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redandwhites · Dec 23, 2002, 05:28 PM

Hi there,

I am upgrading from OS 9 to OSX, finally!

Under OS9 I used Netscape Navigator for a while, but it was a dog, so switched to MS Explorer, and love it. Bookmark management & subscription updates are easy-peasy.

Your opinion: Now moving to OSX, should I stay with MS Explorer or move back to Netscape Navigator?

Comments appreciated.

mjarski15 · Dec 23, 2002, 05:37 PM

Originally posted by redandwhites:
Hi there,

I am upgrading from OS 9 to OSX, finally!

Under OS9 I used Netscape Navigator for a while, but it was a dog, so switched to MS Explorer, and love it. Bookmark management & subscription updates are easy-peasy.

Your opinion: Now moving to OSX, should I stay with MS Explorer or move back to Netscape Navigator?

Comments appreciated.

You are going to get a lot of different opinions on this one. The fastest browser for OSX is chimera's Navigator and the nicest looking is OmniWeb. I normally switch between these two browsers. Hardly ever use IE because it is slow and crashy, nothing like it was in OS 9. Netscape isn't that bad but bloated, alot of features that I don't use. Netscape's speed is better then IE and the tab browsing is nice (Chimera's Navigator has tab browsing also, it's a nice feature). Problem with the internet is that there seems to always be one site that I need to use IE for so I have to keep it around. If you are looking just between IE and Netscape I personally would use Netscape, and leave it open all the time because it takes a while to load. I think Netscape has the best proxy service also. Hope this helps and be prepared to read a lot of differing views on this topic.

zerologic · Dec 23, 2002, 07:44 PM

Originally posted by redandwhites:
Your opinion: Now moving to OSX, should I stay with MS Explorer or move back to Netscape Navigator?

Hmm... as mentioned before, you will receive tons of responses and I'll sum them up for you here.

Camp A uses the browser that works best for them. For example... I like using Windows Media Player. No other browser in OS X supports it other than IE. However, I like the speed and the Aqua form widgets of Chimera. I don't hate IE and will go back in a second if for any reason Chimera fails me. It hasn't yet.

Camp B doesn't use IE at any cost. Not becuase it is inferior to the other browsers, but simply because it is a Microsoft product. These are the people to watch out for because their bias stands before logic and reason. For example, I dislike Windows, but I understand that it has it's place. The Mac Business Unit at Microsoft does a really good job, and I respect that.

Camp C wants something pretty and for that there are two that come to mind. OmniWeb and Chimera. Both are Cocoa apps though OmniWeb is more mature in using Cocoa features. Chimera is surpassing it in some ways (Rendezvous auto discovery of local machines etc.) but the nice things about OmniWeb aren't there yet (Cocoa spell checking in textareas etc.)

Bottom line in my opinion? Use what works for you. I use Chimera now about 99% of the time. IE is my backup when I need something Chimera can't do (like WMP)

Chimera Pros:

Cocoa app
Tabbed browsing
Aqua form widgets
Fast (uses Gecko from Netscape)
Bookmarks in the dock icon
Faster development cycle
Honors web icons
Great bookmark management (in a drawer!)
Tabbed browsing (:-P)

Chimera Cons:

Crashes occasionally on my machine
Refused service by some sites (http://www.mazdausa.com/)
Not as full featured as the other Mozilla browsers yet

IE:

Windows Media Player
Accepted by more sites
The most web standards compliant browser
Scrapbook is handy for saving sites
Form auto fill

IE Cons

Carbon port (not a really zippy one at that)
Crashes occasionally on everyones machine
No tabbed browsing
Incosistent form widgets (con for me anyway)

Appleman · Dec 23, 2002, 07:48 PM

I'm using this browser (Chimera - Navigator) now, very fast, and no nonsense like Netscape blowout.

Apfhex · Dec 23, 2002, 08:25 PM

I would reccomend Chimera as well. I use it as my primary browser, but have to use IE sometimes for those pages that just won't work with anything else.

redandwhites · Dec 23, 2002, 08:27 PM

Glad to see the comments (much appreciated).
Keep 'em coming!
Heard good and bad things about Navigator!

mjarski15 · Dec 23, 2002, 08:56 PM

Originally posted by redandwhites:
Glad to see the comments (much appreciated).
Keep 'em coming!
Heard good and bad things about Navigator!

