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Web browsers.

D

dragula53

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 23, 2003
209
0
I think there have probably already been a million threads about web browsers, but I wanted to make my own.

Netscape is so slow as to be unusable, and we won't talk about IE..

I love the Opera web browser, but every time it beach balls on a page that takes too long to load I want to gouge out my eyes.

I wanted to love camino and firefox, but it's behavior in Outlook Web Access hurts my soul, among other issues, mostly I think java not working properly is the biggy.

Safari is solid all around, but it doesn't seem to remember names and passwords for sites as well as the others. some sites I have to enter my data in regardless of whether I have the names and passwords block checked.

I'm still searching for one that makes me happy, but I wanted to rant.

And the point of this thread is to discuss the different web browsers and why all of them are really good, but none of them are suitable for every task, which is a problem.

peace
 
Safari is my everyday browser (especially great with some nice plug-ins like Sogudi, and with my GUI Uno-fied). But, I've been playing around with Flock lately—cool idea, can't wait to see it get developed further.
 
omniweb

as far as omniweb goes.

I think the graphical tab bar is a neat idea, but in practice, it is just distracting.

A simple title of the web page is much more eye friendly than a thumbnail representation of said webpage. and when you get more than about 4 tabs having to scroll to get to your tab sorta defeats the purpose... and the drawer just consumes massive amounts of real estate.

edit: 6 tabs before I have to scroll. and omniweb uses an older version of webcore than safari, that's bad.

it is also hard to justify paying for what is a free experience on every other browser, especially with an older version of webcore.
 
You won't find the perfect browser. For my purposes OmniWeb is as close as it gets. Give it a try. It has an occasional problem with display but they all do, and its other features make up for it. It's free to demo as long as you like with the only limitation being the start page.

My favorite features are the site specific preferences and cookie control.

[Edit} You were not spared, yet convincing that you will never find the perfect browser, and it's no ad, only an opinion different from yours.
 
dragula53 said:
I wanted to love camino and firefox, but it's behavior in Outlook Web Access hurts my soul, among other issues, mostly I think java not working properly is the biggy.
Click to expand...

Don't blame mozilla, blame microsoft for that.
 
JDar said:
You won't find the perfect browser. For my purposes OmniWeb is as close as it gets. Give it a try. It has an occasional problem with display but they all do, and its other features make up for it. It's free to demo as long as you like with the only limitation being the start page.

My favorite features are the site specific preferences and cookie control.

[Edit} You were not spared, yet convincing that you will never find the perfect browser, and it's no ad, only an opinion different from yours.
Click to expand...

above post was in response to person whose presentation offended my delicate sensibilities. edited to remove sensitivity.

And why should we not expect a perfect web browser?

I have yet to hear "I couldn't get on to my banks site using internet explorer, so I had to use firefox" from any of my windows using friends. That's a problem.
 
radiantmark said:
Don't blame mozilla, blame microsoft for that.
Click to expand...

OWA works fine in safari.

Is it microsoft's fault for not being compatible with macintosh web browsers? Your bank too? That site that hosts a movie you can't view? The flash game you can't play?

Points to ponder. I'm done with my rant.
 
dragula53 said:
OWA works fine in safari.
Click to expand...

There's no functional difference between OWA in Safari or a Mozilla browser. If you want a fully functional OWA, you need to be running IE and Windows.

Or you could just download Thunderbird and pop, pop, pop ...
 
thedude110 said:
There's no functional difference between OWA in Safari or a Mozilla browser. If you want a fully functional OWA, you need to be running IE and Windows.

Or you could just download Thunderbird and pop, pop, pop ...
Click to expand...

it behaves differently.

view an email, click reply.

in a mozilla based browser, it appears at the bottom.

in safari, it appears at the top.
 
It's a fact as you say that sometime you have to start IE to access especially a bank website or fill in some IE specific application. Isn't that more the effect of how the web site is structured rather than the browser? I, too, wish it wasn't that way.

While we're waiting for the perfect browser to come along (and world peace, zero defects, and no accidents) we'll have to settle for one which subjectively fills our needs as well as possible.

Having to start IE, even on the iMac, makes me have uncomfortable sensations. :D

Cheers!
 
dragula53 said:
....

Is it microsoft's fault for not being compatible with macintosh web browsers? Your bank too? That site that hosts a movie you can't view? The flash game you can't play?

....
Click to expand...
Well, yes it is Microsoft's fault. Do you think that the Redmond Monopoly is some sort of unwitting pawn in all of this? Hardly. Early in the life of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Microsoft deliberately chose to break the standing rules for rendering HTML. Nitwit website developers chose to design sites that behaved "correctly" in IE, but not other sites. The effect snowballed.

The W3C publishes web standards. Most browser developers do their best to follow W3C standards. Currently, Apple's Safari is the most W3C-compliant browser available. However, the Gecko-based browsers (Mozilla, Camino, Firefox, etc.) are close. If website developers wrote to W3C standards rather than to the specific Microsoft browser, the world would be a better place. Unfortunately, some developers require IE for using their sites. Substitutes will not work.
 
dragula53 said:
OWA works fine in safari.

