Mail and Safari: Better alternatives?

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djmitch

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As I await the arrival of my Mini, I'm thinking of all I can to prepare in advance so I don't have to waste too much time writing posts like these once it arrives!

Anyhow, my understanding is that Mail is the e-mail program that comes with a Mac and that Safari is the internet browser. I'm quite used to Outlook for e-mail and IE for web browsing on my PC.

My question: Are there better, free alternatives to these programs?

More specifically, I've read a lot about different browsers like Firefox and Camino(?), but are they really that much better than Safari? Are they free? How does IE compare to Safari? To the alternatives?

I'll be getting Entourage (a.k.a. Outlook) whether I want it or not when I buy Office for Mac, so should I stick with it or is there a better alternative? I like how Outlook/Entourage is an "all in one" address book, e-mail, and calendar program, but perhaps Macs come with more impressive options.
 
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Jefe3223

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djmitch said:
Anyhow, my understanding is that Mail is the e-mail program that comes with a Mac and that Safari is the internet browser. I'm quite used to Outlook for e-mail and IE for web browsing on my PC.
Yeah, mail & safari are the norm (I hate, mail, though...just my opinion). IE is for mac, too, but it stinks. I had yahoo actually email me and tell me not to use the IE browser to view their page (hilarity ensued).

My question: Are there better, free alternatives to these programs?
More specifically, I've read a lot about different browsers like Firefox and Camino(?), but are they really that much better than Safari? Are they free? How does IE compare to Safari? To the alternatives?
Yes, they are free. I like safari the best, but many love firefox. Download them and check them out, to see which you like. It depends on a matter of preference. Like I said above, IE is not too hot for mac. You CAN use it, though. I jsut wouldn'trecomend it.

I'll be getting Entourage (a.k.a. Outlook) whether I want it or not when I buy Office for Mac, so should I stick with it or is there a better alternative? I like how Outlook/Entourage is an "all in one" address book, e-mail, and calendar program, but perhaps Macs come with more impressive options.
I don't know of many alternatives ('cause I've never cared to research), but I can tell you that Entourage works alright, if that's what you like. It's not a bad program, there's a lot you can do with it, if you really sit and look deep into it.
 
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Firefox has slightly better compatibility than Safari, but has poor support of Mac-specific features. Camino may well be the best of both worlds, but it's not quite ready yet (still at version 0.8x, still some bugs)

For eMail, you have a lot of choice
- Apple Mail (Easy, somewhat limited)
- Eudora 6 (Very powerful, somewhat complicated interface)
- Mozilla Thunderbird (don't really know)
- Microsoft Entourage (Much like Outlook on Windows)

Not to mention some minor players (Mulberry, Mailsmith, etc.)

Whereas Outlook bundles mail, calendar, and address book functions into a single program, Apple splits them off (into Mail, iCal, and the Address Book) but allows them to share the same contact list. Entourage follows the Outlook approach, and the other apps have varying levels of integration.
 
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I would just stick with Safari and Mail, both great apps!
 
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Thud

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Safari 2.0 (in Tiger) is good enough to be the only browser I use on my mac now.


I didnt' like Safari in Panther as much, it was slow. Firefox was even slower. I tried Camino and Shiira as well.. they both worked fine but each had their own issues.

But Safari 2.0 is pretty sweet.
 
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Thud said:
Safari 2.0 (in Tiger) is good enough to be the only browser I use on my mac now.


I didnt' like Safari in Panther as much, it was slow. Firefox was even slower. I tried Camino and Shiira as well.. they both worked fine but each had their own issues.

But Safari 2.0 is pretty sweet.

I'm in agreement. Safari 2.0 is sweet. I didn't use Safari at all in Panther-- Camino pretty much was it, but since Friday I've been using Safari 2.0 only. Much faster than it used to be.

Mail 2.0 is nicer too. :)
 
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meltbanana314

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If you don't like Mail, then Entourage is probably the best for you, since it really is the best free/low cost mail application for OS X (in my humble opinion.) GNUMail and Thunderbird don't cut it.

As far as browsers go, I'm a Safari fan (even though I'm on 1.3 on Panther, I still think it rocks.) Camino is a close second, as is Shiira, and Firefox is dead last because it's not very Mac-friendly (in fact, I only use it on Windows because Konqueror is far superior on my Linux machine.)
 
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mangoSharingan

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I'm using Firefox instead of Safari because I regularly check the websites saved in my Bookmarks Toolbar Folder and only Firefox lets browse through the toolbar without having to click on the menu name every single time I want to display it's drop-down of sites. Also, some of the sites I regularly go to don't display the page properly under Safari. I have tried Camino before but a few weeks after I first used it, I noticed that it started crashing more often, like 5 times a week or so, and therefore, I went back to Firefox. I hope they release a stable version soon though because I really loved the fast and simple interface of Camino.

