Safari blowhard switches to Firefox 3, film at 11
After ages of preferring Safari I think I’ve just convinced myself to switch to Firefox 3. I’ve added a few extensions to make it work pretty nicely the way I like, and fill in some features it’s missing (and some that Safari itself doesn’t have):
- FoxMarks, so I can sync my bookmarks on all machines where I use Firefox 3, optionally to my own server and not some untrusted organization “in the cloud”
- Fast Video Downloader, for better, more efficient thievery of embedded flash videos
and most importantly:
- 1Password, which lets me synchronize my web passwords across all browsers, the OS X keychain and my iPhone. I’m probably going to write something separate up on this app. Check it out.
I liked Safari because it was a faster and more standards compliant browser, and it just felt more correct to use the native rendering engine included with the OS.
However…
While Firefox 2 was slow to render pages, consumed a ton of RAM after a while and generally looked like a poor mockup of a Mac application, as of Firefox 3, the browser is fast. Damn fast. Its memory usage doesn’t spin out of control anymore like Firefox 2 used to (a fact that drew me to trying it again as I read about the memory improvements on various development blogs). And, Mozilla have done a good job of matching the MacOS X look and feel this time around.
Firefox 3 also replaced the regular old address bar with the Awesome Bar, a gimmicky name that encompasses some handy features like bookmark and history search as you type. Begin typing a familiar word and it will show you a list of relevant history items and bookmarks that match. Contextual icons appear to the right of the bar that let you subscribe to RSS feeds, bookmark the page, mark it as a favorite, etc. Subtle but feature-rich. A pretty good overview of the Awesome Bar can be found here.
As for the feature list provided by extensions above, Safari does let you download Flash video, but you have to dig through the activity window and double fish for the filename. You can also sync your bookmarks with multiple Macs, but only if you purchase a MobileMe subscription. And that’s just 3 Firefox extensions. There are tons.
So, I’m thinking Firefox 3 is pretty cool so far.
August 3rd, 2008 at 4:13 am
I had quite similar experiences in switching from Omniweb to Firefox. In Finland, about half of web surfers use Firefox, so most local web sites work with it, which is not quite so with webkit-based browsers like Omniweb and Safari. FoxMarks and 1Password made the transition to Firefox quite painless.
Here are three add-ons which I found useful: Adblock Plus (get rid of all ads), Fission (Safari-like progress bar) and Quartz PDF Plugin (view pdf-files in browser). I also like the “wiki auto-discovery button”.
August 3rd, 2008 at 1:55 pm
I’m surprised you didn’t mention AdBlock Plus!:
http://adblockplus.org
ABP is one of the best ad blocking extensions available for *any* web browser, hands down. It’s:
* free and open source
* subscription based (also free)
* very configurable
* 99.9% effective at blocking every singe ad from every single web page you visit
I am spoiled – I refuse to browse without ABP anymore. The fact that Safari doesn’t let me use extensions like ABP and Foxmarks is what prevents me from seriously considering it as my default web browser. The Firefox / ABP / Foxmarks combination can’t be beat!
August 3rd, 2008 at 1:56 pm
I should also add that not only does ABP block ads, it also prevents your web browser from even *downloading* them, which means web browsing is even faster with ABP! It’s the best!
August 3rd, 2008 at 1:58 pm
monoclast: Good call. I’m still browsing through and finding the good ones. Suggestions are most welcome! I’ll check it out.
August 5th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
I believe one of the first paragraphs sums up my whole view…
“I liked Safari because it was a faster and more standards compliant browser, and it just felt more correct to use the native rendering engine included with the OS.”
Safari remains a faster, more standard compliant, native Cocoa, and has excellent OS integration.
The problem with Mozilla Firefox users is that they are trying to make the browser into something that a browser is not, and should not be. It is not browsers job to be your media player, organizer, nor should it posses the ability to synchronize files across multiple computers and devices.
“In Finland, about half of web surfers use Firefox, so most local web sites work with it, which is not quite so with webkit-based browsers like Omniweb and Safari.” by JuHa
One of the fundamental goals of the Mozilla project was to counter the lack of standards and interoperability that was created by Microsoft and Internet Explorer. If you do not see the hilarity in the comment above you are mentally retarded.