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Safari... is it really the best?


dsc106
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I see all this stuff on Apple's site about Safari being the best browser in the world. What is the common opinion on this? What do you use?

 

I was under the impression that most people still preferred Firefox over Safari?

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As much as I used firefox at school (to bypass the firewall with a proxy to play games in class), I love the simplicity of safari. Its fine teh way it is for daily use for me. Now that there is safari for windoze, maybe ill try to load it on a flash drive for school next year.

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I dislike safari cause it eats up almost 200MB of RAM x_X firefox does the same

Hmm, right now Safari is showing 26MB used, Firefox 152MB used.

 

I've always used Firefox, but beta 3 of Safari does seem faster. The plugins are what set Firefox apart, but Safari is getting better.

I like the in page find better in Safari and the Inquisitor 3 plugin for changing the implementation of searching I really like.

 

Just need to find some better bookmark plugins. I hate the default Safari bookmark look and feel.

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I liked Camino when I was using it, but it stopped working for some reason. I use Flock most of the time since I do a lot of photography, but Safari always works when I can't get the others to. And besides, Private Browsing mode is, at times, a Godsend.

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After using Safari more I have a better feel for it. (Apple needs to bring attention to some of the hidden features)

 

The Good:

  • Fast & Stable - Apparently the Windows version isn't nearly as good, but on my Hack zero issues with stability.
     
     
  • Bookmark Bar & RSS Feeds - Yes I know Firefox does both both but I find Safari's overview better and like the number indicator in bookmark bar for updated articles.
     
     
  • Inline Search - Instead of using a find next to move to next match, the web page is darken and all occurrences are highlighted. (Not standard highlight, very cool.)
    Must faster to find things especially on long pages.
     
     
  • Snapback - What a great hidden gem. - If your like me, you search for something in Google and then open each link in a new tab so you can close that tab and go back to the search result in the original tab and try the next. With Snapback, I can follow links as deep as I want from any link in google (or web sites in general), and with a single click I can snap back to the original search results and try the next link, or I can also snap back to the home page of a web site. Nice. (Using the back button is not the same!)
     
     
  • Inquisitor Plug-in - I know its not included with Safari, but I love it. You have to try it to see.
     
     
  • History Menu - Having history menu contains entries grouped into folders based on the last 7 days is fast and effective.
    I loath opening a history sidebar whether it be Safari or Firefox and find it slow compared to the menu approach. (Obviously for more dated history you have to use this approach/)

The Bad:

  • Bookmark Bar - On both Safari and Firefox I wish the bookmarks in the bookmark bar would dynamically space out to use the entire window width.
    For widescreen users it would greatly improve the readability and speed of finding the bookmark you want.
     
     
  • Multiple tab handling - If you "overfill" the width of window with tabs you can't scroll the newest one onto screen. (ala Firefox).
    You can pick the offscreen tabs via a popup arrow on the right and close them using the File Menu or keystroke though.
    Since Safari handles re-arranging tabs so nice, its puzzling that you can't scroll the tabs into view.
     
     
  • Helper applications - Unless I'm missing something, its always handle everything with a helper application or not.
    I like to save .zip files directly into Downloads Folder, but have .torrent files open with Transmission. No problem with Firefox.
    With Safari, either I have to have unzip open those downloads in order to have .torrent files open automatically or the opposite, the .torrent files are just saved and never opened with Transmission.
     
     
  • Visual clues - Although not a problem for me, Apple should use some type of visual clue on the Forward and Back buttons to show new users that holding the buttons will show a list of previous web pages.
     
     
  • Session support - No session support. Something both Firefox and Opera have.
     
     
  • Slow scripts - On pages with slow scripts Safari gives you a warning whether to stop or continue. Problem is it should have a remember/Always option.
    No fun being on a live sports page and having this pop up every minute.

I have yet to find any of the sites I visit that have a problem with Safari 3 yet.

ebay does put a warning up about not having a recommended browser. They say Safari 2.0+ is supported but beta 3 seems to appear as version 1.0. (I emailed them and they say they are looking into it.)

