[drainyoo]

Originally posted by wataru:
How's that? It's stable, fast, and feature-rich. What more could you want?

Well how about Native OSX widgets and menus? Im sorry but I cant deal with their windows like widgets. And for Menus they dont use the native OSX ones. Oh yeah and also implement the system wide spellcheck.

FireFox is nice but its far from perfect.

[Vsx1]

Originally posted by pat++:
Safari is 10 times faster for page scrolling. Firefox or Camino are dog slow in comparison.

I agree...Safari scrolls much faster than Firefox (haven't tried Camino yet). No problems using Netscape. I find page loading faster in other browsers other than Safari.

[GeeYouEye]

Originally posted by Millennium:
I won't go into the Cocoa-zealotry issue here, but as an honest question, what don't you like about the way Gecko renders pages?

Actually, it's less of an issue than it used to be, but it always seemed as if it was applying its own text smoothing algorithm instead of or in addition to the regular one, and it was irritating. It's still somewhat visible if you look at the macnn.com front page in OmniWeb and Firefox side by side; the titles in particular have a slightly harder edge in Firefox.

Also, it has some tabling issues; true, KHTML does too, but if you set the window wide enough, they disappear. Not so with Gecko. Here's a demonstration screenshot in Firefox:

And, yes, the other thing is the completely un-Mac-like elements. Even form fields look out of place. The thing about it isn't just that they're un-Mac-like; I've used X11 apps before, but that they're inconsistently un-Mac-like. For example, in a popup button (like the forum jumper), the scroll bars Mac-like, but nothing else is. Right-clicking on a link, the contextual menu looks about right, but then there's that weird text smoothing issue again, and the drop shadow isn't the same as with CM's in other applications.

In short: the text smoothing thing used to be my primary issue, but now it's the tabling issues. All IMO, of course.

[clarkgoble]

In a way the very question of best browser is too vague. One has to ask best browser for what? After all the person who praised FireFox praised it because of the plugins, few which are of any interest to the majority of users. For me, based upon what I do (mainly reading blogs and research papers) Safari is hands down the best. Yet for others people don't like it.

I am recalled to the earlier days of Safari when its compatibility wasn't as good as now. Now I never encountered a site that wouldn't render right except for the International Herald Tribune. But many others apparently had problems with banks. So what was the best browser in that case? Well for those trying to do banking, clearly Safari sucked.

At this stage it is interesting that things we say make it "better" are things either fairly subtle (rendering speed when both are fairly fast) or helpful things like autofill or integrated spell checking. By and large for their primary purpose, all of them do pretty much as well.

[zepkin]

Originally posted by pat++:
Safari is 10 times faster for page scrolling. Firefox or Camino are dog slow in comparison.

Actually, I find Camino comparable to Safari in terms of scrolling. FireFox is an absolute dog when it comes to text scrolling. Simply unbearable. Even if the interface were better and weren't some week attempt to emulate a Cocoa app, I still wouldn't be able to use it because of the terrible scrolling.

Okay, this is probably not the most appropriate comment and I will probably get some flack, but I find Firefox's implementation of Cocoa-like elements absolutely hilarious. I love customizing the toolbar and watching that "sheet" roll down from the top left of my monitor. Love how there is no close button or zoom button but there is still a minimize button. Why the heck do things this way and why tolerate it? Why can't I close the frickin' toolbar customization window with command-w? Is it a sheet or a window? Looks kinda like a mutation of the two. Should I overlook these things, install a ton of plugins, skin the darned app, and be none the wiser? I think not.

[wataru]

Originally posted by clarkgoble:
After all the person who praised FireFox praised it because of the plugins, few which are of any interest to the majority of users.

You aren't interested in ad blocking? If you use PithHelmet in Safari then you can't honestly claim that you're not interested in extensions.

