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ifjake

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 19, 2004
563
2
i've just recently taken a stab at other browsers. Firefox works great on this here Windows machine that the rest of my family uses (poor, poor people), but i see at the Mozilla website there's this Cocoa based "Camino" browser they made especially for Mac. which is interesting i guess. i was just curious to know what some people with experience with multiple alternative browsers including Camino think of the selection that's there. i'm starting to consider switching browsers, i'm just wondering which ones are the most supported. Firefox seemed a little quicker than Safari on my Mac. i haven't even tried Camino. and who knows the rumored speedier Safari update might convince me to stay with it.
 
imo, Safari and Firefox are the only two mac browsers worth using... They both have their strengths.. Personally i use safari most, but I do like Firefox
 
Camino was a spectacular browser; it has pretty much all the features of Safari, a few Safari doesn't have, feels more Mac-like than Firefox, is VERY fast, and since it uses the Mozilla project's Gecko rendering engine, it produces nice looking pages.

Unfortunately, there's a weird bug with the text rendering engine in 10.3 (at least in .3.0 through .3.3) that causes Camino to be more trouble than it's worth for Panther users at this point--there are enough rendering glitches to make it between annoying and useless depending on the page (though it works fine 80% of the time).

I still use it out of force of inertia (and the latest nightly builds are quite nice), but I'd probably go with Safari or Firefox at this point.

You might have a look at Opera 7.5, too--it has some very nice features and a decent rendering engine of its own.
 
beside safari, firefox is great. although internet explorer is always good to keep around. there is always some website that needs ie.
 
OmniWeb is pretty nice. I've tried the beta and I like it, though I wouldn't pay for a browser when we have Safari. I don't really like FireFox, takes too much time to start. I haven't used Camino in a while (used to use it in Jaguar, but quit when I heard about probems with Panther) but it was my primary browser for a long time.
 
The latest build of camino is awsome. I use it everyday and for xml things I am forced to use firefox since safari and camino both screw them up.
 
Currently playing with the beta of OmniWeb 5. Quite frankly, once little tiny bugs get fixed--it will rule the world.

Anyone know when it will be officially released?
 
stevietheb said:
Currently playing with the beta of OmniWeb 5. Quite frankly, once little tiny bugs get fixed--it will rule the world.

Anyone know when it will be officially released?
I'm an OmniWeb fan, although I use Safari as my primary browser. I've also tried Mozilla for Mac and liked it - I just wish it had a feature that could block Flash and other embedded content on a site-by-site basis (I hate Flash ads!).
 
What do you mean alternative?

Do you mean alternative to Firefox? Camino was fun for about 2 seconds. Mozilla is a beast. IE is one big security hole. So, I have switched to Firefox both at work (Windoze) and at home for the last year and a half, with little to no need for IE or anyother. Unfortunately, working for a web software firm, I don't understand anyone's fascination with Safari.
 
tace said:
Do you mean alternative to Firefox? Camino was fun for about 2 seconds. Mozilla is a beast. IE is one big security hole. So, I have switched to Firefox both at work (Windoze) and at home for the last year and a half, with little to no need for IE or anyother. Unfortunately, working for a web software firm, I don't understand anyone's fascination with Safari.
You can't be serious! If you work for a web software firm and you want to ensure that your site works on Macs, you MUST test on Safari - there's no way around it. Do you not like Safari for some reason? I agree with you regarding IE - it's terrible. I've never tried Camino or Firefox, and I don't mind the fact that Mozilla is large and slow to launch.
 
Ahhh?

:confused:
Let me get this right. You never tried Firefox but you think Safari is great and all web software needs to work with Safari? A) Safari doesn't have much of a market share. Which means it is not feasible for most small companies to certify against. B) It doesn't even support things like tabbed browsing. C) From the point of view of SW companies they test against IE becuase of its market share, and Mozilla variants, because they are proven and accepted cross platform open source. Also, cross platform is a major word there. Even IE supports more than 1 platform, or at least it did.
 
I think the point was that many people with macs just go for Safari, and therefore, when developing, one should test with Safari in addition to others.

Second,Safari doesn't support tabbed browsing? News to me.

tace said:
:confused:
Let me get this right. You never tried Firefox but you think Safari is great and all web software needs to work with Safari? A) Safari doesn't have much of a market share. Which means it is not feasible for most small companies to certify against. B) It doesn't even support things like tabbed browsing. C) From the point of view of SW companies they test against IE becuase of its market share, and Mozilla variants, because they are proven and accepted cross platform open source. Also, cross platform is a major word there. Even IE supports more than 1 platform, or at least it did.
 
i liked chimera.

i dont like the way the bookmarks are treated in version 0.7 and later.

and i dont like the name camino. so i quit using it after name change.


i use 2 browsers. firebird (a release before the changed the name again), and safari.


i have ie somewhere for testing some sites.

and links compiled.
 
I am a Camino disciple ;)

The latest nightlies are awesome and 0.8 beta should be out very soon. The issues related to screen drawing will be fixed by Apple with the release of the 10.3.4 OS X Update. :)
 
This is what I have in my dock

Safari with pith helmet -- Great but only with pith helmet to block more ads.
Opera -- Probably the fastest.
OmniWeb -- Still beta.
Camino -- Good.
Mozilla -- Pretty fast, but not really needed, kinda bloated if just using it for browsing.
FireFox -- Great, but scrolling imo is crap.
 
heh, whoever said that safari didn't have tabbed browsing must not of used it in a really long time..................

But I say Camino and firefox make an awsome combo.
 
tace said:
:confused:
Let me get this right. You never tried Firefox but you think Safari is great and all web software needs to work with Safari? A) Safari doesn't have much of a market share. Which means it is not feasible for most small companies to certify against. B) It doesn't even support things like tabbed browsing. C) From the point of view of SW companies they test against IE becuase of its market share, and Mozilla variants, because they are proven and accepted cross platform open source. Also, cross platform is a major word there. Even IE supports more than 1 platform, or at least it did.

I feel like I am reading a really old post. Doesn't support tabbed browsing. Are you talking about the old beta version of Safari? Also, whenever I read about a company supporting Macs, they always mention Safari too.

I'll check out Firefox to see if it's any good. I have been happy with Safari so far. Much better than IE for Windows.
 
Right!!!

Oh, I am sorry, it appears that in Safari "tabbed browsing" is an option you have to go, find and turn on. You don't even get the "new tab" menu item until you go through 5 clicks to enable tabbed browsing.

After years in software development my principle is that if you need a class or book to use it than you failed in design. Along the same lines, if you have useful/helpful features then make them available and accessible.

And thanks for pointing out how to turn on tabbed browsing, you guys were very helpful. NOT

/flame on
 
yeah i suppose Apple should have tabbed browsing turned on by default from the next release onward. though i think exploring the preferences of each program is a smart habit that every user should learn.

and something about writing webpages that don't work on every browser seems kinda wrong to me. kind of a monopolizing thing, or at least in support of one. i'm all for some kind of web standard so that no matter what the browser, the page will load and display correctly. then you can be free to pick the browser for its speed (which increases the competition to make the speedier browser as well) or refuse it over something as trivial as its name. ;)
 
Chaszmyr said:
imo, Safari and Firefox are the only two mac browsers worth using... They both have their strengths.. Personally i use safari most, but I do like Firefox

i agree

its safari all the way for me, unless somethin' happens... then firefox is my back up

apple.com/safari

mozilla.org
 
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