02-01-2005, 07:07 PM

The recent post by an upcoming convert got me thinking: Everyone seems to be using various different browsers for all sorts of reasons. Figuring out what browser to use was a big deal for me when I was switching. I'd like to know out of curiosity who uses what and why, and see how everyone rates each browser and compares the pros and cons. Some people may even find out about browsers they never knew about. I'll start. I personally use Camino, Mozilla's native Mac OS X browser, for several reasons. The first and biggest is Gecko. It's currently the best rendering engine for Mac IMO. Some say Omniweb's is better, but it costs money, so I don't really feel like paying for a program that I'm not even sure about. The other significant one is all about interface. The reason I stopped using Firefox is put best by Jasper Hauser, a programmer for the Camino project: "Whenever I'm using Firefox for Mac, I get the feeling that I'm using an application that's pretending really hard to be a native Mac application. It's like driving a cheap car. Firefox will always be a Windows browser that ALSO supports Mac." Camino is cocoa. It's entirely native. Its interface is beautifully integrated into OS X. You use the keychain and everything. You can even go in with interface builder if you have it (or Camino ExtraPrefs, a small download with some great features) and change the window to textured, like Safari. You can download Camino icon sets to change the appearance of it, much like themes in Firefox. The downside is it has a few minor bugs here and there (the only one that really bugs me is this thing where typing in text boxes is slow after awhile if you're a really fast typer), but it's really stable for the most part. It also obviously does not have the extensions that Firefox and Mozilla do. So, that's my two cents. How 'bout yours?

Edit: For the record, since most people probably haven't heard of it, Shiira is a Japanese-made, very very fast webkit-based browser.

02-01-2005, 07:15 PM

I can't select multiple entries. Personally I use several different browsers depending on what I'm doing (as I also do on PCs).

Amen-Moses

02-01-2005, 07:59 PM

Overall I use Safari in OSX unless there are problems with a page which is pretty rare, then I use Firefox but have been messing with Camino a bit and it's pretty good also. I do prefer Safari though for most of my browsing.

02-01-2005, 08:21 PM

I just recently dumped Safari for Firefox. I am still looking around though, so that may change once again.

02-01-2005, 09:19 PM

I've tried all three .. I did not start with Safari since It would not import my Windows Firefox bookmarks and went directly to Camino. Camino is very nice, but it's still beta and did not render a (Just one) website correctly. This was a web based forum which had a title within a solid border .. It did not display the type. I downloaded Firefox mainly so my wife did not have to learn something new then spent the time copying my bookmarks from Camino to Safari and have been using Safari ever since. It is my current favorite.

02-01-2005, 09:26 PM

I use Firefox alone. I think that Safari and Firefox are so similar in capability that it ends up being a matter of taste. I like the look of Firefox over Safari. I can see keeping multiple browsers just in case some site doesn't work for one.

02-02-2005, 10:49 AM

Firefox all the way. I have quite a lot of extensions and a very nice theme that I use and Safari doesnt even touch the capabilities that Firefox has with extensions. Plus it's free.. I havent really used Camino, so I can't say much about that one. But Safari, Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape, iCab, IE, Omniweb, Opera.. Firefox definitely wins for me.

02-02-2005, 11:16 AM

I used to use firefox but have been having alot of crash problems with it at late which is a pity because I like the way the bookmarks are all in a pull down menu. Their are some sites which I come across that only work in IE so I have to keep that program hanging around as well. Camino is a great program, I really like that one but they don't seem to be updating it at late.

02-02-2005, 11:29 AM

I currently use safari, and firefox and omniweb, but safari is my main browser.

02-02-2005, 03:05 PM

I started with Safari and liked it, a little slow sometimes but ok.
Then i found Camino and it was great but unexpectidly started crashing.
So i switched to Firefox, functional and fun but there are issues with downloading pdf files from specific journal hosts. I do alot of this so had to revert back to Safari.
I honestly have learnt to love it, it saves me switching browser when random things don't work.
I also have IE in reserve should microsoft get all proprietary on me.

02-02-2005, 03:33 PM

hi

started off with safari, which i have kept as a backup to firefox.

everywhere seemed to point me to firefox, so i tried it and
feel it is best for me on the mac. i also followed a guide to 'tweak it'
and now it pretty much lightning fast with rock solid browsing, downloading
or whatever.

kind regards

02-02-2005, 06:59 PM

I've had bad experiences with Firefox on Linux and Windows with really bad extension and theme conflicts and deleting my profiles. Safari, completely vanilla, does everything I want it to do. It looks nice and it has a closebox in the tabs. It actually works fine on the school Macs (256MB RAM) and on my grandfather's eMac (128MB RAM... with dialup!) so I can't wait to try it out with a new PowerBook.

02-02-2005, 07:06 PM

In Firefox, I use the Mostly Crystal theme, and then for extensions I have FoxyTunes, FoxyTunes Skin - OnyxOrbs, Web Developer, Tabbrowser Extensions, TargetAlert, Link Toolbar, Autofill, and SEOpen and that's pretty much it.. practically none of that is even possible in safari or many other browsers. It's what you need though.. many of you probably would not need these extensions anyways

02-03-2005, 09:48 AM

I prefer the way Safari looks and it loads much faster, so I use that over Firefox.

02-03-2005, 10:03 AM

I do like firefox for the plugins and the themes, it seems a little faster, not much, just a little bit.