So you basically cripple Firefox and then say it is a poor choice. Drop your second rule about plugins, add the Eos theme, use the bootleg optimized version with Apple widgets. It may not be perfect, but it is pretty close.

I am not convinced that this is any sort of valid comparison. Firefox's plugins are what make the browser great. Sure, for the casual user Safari is probably the nicer choice, but is the casual user going to bother with changing their browser?

Those flat 1998 style buttons are the only reason why I have to use Firefox regularly - one of my banks uses such to display changing digits to log in. As the digits are changing place for each visit, it is of course essential to see them, which I cannot in Safari where the buttons appear as the 3D-ish, glassy ones as we are used to - but without any digits.
When I no longer have no need for that bank, my need for Firefox will only be casually.

As for plugins, I prefer to have a browser which works "out of the box" There are plugins for Safari as well, though, although there are more for Firefox. I guess the open source people have an infatuation with themes and addons:)

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Guest wrote:
So you basically cripple Firefox and then say it is a poor choice.

How come, crippled? It is not crippled when you use it as it is. If you need to have addons for an application to work properly, it is not the user who cripples it...

At work, I've found that the Rational ClearQuest (bug tracking database) web client works perfectly in Safari but not in FIrefox. FF2 is almost there, but not quite.

Meanwhile, many of the other web apps work fine with Firefox but not Safari… which means I keep them both in my dock. I usually use Safari, but pull up Firefox when I need the Notes (backup email) or Remedy (IT trouble ticket) client.

I almost switched to Firefox for some of the reasons you mentioned. What last feature has kept me using Safari? the Inquisitor plug-in:
http://www.inquisitorx.com/safari/
I like the google/ig style search suggestion in Firefox 2.x but it just isn't as snazzy as Inquisitor. I think with a little Mac polish Firefox could be much more interesting to use.

I too, use Safari as my main browser. When it won't load a page, I go to Firefox. So why don't I use Firefox exclusively? It just doesn't "feel right", and, no I can't really explain that.

LIke the reviewer, I came to _hate_ the "click-to-focus" 'feature' of Firefox. In fact, it eventually drove me to Safari--that and its ugly interface. While Safari had its problems, they were easier for me to live with than Firefox's problems--and I used FF for years--until I upgraded to Tiger.... And then, I got tired of hearing my wife and children complaining about Safari taking forever to load their forums, so I tried Omniweb when it was on sale, and immediately fell in love--and haven't looked back. Again, Omni isn't perfect, but it has solved most of Safari's quirks (still the same rendering engine, though, so I hold onto Camino for Google docs), but its tabbed browsing is the bee's knees. And the sessions feature--and so many others. I don't know what the reviewer will conclude, but I'm a fan of Omni for now.

I use Firefox a lot, and agree that if you leave out the plug ins you are missing the point of the browser.

Recently I've switched to Camino, much faster than Firefox, still one ort two aspects that are a bit beta-ish, but overall I think better. It would be good if you feel like it to extend your testing to include Camino

Bob

When are you going to try the latest stable release of Camino?

I would love to hear from other artists about what programs they use most of the time. I have Adobe's CS 2 and have been using most of the time, Photoshop 8. There is now a new upgrade to #9. At the same time, read Adobe com'g out with a CS 3. So not sure, what to do. No telling how much the #3 will be.....but if it's "revolutionary" well: should I wait?
And then, there "was" Corel. But for some reason, I just never 'got into it" - My images are for Greeting Cards, and are nothing like "Hallmark" ... In addition, landscapes and ocean, and birds/and on and on. Illustration best describes what I am doing now. Advice? I can't afford to make a mistake...starving artist, is the reality. Thank you for all advice/counsel, in advance ! C

I don't have your problem with focus in Firefox. I can switch tabs using Command-Option-left/right arrow without having to click in a tab. In fact, I just switched back and forth to all of my open tabs while the focus was in this text box.

I just discovered Camino today and while that's not much time to go ahead and 'comment' just say, "at first blush" I am very satisified with it. I NEVER liked Firefox, at all.
Will look at Omni - just because.