Originally posted by zepkin:
Okay, this is probably not the most appropriate comment and I will probably get some flack, but I find Firefox's implementation of Cocoa-like elements absolutely hilarious. I love customizing the toolbar and watching that "sheet" roll down from the top left of my monitor. Love how there is no close button or zoom button but there is still a minimize button. Why the heck do things this way and why tolerate it? Why can't I close the frickin' toolbar customization window with command-w? Is it a sheet or a window? Looks kinda like a mutation of the two. Should I overlook these things, install a ton of plugins, skin the darned app, and be none the wiser? I think not.

These things affect day-to-day usability of the app... how, exactly? That's right, they don't. I think you people complaining about Firefox's appearance are more interested in being Safari or Cocoa zealots than actually fairly appraising web browsers.

[clarkgoble]

Yeah, ad blocking is of limited interest to me. Only a few of the sites I visit use them, and on the sites that have them (like this one) it seems somewhat unethical to disable them considering that what pays the bandwidth bills.

[zepkin]

Originally posted by wataru:
You aren't interested in ad blocking? If you use PithHelmet in Safari then you can't honestly claim that you're not interested in extensions.
These things affect day-to-day usability of the app... how, exactly? That's right, they don't. I think you people complaining about Firefox's appearance are more interested in being Safari or Cocoa zealots than actually fairly appraising web browsers.

I am interested in ad blocking. I use PithHelmet with Safari and the adblocking included with OmniWeb. They both work very well for me. If I didn't have these options, I would use Privoxy which I have used effectively in the past. Other than the ad blocking plugin, the only plugin I find useful is the developer tools plugin, which I do use at work with Firefox. The developer plugin is quite nice and the only reason I keep Firefox around. So, yes, I am interested in extensions and there are two that I find useful. I haven't tried the browser uptime extension yet, though. Sounds terribly useful to me.

With regard to usability, the scrolling issue most certainly affects usability. The other issues (and there are a lot more little quirky annoyances than the ones I mentioned; I will go into them next) affect my experience with the application. I have expectations that I think are fair and consistent with the apps I use. For example, I expect pulldowns to stretch to fill my screen. This is a basic usability tenet that Windows programs have not yet figured out, Firefox included--it only lists 20 items and I have to scroll down to see additional options. This is unacceptable for Mac users who have expectations about how an application should work. Firefox is not consistent with my expectations and I find these inconsistencies jarring. To each their own. To write off my criticisms as Cocoa zealotry or simply state that I am criticizing the appearance of the application is not a fair assessment. It would be equivalent to me stating that you are a plugin zealot or a "skinnability" freak.

In the end, I just don't understand why anyone would use Firefox in lieu of Camino, or a better browser like Safari or OmniWeb. The only advantage that Firefox offers are the extensions. For me, the extensions available for Firefox are not compelling enough to tolerate a browser that is inferior in terms of usability

[zepkin]

<i am dumb>posted twice</i am dumb>

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by wataru:
You aren't interested in ad blocking? If you use PithHelmet in Safari then you can't honestly claim that you're not interested in extensions.
These things affect day-to-day usability of the app... how, exactly? That's right, they don't. I think you people complaining about Firefox's appearance are more interested in being Safari or Cocoa zealots than actually fairly appraising web browsers.

Pop-up blocking, yes. Ad blocking, no. The problem with the latter is that without the ads, we'd probably eventually end up having to pay for every Web site we visit, since we'd remove their existing source of compensation for the work they do to put the site up.

The only exception is those damn red flashing banners. Also, the ones that shake around like they're having epileptic fits. Those bother my eyes, so for that reason I like selective ad blocking like OmniWeb does. Can FireFox do that - block a particular ad, but leave the rest alone?

Oh, by the way, I do prefer browsers with native interfaces. However, before you call me a zealot, you should probably read all my posts in this thread. I've defended FireFox a few times against claims that were baseless - it's just that I find the non-native interface to get in my way, and I call 'em like I see 'em.

[wataru]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Pop-up blocking, yes. Ad blocking, no. The problem with the latter is that without the ads, we'd probably eventually end up having to pay for every Web site we visit, since we'd remove their existing source of compensation for the work they do to put the site up.

