Which web browser do you use?

Which web browser do you mainly use?

  • Safari

    Votes: 341 44.0%
  • Firefox

    Votes: 214 27.6%
  • Chrome

    Votes: 198 25.5%
  • Opera

    Votes: 15 1.9%
  • Camino

    Votes: 5 0.6%
  • Other

    Votes: 2 0.3%

  • Total voters
    775
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Doug, what is the twist gestures you are talking about to switch tabs?
 
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Doug, what is the twist gestures you are talking about to switch tabs?

This is for use with either a MacBook, MacBook Pro or Magic TrackPad. Basically, you take your thumb and index finger, twist them (almost like tweaking an old radio dial) in a left or right direction, and this gesture will switch to a tab to the left or right, depending on which way you twisted your fingers.

Doug
 
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This is for use with either a MacBook, MacBook Pro or Magic TrackPad. Basically, you take your thumb and index finger, twist them (almost like tweaking an old radio dial) in a left or right direction, and this gesture will switch to a tab to the left or right, depending on which way you twisted your fingers.

Doug

My Mac's at home and I won't be for a few days so I'm curious: Does the twist to switch tabs work with Safari too?
 
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I've been using Firefox a lot when on Linux but thought I'd try safari. The only thing I wasn't too crazy about, and I am sure there's a way to do it, it didn't fill up the screen. Thus is why I am now using firefox on the iMac.
 
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I've been using Firefox a lot when on Linux but thought I'd try safari. The only thing I wasn't too crazy about, and I am sure there's a way to do it, it didn't fill up the screen. Thus is why I am now using firefox on the iMac.

I assume that when you say "fill up the screen" you mean having the window cover the entire desktop. One of things I like about Macs is that windows don't take up the whole desktop. It makes selecting different windows much easier. It also allows me to actually see my wallpaper. Sometimes I wonder what the point of selecting a nice picture for a wallpaper in Windows and Linux is because I almost never see it.

With Windows and Linux I find the window needs to cover the whole desktop most of the time -- and especially with browsers -- in order to properly view the content of the window. With Macs, however, a window need not be so big to see everything. For example, my browser window takes up I would guess about sixty percent of the screen, but this page displays just fine without the window covering the whole desktop. Take a look at the attached screenshot.

Desktop.jpg
 
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This is why my desktop is clean of icons. but when I open something, I like some things to fill the screen.
 

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When my iMac G5 blew due to bad capacitors, I got a 2008 iMac 20". With 2GB ram and all my stuff running, Safari over time was using so much ram I was running out and the machine was very jerky. Started to use Chrome as it seems to eat up less over time. But now with 4GB using Safari again. Same with Firefox (even 4) over time.

I still really like Safari but Firefox 4 and Chrome are both quite good browsers.
 

vansmith

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Nice to see you back around these parts. :)

Started to use Chrome as it seems to eat up less over time.
As much as I like Chrome, it spawns quite a few processes. It's spawned two "Google Chrome Renderer" and five "Google Chrome Worker" processes for a total of eight (those seven plus the actual Chrome process). Right now, it's using up ~ 300 MB which isn't all that bad when I consider what some other browsers slowly consume over time.
 

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As much as I like Chrome, it spawns quite a few processes. It's spawned two "Google Chrome Renderer" and five "Google Chrome Worker" processes for a total of eight (those seven plus the actual Chrome process). Right now, it's using up ~ 300 MB which isn't all that bad when I consider what some other browsers slowly consume over time.

Safari was going up to over 500MB and I had no ram left over. With just 2 tabs open I had the Chrome renderer going and 2 other processes. I still had 200+ Megs Ram left. Now with 4GB it's not a issue so I can use what I want. What is your overall favorite browser today Van?
 

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Haha, it changes everyday ;). Im still using Opera and Chrome. The new builds of Opera are quite nice but I find myself split between it and Chrome.
 

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Haha, it changes everyday ;). Im still using Opera and Chrome. The new builds of Opera are quite nice but I find myself split between it and Chrome.

Same here the little I have been testing things lately. FF4 is quite fast at least on Sunspider. I have done little opera of late. All I know is for sure on this same iMac FF4 and Safari test way better in OSX than the Windows versions do in Vista on the same iMac.
 

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All I know is for sure on this same iMac FF4 and Safari test way better in OSX than the Windows versions do in Vista on the same iMac.
Really? Wow, that the exact opposite of my experience with Firefox on Windows and OS X. I've always found Firefox to be a much more polished app on Windows.

I'll give Mozilla credit where credit is due. Firefox 4 is a great step forward and I am genuinely interested to see what their new release schedule produces but I'm not quite a fan of it yet ;).
 
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I use Chrome. I've tried Safari, Firefox, RockMelt, and Flock. The latter two are awful. Safari and Firefox are great, but what really made Chrome attractive was the applications. Unfortunately, Apple released the App Store for Mac a few weeks after I switched, which pretty much made Chrome's apps pointless (at least for me).
 

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For anyone interested, I came across TenFourFox today. It's a group of people who have ported Firefox 4 over to the PPC architecture so for those of you still using a PPC Mac and want FF4, that seems to be your best bet.
 
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I have been a FF user since the very beginning, so for me, it is hard to switch to anything else, mind you every now and then I give Safari (5.0.5...) a try and like others, do find that 5 is slower then 4, but FF 4.0 is blazzzzzing fast, even faster then the FF beta 4.0 I found when it came out.

Yes, I hear in the background "but, you switch from PC to Mac!!!!"
Yes, I'm happy I did, I have given Safari a chance and it simply does not do it for me...
There!!! FF 4.0 pour moi. :p
I'm a happy camper.
 

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No need to use Safari as a Mac user. ;) I hardly touch it and generally stick to cross-platform browsers (which happens to be all the other major ones) as I move about between Windows, OS X and Linux (I like the familiarity).
 
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Firefox AND Chrome

I use Firefox when just surfing the web normally, but when I get into my gaming mode I switch to Chrome because it is faster, but more unstable.
 
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i love safari, but it just doesn't work on my much needed porn sites. Thus, Chrome all the way :)
 
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I use Safari for the grunt work, iCab when I want it to be precise, and Firefox when I want to print one page to pdf and fill up an A4 page (use then the command to shrink characters and image while keeping page width unchanged, as opposed to iCab and Safari). Generally don't like Firefox very much. Have not tried Chrome.
 

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I use Safari for the grunt work, iCab when I want it to be precise...
I'm interested to know what you mean by this. I know both Safari and iCab use WebKit so I'd be interested to know how one is better at "grunt" work and one is better for "precision."
 
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