[Aluminum]

simple as that, what does everyone prefer, seems they are the two front runners for the best os x browser. I think firefox loads pages a tad bit faster and works better with financial sites, and with gmail. Is there even one clear cut winner?

[JKT]

OmniWeb

[Randman]

I like Safari, once you do a few tweaks like deactivating the cache and locking the icon file so you don't get swollen with icons. Plus, Safari 2.0 sounds as if it'll have quite a few improvements, anon surfing, rss feeds, etc.
Plus, the price is just right.

[wataru]

If you've been keeping up on the browser debates here at MacNN, you should know that I am a staunch supporter of Firefox. There was a huge thread about this very question not long ago; dig it up if you can.

[Gee4orce]

Another OmniWeb vote !

It's always been 'almost but not quite' for me, but the latest beta has the most up to date Safari rendering engine, and I'm loving it. Fixed all the issues I had with the original 5 release.

I wish animated GIFs didn't suck up CPU time so bad though. At least in OmniWeb you can turn 'em off.

I think I'm going to be a 99% OmniWeb guy now, with Safari filling in with the sites it can't handle.

[JKT]

Originally posted by Aluminum:
Is there even one clear cut winner?

Considering that no one is going to agree as to what makes a browser the "best", extremely unlikely. For some it is simply the speed, for some it is the look, for some it is the features, for some it is a combination of a few or all of those.

[Krusty]

Actually, I have both in my dock and use them almost interchangeably right now. Probably 60/40 Safari. Haven't yet picked a clear winner. I tend to use Safari when posting (for the spell checker) and Firefox when I think I'll need some of the plug-in functionality.

[eevyl]

I switched to Safari (from Camino) mainly because the way to manage bookmarks. Later Camino adopted a similar method, but by the time I was a happy camper with Safari. And still I am.

I find Firefox a bit bulky with all that XUL interface stuff, if to some other browser I would switch to Camino or OmniWeb.

[G-Force]

Firefox here. Especially considering all of the extensions you can download to increase the functionality. For example: bookmark synchronizer. You can sync your bookmarks among computers using a remote server. If you use Safari, you have to have a .mac account to do this. With bookmark synchronizer, you can use any ftp or http site.

Also the adblock extenstion:

[Powaqqatsi]

I use Safari at the moment and I would like to use Firefox but I don't really like the feeling I get when using Firefox, something feels wrong. Safari with firefox speed would be wonderful tough. And yes I wish I could like OmniWeb but I don't, it's too damn slow and I'm not paying for a damn browser how "advanced" it may be.

[tuqqer]

Safari, except for bank stuff, and then Firefox.

I wish animated GIFs didn't suck up CPU time so bad though. At least in OmniWeb you can turn 'em off.

I haven't seen a moving gif in years with Safari, thanks to PithHelmet, an absolute necessity if you're going to use Safari. Other stuff I haven't seen: advertisements and popups, all because of PithHelmet. Granted, it doesn't come with Safari, but it sure should.

Few other strange things with Safari (for instance, the "Quote" button here on MacNN doesn't work in Safari), but I really love its interface, especially the Command-click on links in order to create new background-loading tabs. That feature just rocks, and makes surfing very fast. I think it's one a lot of people miss, too. I also like how you can create special tab of all your most visited websites, and by clicking it once, they all load into tabs.

[mishap]

Originally posted by tuqqer:
Safari, except for bank stuff, and then Firefox.



I haven't seen a moving gif in years with Safari, thanks to PithHelmet, an absolute necessity if you're going to use Safari. Other stuff I haven't seen: advertisements and popups, all because of PithHelmet. Granted, it doesn't come with Safari, but it sure should.

That's great that you found software that removes ads when both Safari and Firefox allow you to use style sheets to get rid of them. I use the same style sheet in both.

[Randman]

Which bank still gives you trouble with Safari?
Anyway, all I know is that at work, I'm having to use IE on Windoze and it blows.
Oh, to have tabs.

[wataru]

Originally posted by mishap:
That's great that you found software that removes ads when both Safari and Firefox allow you to use style sheets to get rid of them. I use the same style sheet in both.

PithHelmet and Adblock both allow regex exclusion rules, which is much more powerful than stylesheets.

[cpac]

Originally posted by JKT:
OmniWeb

ditto.

There are about a billion discussions like this in the Software forum (where this thread belongs)

[Cadaver]

OmniWeb 5.1 (and in-before-the-lock).

[saman]

I used to run Firefox before switching from Windows. Now I use Safari almost all the time (except for that darn Natwest online banking Website with its browser detection script), in which case I still use Firefox.

I've got both of them in my dragthing dock, but mostly I click on Safari.
I really like Safari's look (yes, I DO love the brush metal feel), whereas I think the Firefox doesn't nicely blend in with all my other apps. And call me superficial, but I'm really annoyed by Firefox's little extra window.

However, I do prefer that Firefox is a little faster (especially when loading multiple pages on different tabs simultaneously), and also that I can configure the history.

Is there a way to change the history settings in Safari? I don't like how it only stores the URLs of a limited number of pages - I want them ALL!

[Millennium]

I tend to go back and forth, using one for a few months at a time and then the other. Right now I'm using Firefox, though.

[clebin]

Camino for me.

Firefox is less responsive, takes longer to load and to open new windows, has ugly form elements and the bookmark management isn't as good as Camino. Having said that, Camino hates the input box on this page!

I use Firefox quite frequently for the web developer toolbar, which is fantastic, but as a package it doesn't have the polish of the Windows version, which everybody should be using instead of IE.

Safari had problems with a few pages which is why I dropped it, and I should get around to trying the latest Omniweb.

Chris

[wataru]

Originally posted by clebin:
has ugly form elements

Firefoxy

Oh, and I totally forgot, but this is in the entirely wrong forum. Try Software.

[JKT]

I think it is safe to say that we have four or so pretty damned good browsers on the MacOS X platform, each with its merits and each with its pitfalls. We should think ourselves lucky that IE didn't totally kill third party browser development...

My last comment in this thread.