FFox has been the matter of choice and wife is used to it. Plus her iPad Safari falls short of seeing some things due to the adobe restriction so we fell out of using Safari unless required.
On which machine, this is a MacBook Pro old enough to remove the battery if I choose but, has the latest "Maverick".
Moved my email with Thunderbird here but am finding there are some things they can't do with the 'hot' keys.
All this is info giving the state of mind I'm working from.
Appears so far that for contacts, email and FaceTime, it may be wise to work within the system. Appreciate any constructive thought on this to keep the transition less complex. Thanks Chas M for your link...that is good advice.
It appears I'll have to find a way to xfer my contacts from Thunderbird to start with, once i figure out how.
thanks, Jim.