Well clevin, you're obviously a Firefox fanatic, and that's okay, but you're not accurate in your 0.1ms statement - Safari 4 / current Webkit use a whole new Javascript interpreter that uses bytecode compilation - it's not 0.1%, 1%, or even just 10% faster - it's a *lot* faster, overall about 50% and in some places 300%. JavaScript performance is very influential to MobileMe performance, because it uses lots of JavaScript in order to accomplish the wonderful UI that it provides.
thats correct, that sunspider shows 50% speed improvement in current webkit nightly, but
1. its not public released version
2. each item of the test is a result of repeating same function 1 million times, and the eventually difference is about <100ms for most of them. This is because everything is already so fast, they need excessive test to measure meaningful differences, but that also means in real life, its negligible, 50% of near-zero is still near-0.
I will agree with you that Firefox 3 on Mac OS X /is/ faster than Safari 3, and for this I'm very grateful - for a long time the Firefox situation was pretty crappy on OS X and this seems to have been finally addressed. But it is not faster overall, at least significantly, than current Webkit releases (which will become Safari 4 pretty soon).
again, you do not confuse js speed as browser speed. currently webkit may be has 50% improvement (see above), but that doesn't mean its faster in surfing, a simple example, here at MR forums, whenever you use backward/forward button, safari will reload part of the page and takes longer time, while firefox and opera will do instant display.
Speed includes alot of things (connecting speed, download speed, render speed, js speed, cache reading speed), JS is only a part of it. Please don't confuse them with overly free usage of the term
For the record, I tested MobileMe performance with my account using Firefox 3 and latest Webkit on both a 24" iMac and a MacBook Air prior to posting before - the speed is pretty much identical, with Webkit seeming a little faster in some areas (like loading Contacts).
Individual speed is a even more complicated issue. I basically regard all major browsers currently at the same speed. but nobody will have exactly same experiences. Such as your situation, if webkit nightly is about identical, are you saying safari 3.1.x is slower?
Again, it comes down to what the speed is. Its not a simple issue as you might think.
And you know what, sometimes Firefox is damn nice to have - once in a while there's a website that just doesn't work right in Safari, and Firefox just generally gets more testing by web developers. Firefox gives ability to add all sorts of plugins, which is great for power users and when you're doing development.
That said, I really prefer Safari. I prefer the behavior of it's rendering engine, as I used KHTML-based browsers for years before Safari existed, and it's always rendered better (IMHO) than gecko. And except when I'm troubleshooting during web development, etc., I don't care about the plugins - I just want a simple, clean browser. Safari provides that better than Firefox.
what can I say, I have no problem with people tried and chose and made sound decision,
I was just replying to a very rude statement above, (not from you I know), which kinda pissed me of yesterday.
* I don't want a new tab button - when in the heck do you use that? I hit cmd+T. I don't use the close buttons either, that's what cmd+W is for. And guess what? The commands are identical in Firefox and pretty much any other program.
I take the position that necessary options are good, and I do think there are significant proportion of users who need it. There are keyboard person, and there are mice person. safari offers little for mice person in this regard (altho it did improved a bit in latest release)
* It doesn't consume 2-3x memory in my experiences, but I suppose it depends on what sort of sites you're visiting, etc. I commonly have dozens of tabs open without any issue. On the contrary, Firefox leaks memory over time and periodically needs restarted to recover it. Not a terribly big deal because it remembers the tabs, but annoying.
Not according to everybody's test, from all difference sources, firefox 3 generally has a peak memory usage at about 130MB on both windows and OSX, while safari show very poor memory management after 20 minutes use, no need to goto heavy website, just normal stuff, 5 tabs, after 2-3 hrs, safari for OSX uses 250MB and safari for windows uses 600MB+. You can google safari memory for links. Its widely available.
* As for passwords, the only way to go for either browser is with 1Password.app - not only does it address all of the issues in the password remembering systems of both browsers, but it makes your saved passwords browser-independent.
except I have no intention of paying $34 for something I can do free with firefox, even on windows, roboform has free version.1password should really consider their business mode, of course if current mode is good for them, ....
* I don't know what features you think you need in a download manager besides what Safari has, but I sure don't need them.
such as simple pause/resume? in firefox, you can resume your download from firefox crash, or even system crash! isn't that really good or what?
* You complain about history, but the history view is fantastic in Safari, and even my Firefox-loving colleagues admit that this is one thing they don't like about Firefox in comparison.
well, I will leave that to the general public, what I said is that you don't have a most visited list from urlbar, take a look at my original post maybe?
* Safari handles ftp JUST FINE.
just fine means transfer the protocol to other app? firefox can login to ftp server within browser, can sort the list by name/time/size/ etc, with addon fireftp, it offers a full featured FTP app.
* The "rigid urlbar matching" is something I appreciate a lot. The completion is just what I expect and easy to predict. The firefox 3 bit is overly complicated and gets in the way.
aha, sorry, I saw too many people said just typing one letter and firefox 3 will put his indented entry at the top. I take that you have difference preferences, but I absolutely encourage other ppl to try for themselves rather than take your or mine view here.
* Also, you mention "poor selection of search engines" - I don't know how you figure - you can add to the list endlessly, and I have many custom search engines for internal wiki/bug trackers at work, etc.
well, endless, I guess you mean with a plugin? and how many? firefox with plugin has 1000+, still offers expandable list with no limit w/o addons.
* I'm not sure why you need to reboot after Safari upgrades - probably because it updates some system libraries at the same time, but it's not a big deal - even if I used only Firefox I'd still want to install all the Apple software updates. You don't need to reboot for Webkit upgrades.
Thats right
however, webkit nightly build doesn't offer new functions which you can only find in safari
and why I need to reboot after safari updates,,, IDK, maybe apple has an answer for that
Yes, Firefox comes with some more features out of the box, but not everybody wants those features. For those who do, great. But Safari is by no means a bad browser, unlike IE.
again, I don't think safari is bad, I regard it as functionally-limited, but if some guy throw the word pathetic out, I have no problem copy it..
Firefox has just never gotten, I don't know, polished enough...for me to want it as a default browser. But I do keep it installed on all my machines and once in a while use it.
Thats good enough!