The only exception is those damn red flashing banners. Also, the ones that shake around like they're having epileptic fits. Those bother my eyes, so for that reason I like selective ad blocking like OmniWeb does. Can FireFox do that - block a particular ad, but leave the rest alone?

Oh, by the way, I do prefer browsers with native interfaces. However, before you call me a zealot, you should probably read all my posts in this thread. I've defended FireFox a few times against claims that were baseless - it's just that I find the non-native interface to get in my way, and I call 'em like I see 'em.

You're probably right in the long run. I guess I'll just be part of the problem for a while and enjoy my ad-less browsing experience. I feel like I'm entitled since I'm on dialup, and ads take up a lot of bandwidth.

Yes, Firefox can block only certain ads. For regular images, there is a built in "block images from this server" feature. For embedded Flash or Javascripts you need Adblock, but yes, you can block only single ads.

I didn't mean to call you a zealot. I should have said that some of the people are sounding like zealots. Sorry.

Originally posted by zepkin:
I am interested in ad blocking. I use PithHelmet with Safari and the adblocking included with OmniWeb.

In the end, I just don't understand why anyone would use Firefox in lieu of Camino, or a better browser like Safari or OmniWeb. The only advantage that Firefox offers are the extensions. For me, the extensions available for Firefox are not compelling enough to tolerate a browser that is inferior in terms of usability

If you're interested in keeping PithHelmet, you're probably going to have to start paying for it. OmniWeb is, of course, also not free. So that leaves Firefox and Mozilla for (eternally) free ad blocking. Ad blocking is a very big deal to me, so it becomes a dealbreaker when I have to pay for it.

Slow scrolling is, of course, indefensible. I wasn't refering to that (I use a scroll wheel mouse or the page up/down buttons, so it doesn't affect me very much). But I still don't understand how funny looking toolbar sheets or non-native widgets affects usability. They function the exact same way that native ones do. If it functions the same, and isn't blatantly hideous, then it just does not affect usability. And to call Camino a superior browser is the epitome of worshipping form over function--it is more limited in its features than Firefox, and its only advantage is that it looks better.

[Turias]

Originally posted by wataru:
And to call Camino a superior browser is the epitome of worshipping form over function--it is more limited in its features than Firefox, and its only advantage is that it looks better.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that its only advantage is looking better. I just downloaded the latest Camino nightly, and the Bookmark manager is top notch. There's a Rendevouz section, a section for your top ten visited links, and a section that pulls pages out of your address book. Also, by right clicking any folder (including these), you can have the contents appear in Camino's dock menu. Slick. You can ever search through them using a search widget. The Keychain support is also top notch.

I agree with you on the problem with extensions. If Camino fully supported Mozilla extensions, it would be the only browser I use. I just don't know if I can give up ad block and the developer toolbar, as well as the built-in JavaScript console and DOM viewer.

[zepkin]

Camino a superior browser is the epitome of worshipping form over function--it is more limited in its features than Firefox, and its only advantage is that it looks better. [/B]

As you can guess, I disagree entirely. The only "features" that Firefox has over Camino is the ability to use extensions, which is great. This alone does not make Camino inferior in terms of features.

I have been using Firefox for some testing purposes for the last few days. Let me give you a list of annoyances and irritations that I have encountered. In my book, these are all usability issues or at least related to usability. They are not just aesthetic or "ugly" or "not Cocoa".

1. When I download a file, it asks me if I want to automatically download files to my chosen location in the future (I choose my desktop, probably because I am a Cocoa fanboi ). Even though the box is checked, each time I start a download it asks me again where the heck I want to save my file. This is annoying as all heck and broken behavior.

2. If I click on the little pill to hide the location bar, hitting command+l does not reveal the location bar. Why? In Camino, Safari, OmniWeb, and even IE 5.2 (not Cocoa), the location bar is revealed when I hit command+l. This is just an example of one of those little details that the Firefox development team has not thought about and it again is annoying.

3. When I activate expose, a little window from Firefox popups up that shouldn't. I am sure everyone is aware of this one. Annoying.