Remember there are two different Navigators here. Netscape's Navigator and Chimera's Navigator (the one that is being recommended). Sorry if you knew that already but if I was just coming over the OS X I might be a little confused on this subject.

spectre · Dec 23, 2002, 09:21 PM

I'd suggest trying all of them.. but if you don't have the time, or your on a modem, I'd start off by giving Chimera (navigator) a try..

This latest version seems to be both fast and stable... It supports almost all the pages I come up to, has banner blocking, and supports flash, quicktime, real (i think), but not windows media player.

I use it about 99% of the time... IE filling in that 1%.

dole · Dec 23, 2002, 09:43 PM

I have used a few different browsers in OS X and so far I like Chimera the best. I only use IE on sites that refuse to work with Chimera. Mozilla is pretty slow on my iBook so I don't use that. OmniWeb is another nice browser that renders pages descent, but it is no where as fast as Chimera. If you decide to go the Cimera route, download ChimeraBooster or ChimeraChanga from versiontracker which enables pipelining without you having to edit the file on your own.

Fuzzle · Dec 23, 2002, 10:04 PM

If you use Chimera Navigator, you are going to get accurately rendered webpages and faster browsing. IE is slower, and personally, it's my last resort, because I don't like the way it renders webpages and it just doesn't look very good. OmniWeb's GUI is the best looking, but it has the least CSS support, and probably is going to render websites the most poorly out of the three. Then there is iCab which I never tried, and I haven't heard anyone talk about it since Chimera started getting really good.

I think that going with Chimera Navigator is your best choice. It has enough features for almost anyone, and has reliable HTML/CSS rendering. I have yet to have an issue with plugins with it, and have seen it progressively get better, even though I just recently (2 months) got my iBook and OSX.

Seamus · Dec 23, 2002, 10:13 PM

OmniWeb MIGHT interest me if I didn't have to pay for it.

Also, OmniWeb has poor standards support. I seriously do not care if it anti-aliases better.

KidRed · Dec 23, 2002, 10:25 PM

Until OmniWeb5, I'd say Navigator, uh, make that Chimera's Navigator not Nutscrape's.

Appleman · Dec 23, 2002, 10:58 PM

Originally posted by zerologic:

Chimera Cons:
[*]Refused service by some sites (http://www.mazdausa.com/)

One other reason not to buy a Mazda, really crap

ApeInTheShell · Dec 23, 2002, 11:54 PM

Chimera is the definitive choice for Mac OS X. Like the new operating system, each version introduces something new.
Pipelining also gets the job done when you have a large site to load. Believe it or not Internet Explorer doesn't follow all web standards and mostly makes up their own like vbscript.
Even though some people loathe sherlock i would use that for subscriptions.
It directs everything to internet explorer though so you might need IE for that.
Ever since Netscape was bought out by AOL it got extremely worse. Mozilla was suppossed to be the promiseland but did not adopt the mac os x ui.
Get both but use them half and half. That way you can integrate your browse pattern. There are several others too.
Omniweb is alright of a browser but does have a price tag. So does Opera and iCab even though there a free versions with less features. So shop around for the best one. Go to versiontracker.com and read some of the reviews there and decide for yourself.

Cipher13 · Dec 24, 2002, 07:23 AM

OmniWeb = slow, quite bad standards-wise, costs money

IE = crashy, buggy

Chimera = fast, free

Get Chimera.

ngrundy · Dec 24, 2002, 09:06 AM

Chimera for everything that doesn't need a IE plugin (read windows media player)

Sven G · Dec 24, 2002, 09:42 AM

Chimera Navigator is obviously (IMHO) the best basic browser now available, but it still doesn't render some sites: for example, I recently tried to access the Connectix VPC forums to see the reactions to the recent VPC 6 release - surprise: blank page in Chimera (had to open IE)!

Of course, they'll soon fix all these problems (plug-ins, first of all, included).

I also hope that OmniWeb, Mozilla/Netscape and Chimera/Navigator will eventually include some implementation of IE's excellent Scrapbook feature - even better, it should become a system-wide feature in OS X (the same for bookmarks, tabbed browsing, and so on...)...