 

I've made the switch mainly because of the speed especially with multiple tabs open, but actively searching for a fix for the helper application problem.

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Safari blows. Its not fast it takes along time to resolve and it just not that great imho. Sucked in windows and now that I got a hackintosh it sucks here too.

 

Opera for the win.

 

I wasn't very specific. But with couple tweaks to opera:config Opera is lighting fast. I love the quick dial cause I use ctrl-t comand in windows and I just open up the tabs I want fast. I also noticed better remembering of websites. I use history tool allot I usually have like 14 tabs open. I did notice that Opera is slightly faster on windows then in osx.

 

I also like the minimalist interface of opera. Plus it seems to better handle pages then safari plus back button is THE bomb in opera.

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Safari blows. Its not fast it takes along time to resolve and it just not that great imho. Sucked in windows and now that I got a hackintosh it sucks here too.

 

Opera for the win.

That was nice and informative. :hysterical: That sucks, mine rocks!

 

Sounds like you might have a another issue as its not the browser that resolves web addresses. DNS resolutions are practically instantaneous on my Hacks.

 

Maybe I'll take another look at Opera. (Been a while since I tried it.)

 

Edit: OK looked at Opera some more and Safari is still faster on it.

Some people say the reverse so I wonder where the difference lies? Is everyone trying Safari 3 beta on OS X 10.4.9?

 

On Opera the thumbnail previews is neat, but I'm not sure that useful as I generally know what is on each page and its still faster to switch to the tab and look than wait out the pause for the preview.

The voice control feature is nice, ala OmniWeb. Session Management is good too, something Firefox has also. I'm not a fan of total integration of IRC, torrents, mail etc. Don't care about widgets and find the default GUI ugliest of the 3 main browsers. (especially the personal bar)

 

Don't see the benefits of Speed Dial over a bookmark. (choose your favourite type) It gives you a GUI, but considering most people visit the same sites all the time, does this help for power users?

 

Reload from cache is cool but I think something only a few of us would use. (Editing the source of current page and then seeing results)

 

Isn't it great we have choice. :thumbsdown_anim:

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Firefox is the best browser in the world. It joins simplicity and great fuctionality in one. Safari is a {censored}. I've found out there is accepting cookies off by default, what for?? The strongest argument why to use Firefox instead of Safari is that Safari hasn't so many useful extensions which are in MF: Adblock, Adblock Plus, NoScript, FoxTor, MediaPlayerConnectivity, VideoDownloader, and many many others...

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I love the simplicity of safari, but it's by far not the best.

I've used alot of osx browsers and my current favourite is shiira but it's still abit buggy.

the main thing i hate about safari is it's inability to render some sites correctly. And some crashes here and there.

Firefox it the best to use, but is not as fast or simple as safari. Still, i choose to use safari on an everyday basis over other browsers purely because of it's simplicity and ease of use. I'll use firefox if any sites don't render properly (which is around 5% or less for me)

 

BTW. you guys should check out Shiira =). it has some really neat features

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  • 1 year later...
I hate Safari because it tends to be buggy and not work, even with the Debug set.

 

I hate Firefox because it's HIDEOUSLY SLOW at nearly everything.

 

I fully fully agree with these two facts. However, Opera is slower than Safari though not by much.

 

I dont know why there are so many Firefox fans in this world(just bcoz of the plugins: which are inbuilt in Opera) I have always found Firefox to be the slowest browser in the world.

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I just got leo4all in working condition friday, so for the last few days I've been happily tooling around with safari. I missed plugins (esp adblock and flashblock -especially flashblock) and I had noticed that the tabbed browsing feature wasn't up to firefox.

 

Then I did a fresh install last night and when safari loaded apple's page I decided to watch their mac ads; I got no video. I thought that was really weird (given that it's apple's browser and quicktime plugin and all). That nagged at me, so I installed firefox --the video played just fine.

 

I've been using netscape/mozilla/firefox (in that order) for ten years now -I don't think I'm going to switch away again! :(

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