4. The shortcut to switch tabs is absurd--control+shift+tab. What?! Okay, so maybe this is the Windows way of doing things, but the development team should at least have enough sense to make the shortcut for this function something a mac user would expect. I had to actually do a search to figure out how to switch tabs in Firefox. The least they could do is list the shortcut in the Window pulldown like other apps. Nope--not with Firefox. Users should probably be smart enough to figure out crap like this out, right?

In the end, I just see Firefox as a raw and unpolished browser. Aside from extensions, it offers nothing compelling over a browser like Camino. If you want to block ads, use a stylesheet with Camino.

While Firefox is great for development (web developer plugin, javascript debugging), I just can't imagine someone tolerating it for day-to-day browsing.

[IronPen]

4. The shortcut to switch tabs is absurd--control+shift+tab. What?! Okay, so maybe this is the Windows way of doing things, but the development team should at least have enough sense to make the shortcut for this function something a mac user would expect. I had to actually do a search to figure out how to switch tabs in Firefox. The least they could do is list the shortcut in the Window pulldown like other apps. Nope--not with Firefox. Users should probably be smart enough to figure out crap like this out, right?

You can navigate the tabs using the command key. Your left-most tab is command+1, the one next to it would be command+2, etc. which is very handy if you have several tabs open and you wish to jump to a specific tab quickly via the keyboard...I don't believe Safari or any other browsers do this. Safari used the same combination to link you to bookmarks in your bookmark bar, which is very handy for me as well, but I wish there were a keyboard shortcut to allow me to jump to tab 5 from tab 1 with a single key command, for example.

And my two cents on the best browser issue is: you have choices, people! That's a good thing. Who cares what I think is the best? Download them and see which one works and feels best for you. Sure, I can rank them according to what I like, which I can easily do:

1. Safari
2. Firefox
3. Camino
4. OmniWeb
5. All others are below the top four.

Also, can anyone tell me what the number of threads in Activity Monitor represents? The Gecko browsers seem to use more threads and more virtual memory than Webcore browsers, but they seem to run efficiently. And yes, Safari becomes a memory hog if left open for long periods of time, but I've seen this with every browser I've used.

[CharlesS]

FWIW, Shiira has the best tab-switching shortcuts of all - just the , and . keys on the keyboard (in other words, the keys that have the < and > on them). So handy, and only requires one hand to execute.

[Turias]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
FWIW, Shiira has the best tab-switching shortcuts of all - just the , and . keys on the keyboard (in other words, the keys that have the < and > on them). So handy, and only requires one hand to execute.

Sounds to me like that would break both type-ahead-find as well as the ability to switch tabs when the cursor is in the location bar or a text form field.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Turias:
Sounds to me like that would break both type-ahead-find

If what you wanted to search for started with a period or a comma... how often does that happen?

Type-ahead find isn't implemented yet in Shiira anyway, so it's kind of moot...

as well as the ability to switch tabs when the cursor is in the location bar or a text form field.

Not really, since Shiira also supports Camino's shortcuts of Cmd-{ and Cmd-} to switch tabs.

[wataru]

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but it is confirmed: PithHelmet now costs $10 for personal use and $25 for non-personal. This is certainly the final straw for Safari in my mind. I don't feel like being nickled-and-dimed to death just to have a decent web browsing experience (and the previous, free release of PithHelmet slows Safari down too much). It looks like Firefox and Mozilla are the only reasonable options now for free ad blocking.

[nooon]

You don't need Pithhelmet to block ads, though. Use a custom stylesheet instead.

[wataru]

As was already discussed in the thread, regex blocking is much more flexible than stylesheets. I don't consider stylesheets to be a satisfactory replacement for PithHelmet.

[GENERAL_SMILEY]

If you use Netbarrier you get ad blocking across all applications, and numerous other enhancements at the same time.

Might be worth thinking about.

In case anybody is interested I use Omniweb 5.0, it is definitely worth looking at.

[Love Calm Quiet]

The ad-blocking CSS at FloppyMoose.com certainly is nice, but doesn't impact PITA of active-GIFs monopolizing the CPU (this Post-Reply page of MacNN Forums being one of worst offenders).