Is it microsoft's fault for not being compatible with macintosh web browsers? Your bank too?
Click to expand...

Not just macintosh. All non-ei browsers. And yes it is microsoft's fault. They are using proprietary code that only works in their browser. Safari, mozilla, and opera all are working towards following web standards. Web standards has been around forever and microsoft and your bank have had plenty of time to make cross-platform websites that support standards. I'm assuming you don't know much about how the web works.
 
MisterMe said:
Well, yes it is Microsoft's fault. Do you think that the Redmond Monopoly is some sort of unwitting pawn in all of this? Hardly. Early in the life of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Microsoft deliberately chose to break the standing rules for rendering HTML. Nitwit website developers chose to design sites that behaved "correctly" in IE, but not other sites. The effect snowballed.

The W3C publishes web standards. Most browser developers do their best to follow W3C standards. Currently, Apple's Safari is the most W3C-compliant browser available. However, the Gecko-based browsers (Mozilla, Camino, Firefox, etc.) are close. If website developers wrote to W3C standards rather than to the specific Microsoft browser, the world would be a better place. Unfortunately, some developers require IE for using their sites. Substitutes will not work.
Click to expand...
Beat me to it. :D
 
dragula53 said:
OWA works fine in safari.

Is it microsoft's fault for not being compatible with macintosh web browsers? Your bank too? That site that hosts a movie you can't view? The flash game you can't play?

Points to ponder. I'm done with my rant.
Click to expand...

Actually, a lot of the problems were initially related to Microsoft's resistance to web standards. Now, projects started that way linger. I never had a problem with OWA and Mozilla.

If you look at page info, you'll notice that Firefox has a web standards mode and a quirks mode. Unfortunately, a lot of sites are coded improperly and require quirks mode. If MS would fully embrace web standards, both with their browsers and their development products, the incompatibilities would dwindle quickly.
 
radiantmark said:
Not just macintosh. All non-ei browsers. And yes it is microsoft's fault. They are using proprietary code that only works in their browser. Safari, mozilla, and opera all are working towards following web standards. Web standards has been around forever and microsoft and your bank have had plenty of time to make cross-platform websites that support standards. I'm assuming you don't know much about how the web works.
Click to expand...

No need to be condescending. Yes, I understand that IE is not standards compliant. and web pages aren't standards compliant. But when your browser is 80% of the market, you are the standard.

The fact that safari passes the acid2 test doesn't help it render my bank.

Using the excuses "Web designers are sloppy, it's their fault" "Microsoft tried to change the standards, it's their fault" doesn't improve my functionality, it just gives me a scapegoat. I don't need one of those.

I need a web browser that will render everything properly.
 
radiantmark said:
As I need a car that will never break down. ;)
Click to expand...

When your car only works at 80% of the gas stations you go to, and one of the non-functioning gas stations is on the closest corner to your house, our analogy will be complete.

Bitching and wishing the other 80% of the world would change is a lot more work than actually changing.
 
dragula53 said:
No need to be condescending. Yes, I understand that IE is not standards compliant. and web pages aren't standards compliant. But when your browser is 80% of the market, you are the standard.

....
Click to expand...
This is the kind of backward thinking that keeps users under the thumb of Microsoft. First off, Microsoft did not bring about this situation by introducing a new or competive standard. It created this situation by corrupting the existing standard. While other browsers required properly written HTML, Microsoft allowed badly written HTML to be rendered in a predictable way. But even if you are willing to accept badly written code as a "standard," Microsoft's market share does not require web designers to specifically target IE. There are many sites that work perfectly well in IE as well as just about every other browser. The websites for your bank, university, government office, etc. can do so as well.
 
MisterMe said:
This is the kind of backward thinking that keeps users under the thumb of Microsoft. First off, Microsoft did not bring about this situation by introducing a new or competive standard. It created this situation by corrupting the existing standard. While other browsers required properly written HTML, Microsoft allowed badly written HTML to be rendered in a predictable way. But even if you are willing to accept badly written code as a "standard," Microsoft's market share does not require web designers to specifically target IE. There are many sites that work perfectly well in IE as well as just about every other browser. The websites for your bank, university, government office, etc. can do so as well.
Click to expand...

As opposed to the other way, where we claim to be right because W3C says so, and accept a substandard browsing experience because of it?

I have never ever successfully petitioned a website to make them support non-ie browsers, and yes, I've tried. So what do we do then?

If the providers of online resources and entertainment refuse to support our browser of choice, we either a) live without, or b) change so we can partake in their entertainment.
 
oh

another behavior of firefox that just makes me cringe is the fact that it gets stuck with no windows open, no way to open preferences, etc, even though no other windows are open. quitting and restarting fixes this annoying behavior, but it happens far to frequently.
 
Does anybody know of something similar to Roboform on the PC? It's basically an automated form filler that has pluggins for all the major browsers on the PC. It can auto fill forms and it will also remember all the login info per site. It's one of those apps that I installed withing the first hour of rebuilding a machine. I am in the process of coming back to the mac world and its the only app I really am having a tough time of doing without so far.

Thanks
 
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