What did we ever do, with out Google? I have also been trying to find out if there are some Websites/with Information, about ART programs, to help, keep the, IMAGES
and art that led up to that final, image...in one "Frame" and then have another/spaced on a Page, so to speak in "not tech talk" an easy, 'layout' to see at once/what you've got. I am still: searching for this, "pot of gold."

You can move between the tabs in Firefox without clicking on them.

just use apple + "1" for the first tab, apple + "2" for the second etc, etc.

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Guest wrote:
You can move between the tabs in Firefox without clicking on them.

just use apple + "1" for the first tab, apple + "2" for the second etc, etc.

Those aren't tabs, that's your Bookmarks Bar.

I agree with most of what Jeff says. However, one compelling reason to get Firefox savvy is web sites that create PDF file output, such as labels.

I do a lot of eBaying and when I ship by USPS I have to use Firefox to create a label with postage, or a label only. The reason is that Firefox is compatible with the USPS web sites dedication to Internet Explorer and the way Microsoft handles PDF file initiation.

Safari cannot print labels with or without postage from the USPS site. However, Safari works fine through PayPal for example, to print labels/postage for USPS shipments. Occassionaly other web sites are the same. Something in the way IE handles popup PDF files that Safari does not.

Talked to USPS Tech Support about this and the acknowledge the problem, say they are not aware of plans to change it and that they too ack that Firefox works fine.

One compelling reason to get Firefox savvy is to be able to us the US Postal Service web site to create mailing labels with and without postage included. Safari does not work, period. Firefox works fine.

It all deals with how Microsoft/Internet Explorer deals with popup PDF files for printing and the USPS Is totally IE oriented. They acknowledge the problem with Safari and confirm Firefox is a working solution for Macs.

Try control-tab to cycle through open tabs. No need to mouse-click to focus.

I much prefer Opera for the following built-in features:

- Remembers all tabs when I quit and reload the program
- Single-click list of bookmarks down the left side
- Zoom (from menu or with mouse scroll wheel)
- google search from within address bar (also has dedicated Google search field)
- Many more great features

I can't recommend this program highly enough!

There are several programs that I will happily search for plugins to use which dramatically extend the feature set of the app. Most of these are games. None of them is a browser. One reason I love Safari is because it is simple and elegant and does only what I need it to do "right out of the box." I don't want a browser which is a game or a toy and needs me to spend hours looking for the greatest and/or most valuable add-ons. To me that is a colossal waste of my valuable time. So I applaud Mr. Gamet for reviewing these browsers sans plugins. Leave the complexity to the people who are happy to spend all their time digging into the innards and strewing them across the table.

I know the difference between the bookmark bar and tabs, apple + 1/2/3/4... will move you through the tabs. at least on my mac and my pc

Camino is steady, faster, and doesn't hog the system like Firefox. Safari too easily spins beach balls and locks-up due to multiple-tabs or heavy cache. Everyone says Firefox (2.0.0.1) is fast, but I don't see it on dial-up.

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brett_x wrote:
Those aren't tabs, that's your Bookmarks Bar.

I wish that worked in Camino.

Speaking of, I agree, please review Camino if you can. Since I started using it, I've all but given up on Firefox, although I keep it around on the off chance that something won't render in Camino or Safari (I use an older version of Camino that's still compatible with CamiTools). I switched from Safari to Camino because Safari was giving me problems with certain pages not loading when I click on a link - instead, the window and address bar would go completely blank. Maybe it's fixed now, since I reinstalled OS X on a new HD, but I haven't been inclined to switch back to Safari.

The main problems I have with Camino are its poor handling of Flash (CPU shoots up to 100%, everything slows to a crawl), and it may have a memory leak (one of the reasons I switched from Firefox to Safari; not sure if FF still has that leak or not though). So I use a Flash blocker with Camino, and use Safari for sites with heavy Flash and pages that constantly refresh themselves.

Get Camino, try it and review it please!

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Guest wrote:

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brett_x wrote:
Those aren't tabs, that's your Bookmarks Bar.

I wish that worked in Camino.

In Camino, use command-option-right arrow and command-option-left arrow to move between tabs.