To me this is a Safari flaw: inexcusable that it's not be remedied by now. Any decent rumors about Apple resolving this in next release?

[cpac]

Originally posted by Love Calm Quiet:
The ad-blocking CSS at FloppyMoose.com certainly is nice, but doesn't impact PITA of active-GIFs monopolizing the CPU (this Post-Reply page of MacNN Forums being one of worst offenders).

To me this is a Safari flaw: inexcusable that it's not be remedied by now. Any decent rumors about Apple resolving this in next release?

just try omniweb. It has preferences to allow animated gifs to go "once, thrice, for 20 seconds, or never"

[fiesta cat]

Originally posted by Love Calm Quiet:
To me this is a Safari flaw: inexcusable that it's not be remedied by now. Any decent rumors about Apple resolving this in next release?

Would that be under "performance improvements" because that was mentioned in one of the talks/sites about Safari updates. Then again, just about every piece of software update Apple does includes that phrase.

That is a serious one though. It's up there with conforming to CSS/standards with Internet Explorer on the PC platform among complaints, I'd imagine. One of those things that after you see a different application handle it so much better, your asking yourself "why the hell don't they fix that".

[wataru]

For all of you griping about ugly widgets in Firefox, try this.

[tjr124]

Those are much nicer looking widgets. I don't mind so much that the standard Firefox widgets are not Aqua, I just mind that they are dog ugly. This helps that quite a lot.

[seen_xu]

no one can beat IE on PC,

Safari needs more work to do, when it beat IE!

the others webbrowsers on X seems not worth mentioning!

[thePurpleGiant]

Originally posted by seen_xu:
no one can beat IE on PC,

Safari needs more work to do, when it beat IE!

the others webbrowsers on X seems not worth mentioning!

[yskar]

My favorites are:
1. OmniWeb 5
2. Safari
3. Camino
4. Shiira
5. Firefox
6. iCab

But I use most often:
1. Safari
2. OmniWeb 5.0.1
3. Camino
4. Firefox
5. iCab
6. Shiira

I love OmniWeb for many powerful features, including fully drag-and-droppable graphical tab, Zoomed Form Editor, Site Preferences, Workspaces and so on. It's so fun browsing around with OmniWeb. The biggest shortcoming is speed, which is noticeably slower than Safari/Camino/Firefox. Also, WebCore v85, which OmniWeb 5.0.x incorporates, has a number of bugs in rendering two-byte languages (fixed in v106 or later). These two reasons prevent me from using OmniWeb 5 on a regular basis. If OmniWeb 5.1, which will incorporate the latest WebCore, is on par with Safari in terms of speed, it will definitely be my primary browser.


I like Safari for its simplicity, but it doesn't have many context menu items. Nevertheless, for an everyday browsing, it's fair enough.

Shiira is akin to Safari. Although drag-and-droppable tabs are superior,it lacks a number of important features at present, including Bookmarklets support.

I set systemwide default browser to Camino, simply because you can set all the links from other applications to open in a new tab. Also, I always use Camino when Googling, since you can set the browser not to send referer. I don't want webpage owners to know my search terms.

Firefox is a must for me in logging into my hotmail account. I would use it more often if it was a Cocoa app.

iCab - I only use it to archive webpages I got interested in. It has many goodies but overall I have to say it's an outdated browser. Still, I like iCab.

[wataru]

Originally posted by yskar:
Firefox is a must for me in logging into my hotmail account. I would use it more often if it was a Cocoa app.

That makes zero sense. Read the rest of this thread to find out why.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by seen_xu:
no one can beat IE on PC,

Safari needs more work to do, when it beat IE!

the others webbrowsers on X seems not worth mentioning!

No kidding, the webbrowsers for X can't even screw with my settings and install spyware on my machine when I browse! I mean come on, this is critical functionality! What's going on, Apple and Mozilla?!!

[zepkin]

Originally posted by wataru:
That makes zero sense. Read the rest of this thread to find out why.

Thanks for the style sheet that improves the look of the buttons. Definitely helps when I have to use Firefox at work for certain tasks.

