes you to the closest site if its obvious and if not it does a google search for the word and it doesnt depend on the history. Also the awesome bar in firefox displays history and bookmarks in a much better way. I use Windows XP, Mac OSX Leopard, Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.04 extensively because of work and my triple boot on my Macbook Pro. I don't know if anyone here has used it but " Mozilla Weave" makes life so much easier for me as it syncs bookmarks,passwords,history,preferences and tabs automatically on every OS/computer I use.

Firefox 3.0/3.5 has taken a huge step away from Firefox 2.0 and is the best browser that I have ever used(I do have every other browser installed on my computer so I have used pretty much everything). Again I don't have to mention extension. The only gripe I have with firefox is the load times but that's because of the 15 extensions I use. Other than that its much more functional and easier to use for me specially since I get the same experience on any OS I use.

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Isn't Camino 2 going to be a fairly extensive overhaul of the UI and rendering engine?

The toolbar icon theme and overal UI will remain largely the same from what I understand.

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