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The Best Mac Web Browser?
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Aug 2006
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Hi all,
I'm looking for an alternative web browser aside from Safari. Which web browser do you use and why?
Any thoughts or comments would be much appreciated.
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Circa 1225, from the Old French
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Firefox
It's Universal (= fast on MacIntel)
It has adblock - simple, effective, comprehensive crap blocking.
It has a number of other useful plug-ins (add-ons)
Combined with OpenDNS | Providing A Safer And Faster DNS , it's instant-fast on page loads.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Nov 2006
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Blasphemy, what are the advantages of firefox over Safari?
I was quite satisfied with Safari so saFARi.
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Circa 1225, from the Old French
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Well the OP wrote 'beside safari' so I went from there.
It has useful add-ons (for ftp, ad blocking, and many others). But apart from that, I think it's a matter of personal choice. i prefer text display on safari, but not enough to switch.
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Aug 2004
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I use Safari+google reader. (normally)
but sometimes i fire up the following:
Firefox 2,
Camino (trunk)
flock
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Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Canada... be nice, eh?
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Well, here we go again...
I use Omniweb as my main browser for the ad blocking, speed and general Mac feel. I use Safari for private browsing with SafariStand and the hack for quickening up page loading. Safari is still the fastest for me with the hack, and I can do address bar searching with SafariStand.
I still find Firefox slow (1.5 & 2.0) with both my PPC and Intel imac.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: England | San Francisco
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we don't have time to stop for gas
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Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Houston
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Originally Posted by Veltliner
Blasphemy, what are the advantages of firefox over Safari?
I was quite satisfied with Safari so saFARi.
I second Blashphemy. FF is hands-down the best browser.
I've tried them all: Safari, Camino, Opera, SeaMonkey, and prolly others I am forgetting.
I always come back to FF for it's ability to render pages correctly, it's functionality with plugins, and most importantly (for me) ... keywords.
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Senior User
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: USA
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Omniweb, although it's not free for me it was worth ponying up. Per-site preferences, thumbnail tabs, and Workspaces made it well worth it.
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MacBook 2.0 160/2GB/SuperDrive
Lots of older Macs
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Yokohama, Japan
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1. This is an Application question, not an OS X question--wrong forum.
2. This has already been discussed to death. Do a search.
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Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Houston
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Some things definitely are worth paying for.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Manchester, UK
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Firefox + GrApple theme for me works well.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Oct 2001
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: Allston, MA, USA
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Jeez, you could have waited until today to post this so at least we could say "at least this hasn't been discussed yet this year."
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-- Jason
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Land of Enchantment
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Firefox for stability. Safari crashes a bit, FF never yet. Because I prefer Safari's interface, I use it for non critical stuff, but when I need a bunch of open windows I can't afford to lose to crashes, it's FF.
I understand folks being upset at the no search and wrong forum issue, I also belive that people who have been with us for a shorter time need the immediacy of connection and response that asking and receiving give. It takes a while to get comfortable doing it on your own.
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Firefox is by far the best alternative browser. It has built-in spell check, good bookmarking system, and a better find tool that safari (sorry guys but it is great!!!)
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Nov 2001
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Originally Posted by frankthetank966
Firefox is by far the best alternative browser. It has built-in spell check, good bookmarking system, and a better find tool that safari (sorry guys but it is great!!!)
OMG built-in spell check?! WOW!
Umm... seems strange when something is the BEST alternative browser and so the features you cite are complete "me too" features compared to Safari
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jun 2006
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If I couldn't use Safari, then I'd say that firefox would be my next choice and I agree the searching mechinism of FF is superior. I like the idea of having a bar at the bottom of the window to do my searches instead of a pop up window.
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Michael
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Southern Ca.
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I like oprea because you can turn off the disk cache. I wish you could do this in Safari.
- Mark
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Mac Elite
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: May 2001
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Originally Posted by CatOne
OMG built-in spell check?! WOW!
Umm... seems strange when something is the BEST alternative browser and so the features you cite are complete "me too" features compared to Safari
Especially when that feature does not even take advantage of the BUILT-IN spell check, which means no learned words or custom dictionaries.
The guys who prefer Firefox on a Mac are the same guys as the Anything-But-iPod guys. Alternative for the sake of being alternative, blind to any actual technical advantages.
Now using Firefox on Windows of course is something completely different altogether again.
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Paris, France
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IMO there isn't a good browser yet. Safari looks the best, to me, but is ridiculously slow. Camino and Firefox are faster but, again IMO, aren't as aesthetically pleasing and I experience random crashing with both (more often with Firefox).