We did not ever conclude that refusing to use Firefox because it is not cocoa makes zero sense. I pointed out several things that Firefox does incorrectly because it is a cross platform application rather than cocoa (or at least a carbon app that works using Mac conventions). Keyboard shortcuts are different, you can't tab to buttons (as far as I can tell--maybe someone has written a XUL extension for this?). Tabbing between windows is screwed up since there is that perpetual invisible window always hiding out. Firefox does do several things well, but it is also a broken application in that it does not function as a Mac user would expect it to. This is a serious issue that the development group needs to address.

[solbo]

Originally posted by zepkin:
Thanks for the style sheet that improves the look of the buttons. Definitely helps when I have to use Firefox at work for certain tasks.

We did not ever conclude that refusing to use Firefox because it is not cocoa makes zero sense. I pointed out several things that Firefox does incorrectly because it is a cross platform application rather than cocoa (or at least a carbon app that works using Mac conventions). Keyboard shortcuts are different, you can't tab to buttons (as far as I can tell--maybe someone has written a XUL extension for this?). Tabbing between windows is screwed up since there is that perpetual invisible window always hiding out. Firefox does do several things well, but it is also a broken application in that it does not function as a Mac user would expect it to. This is a serious issue that the development group needs to address.

The Mac version is getting a longer development period to address some of these things. XUL contributes a lot to the "non-Mac" feel, because it isn't really a Mac toolkit. I think if Mozilla could get some more Mac developers they could fix a lot of the interface glitches that can't be addressed by theming. As it is I think the best we are going to get is a better imitation of Macness using XUL and CSS. Yesterday they fixed the hidden window bug, so things are getting addressed. There is also some working being done to transition from QuickDraw to Quartz.

[zepkin]

Originally posted by solbo:
The Mac version is getting a longer development period to address some of these things. XUL contributes a lot to the "non-Mac" feel, because it isn't really a Mac toolkit. I think if Mozilla could get some more Mac developers they could fix a lot of the interface glitches that can't be addressed by theming. As it is I think the best we are going to get is a better imitation of Macness using XUL and CSS. Yesterday they fixed the hidden window bug, so things are getting addressed. There is also some working being done to transition from QuickDraw to Quartz.

Nice! Thanks for the information. I will download the latest nightly. Glad to hear the developers do realize these are indeed real issues and are working on improvements...

[yskar]

Originally posted by wataru:
That makes zero sense. Read the rest of this thread to find out why.

Why are you being so nervous about my post? This is only my personal preference, and I'm not about to bash any browser or any person at all.

By the way, are you familiar with Services? I'm addicted.

Services have a vast potential. Web browsers are not just a viewer of what's on the internet; they serve as an information hub, and are expected to cooperate seamlessly with various other apps, and Services are a godsend in this respect. The more you have (Cocoa) apps installed on your computer, the more you can do with other apps seamlessly.
For example, I have dictionary apps (Cocoa) installed on my PowerBook. When I browse around and come across any word or phrase I'm not familiar with, I can select the word/phrase, go to "Services", and choose to look it up, and then, boom, the definition/translation of the word/phrase is there. It's very handy. All works seamlessly like this with a combination of Services and (Cocoa) apps. I sure wish all browsers could do this!

[wataru]

Originally posted by yskar:

Why are you being so nervous about my post? This is only my personal preference, and I'm not about to bash any browser or any person at all.

By the way, are you familiar with Services? I'm addicted.

I'm not "nervous" about your post. I'm just sick of all the blind Cocoa zealotry people here seem to be espousing.

And yes, I'm familiar with Services, but I've never found them to be very useful.

[yskar]

For those of you addicted to Safari, there's a nice hack called SafariStand which enhances Safari's features.
This hack includes:
- Simple RSS Reader
- Customizable search shortcuts like OmniWeb
- Bookmarks Finder
- Site-specific Preferences
- Dated download folders
... and many more.
It's freeware. Go ahead and try them - uninstalling is also easy. It works only with Safari v125.x (1.2.x).
Enjoy!