[ChasingApple]

Hello all, for you Clamshell owners out there I have found our browser. Now if you are like me you run Panther 10.3.9 on your Clammy, cause it has all the cool OS X features like expose but isn't as power hungry as Tiger is. Well then you also know that Apple stopped all features of Safari and ended it at 1.3.1 (thanks Apple). Well I have been testing all the "other browsers" out there and finally gave Firefox 2.0b2 a try today, and i'm on it right now.

Talk about fast! One thing that is important to me is scrolling speed on webpages, normally on a modern and fast system this isn't a problem, but on these older Macs it is. 8MB of memory is the max for a clammy and modern bleeding edge websites tend to tax the hell out of a videocard. Well Firefox 2.0b2 is nice and smooth at scrolling. Since there is no trackpad scrolling on a clamshell I tend to use the arrow keys to scroll, and FN with the arrow keys to page up and down. Firefox renders these pages quite well, and fast. Even in OS X I feel the clammy very snappy with its speed, and the new FF 2.0b2 interface is spot on!

At to that the built in spell checking and we have a winner for my needs. When updating my blog I used to type it all in using Textedit, then copy and paste the spellchecked article into my browser for final posting. Well FF 2.0b2 eliminates that step for me, and all the while using very little of my 576MB of memory. I usually have 5-10 tabs open while I work and I found the speed has much improved over FF 1.5.0.6.

Anyway, check it out and tell me what you think

[ChasingApple]

Hmm, looks as if there might be a memory leak in FF 2.0b2, especially when viewing heavy java / flash together with multiple tabs. Brought the browser down real fast. Well, it is a beta after all, and I am sure they will improve it before they replace Firefox 1.

I am going to keep using it though, see if I can't help the testing out for us OS X peeps

[monkeybrain]

Been reading your thread in the ibook forum, nice clam ChasingApple!

I've always found Firefox to use lots of memory. I would have thought Camino would be your perfect browser. Have you also tried out Shiira? Shiira Project Shiira has all the Safari stuff and more, and works on 10.3.9.

[ChasingApple]

I have tried Shiira and it is a good browser, I just don't like the way it handles bookmarks. As for Camino, I would use it if it worked with everything, every time a new version comes out I give it a shot and it always fails in one way or another.

As far as memory goes I have plenty for the Panther and Firefox (or any browser for that matter) to run 100%. If there is a memory leak when it comes to Java and Flash though none of us survive that, it just keeps eating up more and more memory until it finally runs out and fails.

I am a heavy Linux user / fan and Firefox is a favorite of mine. I love how it is bleeding edge, ported to all systems, and the overall excitement the world has given to it and made it better because of! I use Firefox 100% in Windows XP and now I use it 100% in OS X. Linux of course I use it 100%.

Right now I am using the brand new Firefox 1.5.0.7 that was just released today officially and testing it out, seems to run like a dream so far no matter how many tabs I throw at it, and I have had 5+ tabs with full Java and Flash going to town on this thing... stable as all hell so far. Actually the more I use Macs (4+ years and counting), the more I find 3rd party apps to be better for me. Apple has some killer stuff, and the OS is a dream (for the most part), but 3rd parties are really making some cool stuff, and they are not so conservative with thier apps like Apple is.

Anyway, I will be testing out several newer G3 optimized browsers all week and reporting back my findings.

Viva la Clamshell!

P.S. Thanks for the kind words about Clammy here, if only his CD-Rom drive worked I would be able to install some Ubuntu Linux for a spin! Oh well.

[ChasingApple]

Ok update #1, I have downloaded and installed the latest official release (1.2) of Camino optimized for the G3, and my oh my is it nice and fast. I have already run the Java and Flash test and it past with flying colors. So far I am impressed with it, but we shall see how it does over the next few days

[monkeybrain]

I would have thought Firefox would share any rendering problems Camino has, although I know there are also numerous nightlies and all sorts of both. New Camino should have spell-checking too, mine does (at least it hightlights underlined words). There's also this Spellingcow thingy for adding spelling to any text box now too: SpellingCow

[ChasingApple]

The latest trunk of Camino has spellchecking, but I am using the latest stable release (ver 1.2) G3 optimized. I might try the trunk later tonight