Hopefully Apple will hire someone who can help Safari handle JavaScript
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Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Houston
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Originally Posted by mac128k-1984
If I couldn't use Safari, then I'd say that firefox would be my next choice and I agree the searching mechinism of FF is superior. I like the idea of having a bar at the bottom of the window to do my searches instead of a pop up window.
I also like that you can add different search engines instead of the Google one in the search box. I like being able to search IMDB, WIKI, etc.
As far as I know, this cannot be done in Safari, but can be done in Camino by fiddling with the preference files.
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Dec 2006
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Firefox ... I'd say Firefox ... Did I mention Firefox ?
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Senior User
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Ny,Ny,USA
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I think FF is the worst. No self respecting Mac user should ever use a browser that doesn't use OSX native widgets.
Personally I think Safari and Camino are the best in the biz.
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i hate project managers.
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Originally Posted by - - e r i k - -
Especially when that feature does not even take advantage of the BUILT-IN spell check, which means no learned words or custom dictionaries.
The guys who prefer Firefox on a Mac are the same guys as the Anything-But-iPod guys. Alternative for the sake of being alternative, blind to any actual technical advantages.
Now using Firefox on Windows of course is something completely different altogether again.
First off let me say I have an iPod. So your theory is wrong. Anyways I use safari as my default browser. I love how you can use Safari with Onyx to customize options in safari.
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16 GB 2nd Generation Black iPod Touch w/Contour Showcase
White Core 2 Duo Macbook with: 2.0 GHz/1 GB Ram/80 GB Hard Drive
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Senior User
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Canada.
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Safari is slow, and doesn't have enough features.
Firefox has a lot of features, and it's fairly fast, but it's a resource whore.
Camino has speed/features like Firefox, looks better, but is still in early stages.
OmniWeb is fast, has great features, looks awesome, and is my final browser choice. It sucks you have to pay, but seriously how broke are you?
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..13" MacBook Pro | 2.53gHz | 4gb RAM | 320gb Seagate Momentus XT | OSX.6.6.. // iPhone 4 32gb
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Anywhere but here.
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Now that Camino has built in spell check I have no other uses for Safari or Firefox. Omniweb is great, but I'm not paying if there are alternatives that are just as good for free.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: San Diego, CA, USA
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Safari. Camino is buggy, OmniWeb isn't sufficiently better to justify the price, Firefox is clunky, ugly, buggy and slow, and Shiira just isn't quite there yet.
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Chuck
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"Instead of either 'multi-talented' or 'multitalented' use 'bisexual'."
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Paris, France
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This thread, like the other browser threads, illustrates how poor the options are for Apple, and that there isn't one clear cut winner. They all suck in their own special way. Truly sad, and inexcusable. Until Apple sales are affected I doubt it will change. When I return to the States I will be buying a PC and using Firefox.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Jan 2003
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OmniWeb.
• Awesome per-site preferences (font, font size, popup blocking, cookies, browser spoof, download location, stylesheets, etc.)
• Native cocoa application, so it looks & works like an OS X application should
• Can fully use OS X system services and spell checker
• Workspaces and snapshots for multi-window management
• Bookmark sync across multiple machines via webDAV
• No brushed metal windows
• Speed is equivalent to Safari (as far as I can tell, but my machines pretty fast anyway)
Does occasionally crash (for me about 2 times per week of heavy use), but Omni has built-in a crash reporter system much like the TalkBack system Mozilla has. And the app is updated on a fairly regular basis.
I bought a license back in the version 4 days, and I've since bought a second so I can have it running on two machines at once (checks to see if a license is already in use on the local network). Somethings are worth paying for. And its only $14 anyway.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: San Diego, CA, USA
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Originally Posted by El Magnificante
This thread, like the other browser threads, illustrates how poor the options are for Apple, and that there isn't one clear cut winner. They all suck in their own special way. Truly sad, and inexcusable. Until Apple sales are affected I doubt it will change. When I return to the States I will be buying a PC and using Firefox.
So because the Mac only has crappy browsers like Safari, IE, Camino and Firefox, you're going to switch to PC and…use Firefox? Your logic seems to be lacking.
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Chuck
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"Instead of either 'multi-talented' or 'multitalented' use 'bisexual'."
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Brisbane, Australia
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Originally Posted by frankthetank966
First off let me say I have an iPod. So your theory is wrong. Anyways I use safari as my default browser. I love how you can use Safari with Onyx to customize options in safari.