I have used Entourage before but like Outlook Express, it takes IMO too long to delete an e-mail when it collects new mail but I want to quickly delete ones I know I'm not going to read. Sometimes, it takes too long to delete an e-mail so I end up clicking Delete many times in frustration, and like you say: ''you wait half an hour for a bus and then all 3 come at the same time!''. It could be my configurations but I never really spent much time tweaking Entourage. So I went back to Mail (with the help of a plugin to use Hotmail accounts) and e-mails just immediately go straight to the trash can the moment I click on Delete.
 
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Jefe3223

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mangoSharingan said:
and like you say: ''you wait half an hour for a bus and then all 3 come at the same time!''.
Off topic, on my part, but -> don't you hate that?! It happens to me, more often then I would like it to. Pain in the arse.
 
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Ex_PC_Puke

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As a ex-corporate guy - Outlook and IE were the tools of the trade -- although frankly I think Outlook blows --- I used to call it Look-Out!! because it always had a surprize or two

I tried both Firefox and Thunderbird on my old PC and they were both better than IE or Outlook -- I used these exclusively (after I quit working in cube-land)


But on the mac I have to say that I use Safari 99% of the time - great - fast browser --- I only use IE on a couple of sites that use pop-ups. As for iCal I think it blows both Outlook and Thunderbird out of the water.

I'd try both before you go on a fishing trip for SW
 
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well im a firefox and thunderbird man myself and have no problems so they both get the thumbs up for me
 
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I, too, am a Firefox and Thunderbird man as well, but that is more because I switched over from Linux, and am used to the interfaces of both of them. Safari lacks a few small things that firefox does for me so I predominantly use Firefox. However I have noticed a few quirky bugs with FF specific to the Mac that pop up from time to time, but they don't really happen often enough to cause frustration. Also Firefox leaks memory requiring it to be restarted after a few days, but it does this on all platforms so..uh, I'm used to that. Besides I usually quit all applications to run UT 2004 on my Mini so it gets refreshed periodically anyway. Most long time Mac users don't seem to like that Firefox doesn't conform to the "Mac way" like Safari or Camino, but I don't know any better so that doesn't bother me. I do, however, usually get the G4 optimized builds for Firefox...the URL for which escapes me at the moment. It is but a google away though.

Thunderbird is also used because I'm used to it and my legacy mail can be incorporated with it, but I am told by people who are picky about these things that Mail is actually a pretty decent app on the Mac for, well, mail. Haven't gone with this because I only relatively recently came into the graphical email world (for personal email, we use..ugh, Lotus Notes at the office) with Thunderbird from pine of all things. Switching to yet another mail client is not in my cards at this juncture.
 
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I am a Safari and Mail girl, and while I love Safari and have never had ONE scrap of a problem with it, I detest Mail with passion, but that is because I detest Outlook also, and Eudora with them. All my mail gets processed online kindly of GMail. I had to deal with both Lotus Notes and Outlook when I was in corporate land and the sole thought of them both makes me sick. Load times on Safari are fine, even when I upload blogs and/or play around with website building, but I do have a decent 3Mb net connection.
 
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Firefox, Entourage.. So far Apple stuff is fast, but it is just missing way too much functionality for what I want and need :)
 
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Steel02001

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I use safari and love it in comparison to the others. Maybe I am just a loyalist though.

As for mail, I dont like it partially because it refuses to work after numerous tries in which I am 100% sure it is set up properly. Tried Entourage for a day but then decided to stick with just checking my GMail regularly.

Hope that helped some.
 
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You have quite a few choices for email they are:

Mail, comes with Tiger, fairly nice program lots of features

Thunderbird, my personal favorite

Balzac, looks good, has lots of stuff, but haven't really tested it out yet

And of course the M$ stuff, i'll refrain from comment here...


As for web browsers you also have many choices they are:

Opera V.8, tested the fastest on the java test site, lots of features

Safari, came in second about 1 1/2 seconds later, lots of features

FireFox, a disapointing test score, but still not to bad

Camino, no great shakes on test, but lots of people like it

IE, wouldn't let my dog use this one...

What you have to do is try em and see which one turns your crank...
 
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zap2

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firefox(free) and thunderbird(free) both made by the same company. I know firefox is great but i do not use mail or thunderbird so i can not say which is best. Do not use window stuff for mac unless u have to.
 
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I use Safari and Mail the most frequently.

However, I have both Firefox and IE installed incase some site doesn't like Safari. But, I find that since it is intergrated at the OS level, it runs w/ outstanding preformance. You won't find that in Firefox; it's mainly a status thing at this point, providing just as much usability as Safari.

As for Mail, I have Entourage installed, but I still stick with mail. Again, it's OS intergrated, and optomized for preformance on the mac. I also like it's simple and streamlined layout. It works for me.

That's just it. Whatever works best for you is your best option. Try each one out; see which one best suits your needs. I hope that helps.
 
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I build my own optimized firefox builds that are optimized for G4 and G5 (two separate builds). I've ported over a few of my Windows optimizations and the next step is to improve jpeg rendering performance using Altivec (just porting SSE2 optimizations over).

With Firefox, you can download the source code and build it yourself. If you have some engineering experience, you can make code changes to change behaviour or add features too.
 

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