Buck_W · Dec 24, 2002, 10:29 AM

Originally posted by zerologic:

Hmm... as mentioned before, you will receive tons of responses and I'll sum them up for you here.[/list]

Excellent summary zerologic! I have joined the ranks of those who use Chimera for its speed and aqua interface... a very nice browser indeed. I also use ChimerIcon to edit and change the splash screens and toolbar, it's a neat app!

Coxy · Dec 24, 2002, 10:58 AM

I like to say that IE has more of the features that nobody else has, while the other browsers basically copy each other's features. I happen to *like* those features.
I also dislike all Netscape-based browsers, so OmniWeb is my second choice.

[APi]TheMan · Dec 24, 2002, 12:38 PM

Originally posted by Apfhex:
I would reccomend Chimera as well. I use it as my primary browser, but have to use IE sometimes for those pages that just won't work with anything else.

Ditto. It's Chimera for me until a site won't work (usually a flash page, sometimes they just don't load in Chimera)... this is when and only when I bring out Internet Explorer.

-Q- · Dec 24, 2002, 12:48 PM

For 95% of the sites I visit, I use Chimera. While I used OmniWeb for awhile, it was just dog-slow at times in rendering complex pages (and it doesn't work well with some CSS pages). Once Chimera got to the 0.6 release, it pretty much handled everything I needed from a browser.

And as mentione above, fast and free work well too.

Appleman · Dec 24, 2002, 12:49 PM

I know I'm going to be bad...

Try XP with Internet Explorer, that really rocks

(sorry, but couldn't resist. It's true though, really a shame)

mjarski15 · Dec 24, 2002, 12:58 PM

In order to speed up Chimera I used SpeedChimera but I also notice that there is a ChimeraBooster. Is there significant difference between the two? Should I have used one instead of the other?

Appleman · Dec 24, 2002, 01:00 PM

Originally posted by mjarski15:
In order to speed up Chimera I used SpeedChimera but I also notice that there is a ChimeraBooster. Is there significant difference between the two? Should I have used one instead of the other?

First install Chimera, then ChimeraBooster, as described in the reasme which is included with ChimeraBooster.

snerdini · Dec 24, 2002, 02:59 PM

Explorer for Mac is a big steaming pile of dog poo. Use Chimera, you won't regret it.

glo · Dec 24, 2002, 04:40 PM

I find that for one reason or another I need to hop between browsers. No doubt though Chimera is clean, fast and at least you can get updates everynight :-)

sideus · Dec 24, 2002, 05:17 PM

Originally posted by Cipher13:
OmniWeb = slow, quite bad standards-wise, costs money

Although OmniGroup would like you to pay, I thought it was not required to use the program?

I use Mozilla as my main browser and use IE to access my online bank account.

ryju · Dec 24, 2002, 11:39 PM

I like to think my opinion is as unbiased as possible. I've been using IE since I upgraded from 9.1 to 10.0. It's been good actually. Until last week I switched to Chimera and got the brushed metal look, frankly I'm very pleased with it, it hasn't crashed on me once yet, where IE has done so, several times. Also I never wait long for connecting to sites, like in IE I would wait a random amount of time, it's usually the same for each site in Chimera. It also seems to load movies in quicktime faster.

wataru · Dec 25, 2002, 01:56 AM

I vote for Chimera too. It really is the best.

All the Chimera (it's not "Chimera Navigator") speedup utilities do only one thing to actually speed it up: They enable HTTP pipelining by adding these two lines to a prefs file (either prefs.js or user.js):

user_pref("network.http.pipelining", true);
user_pref("network.http.proxy.pipelining", true);

So you don't actually need any of them; you can do it yourself, though a lot of them also will enable other hidden features, so you might want to give them a try. Chimerachanga is a good one.

redandwhites · Dec 26, 2002, 04:39 PM

What about FLASH, SHOCKWAVE and all that other plugin stuff - how well do the browser suggestions here work with 'em?

zerologic · Dec 26, 2002, 04:54 PM

Originally posted by redandwhites:
What about FLASH, SHOCKWAVE and all that other plugin stuff - how well do the browser suggestions here work with 'em?

I've had no problems with the latest Chimera and IE works as expected. The only problems I've had are related to sites not supporting my browser. For example, I can't get in to http://www.mazdausa.com/ using Chimera but if I go to a deep link, it works just fine. Make sense?

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