You ought to read up on analogies
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Brisbane, Australia
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Originally Posted by Chuckit
So because the Mac only has crappy browsers like Safari, IE, Camino and Firefox, you're going to switch to PC and…use Firefox? Your logic seems to be lacking.
Yeah, that one flew past me too. Logic seems to be quite hard for some people.
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Addicted to MacNN
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Originally Posted by El Magnificante
This thread, like the other browser threads, illustrates how poor the options are for Apple, and that there isn't one clear cut winner. They all suck in their own special way. Truly sad, and inexcusable. Until Apple sales are affected I doubt it will change. When I return to the States I will be buying a PC and using Firefox.
Yeah, doesn't quite make sense.
Firefox for Windows is different from Firefox for Linux is different from Firefox for MacOS exactly how?
Of course, you could always use Internet Explorer
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Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Canada... be nice, eh?
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A quick hack in the terminal makes Safari the fastest in my opinion.
Quit Safari and type "defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitInitialTimedLayoutDelay -float 0.0001" without the quotes. Start up Safari and hold on tight...
I think El Magnificante may forget that a browser does not an OS make...
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Nov 2002
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While I prefer OS X to Windows, I have a web-based business that requires me to be online with several browser windows/tabs open simultaneously. Firefox under Windows has been the best performer, sadly.
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Junior Member
Join Date: Jan 2006
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(
Last edited by chrisdisregard; Nov 23, 2019 at 06:14 PM.
)
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: London, UK
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Originally Posted by drnkn_stylz
OmniWeb is fast, has great features, looks awesome, and is my final browser choice. It sucks you have to pay, but seriously how broke are you?
Yes, it has really crippled me financially that I have spent a grand total of $30* for using every single version of it in the nearly 6 years since I first moved to OS X ($20 initial cost for version 4.1 as an academic, and $10 for the upgrade to version 5)... Especially, when it was the most feature-filled browser of the lot (and by a huge margin) when OmniWeb 5.0 was first released. It has taken Firefox almost 2 years to catch up in terms of the extensions available to replicate most of the features and exceed some of them, but the usability of FF still leaves a lot to be desired on the Mac.
Anyway, OmniWeb on the Mac, Firefox on the PC. For me, Safari is only usable if I have Safaristand installed.
* It may be $40 if the 4.5 version was a paid update, but I forget...
(
Last edited by JKT; Jan 5, 2007 at 12:04 PM.
)
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Jun 2004
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I think this is true with most browsers but I'm using Safari right now so I'll comment on it. Quit Safari and launch the activity monitor (or top in a terminal). Launch Safari and check the real memory being using. It's fairly low. Open and close pages etc. After a couple hours, Safari is eating over 200 MEG of memory even if every window is closed. I assume it's caching for speed if you go to the same page again?
If you run 10-15 applications, eventually you'll start to see memory paging out which will slow your system down. I usually can free up real memory by just quitting and relaunching Safari. Are there any browsers that handle memory better?
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Mar 2000
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I like each for different reasons, but my day-to-day browser is OmniWeb. The thumbnail tabs and saved state features are well worth the price of admission.
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Senior User
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Portugal
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I mainly use Safari, but since I design and produce web pages, I use FF 2.
The extensions are a must-have and turn it into an excelent browser!
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Addicted to MacNN
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Originally Posted by larrinski
Quit Safari and type "defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitInitialTimedLayoutDelay -float 0.0001" without the quotes. Start up Safari and hold on tight...
what does this do?
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Junior Member
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Venice, CA
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In the past few years, I've only used Firefox and Safari (no hacks or customizations to either -- I'm not that clever). I find Firefox seems to render most websites more accurately and have generally less problems. I prefer Safari when actually downloading files (as it doesn't pause like Firefox). However, Firefox seems to play movie files faster and better than Safari.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: San Diego, CA, USA
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Originally Posted by Timo
what does this do?
It tells Safari to start rendering the page quicker. There's a built-in delay to give it time to parse external resources (CSS, Javascripts) to avoid that "flash of unstyled text" that you'll sometimes get on slow-loading sites, and that command basically sets the delay to 0.
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Chuck
___
"Instead of either 'multi-talented' or 'multitalented' use 'bisexual'."
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Senior User
Join Date: Oct 2004
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Forum Regular
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: May 2001
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Are you talking about the Car Configurator? I just did the same thing and it rendered just fine for me.
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Forum Regular
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: May 2000
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What browser are you trying to use? Worked fine for me under Camino 1.1a1.
Originally Posted by El Magnificante
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Change your world and you will change your mind.
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