Camino also has a problem with streaming QuickTime movies that the developers say is a "bug" in QuickTime, though other browsers seem to handle it well.

If you want great customization out of the box, without plug-ins and extensions, try iCab.

I don't know if this is common or not, but I keep Safari, Camino, and Firefox open at all times. Granted, I am a web developer, so I have a lot going on at any one time, but it's a strategy that works well for me. I blogged about it, if anyone's interested:

http://newfangledtelegraph.com/blog/entry/i-changed-my-default-web-browser/

I agree you are limiting yourself by not allowing yourself to use plugins, especially with Firefox. Post a thread in the forums asking folks for their favorite plugins, and pick the ones that would fit your usage, and have fun with it. Then give us a review.

Plugins are what give Firefox the most flexibility.

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Guest wrote:
I don't know if this is common or not, but I keep Safari, Camino, and Firefox open at all times.

Speaking for my non-developer self, I don't want to have to use different browsers for different sites. That would be like having to use different email clients depending on the email (which I've also done, back in the days of elm and pine on Unix, although I wished I didn't have to). But I do the same thing as you, since it seems to be the only way to view any page without problem.

If Safari were more solid and could render as many pages accurately as FF, it would be my browser of choice, since IMHO Safari handles fonts better than FF and Camino, and FF's widgets are ugly (and Camino's poorer handling of fonts often alters the dimensions of the widgets, particularly pull-down menus).

Firefox does not always print to disk correctly. Often the page is clipped or worse. I read somewhere that this Firefox problem with Adobe PDF is long-standing and unlikely to be corrected, but I can't remember the reason why. Also the URL is printed on the right side of the page. If the URL is long it is truncated, making it impossible to document where the page came from.

Safari under Mac OSX 10.3.9 Panther prints every page properly, unlike Firefox. However, Safari will not print the URL or date or time. That is a glaring defect. I have not used Safari under Mac OSX 10.4 Tiger. Has that defect been corrected?

SAFT adds proper print to disk functionality to Safari. It prints every page with the URL on the left side and no truncation. SAFT also exports a page wholly entire as PDF if needs be. Firefox cannot do that. You don't have to buy SAFT. It will run fine in demo mode. SAFT is overpriced if all you want is the ability to print the URL, but it has other features which might justify the price.

Another feature absent from both Safari and Firefox and every other browser I know of is the ability to save a web page to a single file. Internet Explorer for Macintosh could do that. You could load the page from disk into IE and the links were live, simply click and go. All other browsers save a web page as a collection of separate files. That is messy and confusing. Fine for a developer. Not fine for the user. 2007-03-09 11:47:38 AM

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Paul Jennett wrote:

Another feature absent from both Safari and Firefox and every other browser I know of is the ability to save a web page to a single file. Internet Explorer for Macintosh could do that. You could load the page from disk into IE and the links were live, simply click and go. All other browsers save a web page as a collection of separate files. That is messy and confusing. Fine for a developer. Not fine for the user. 2007-03-09 11:47:38 AM

You haven't tried every browser, as iCab does just that. It gives you the option to save a web page as text (a useful option!), HTML without images (i.e., just the way the page file is saved on the server) and as a web archive with images. THe archive is a single file. iCab is also easy to customize and there is a large collection of themes/skins. Also, iCab is one of few Mac browsers to pass the Acid 2 test. Try that test in your favorite browser. Camino and Firefox don't pass. iCab is one of the few browsers still being developed for OS 9 as well as the latest version of OS X.

That being said, I currently use Camino, in part because it's quite fast to launch and display pages. (The proper way to test a browser's speed, by the way, is NOT loading new pages, but loading pages from the cache or, better, a page with all the files on your internal hard drive. Loading new pages introduces variation in downloading from remote servers.) iCab has suffered in the past from being developed by essentially one person. Camino also suffers a bit from being a "stepchild" of the Mozilla project.

These are simply the best three browsers available for the Mac, IMO: Safari, Camino, and iCab.

I have to agree with the folks who say FF without plugins is like is like a day without sunshine. That’s sort of the whole point of FF. But relative to Camino, which uses the same HTML rendering engine, it is pretty clunky. Folks on the Mac only use FF if they want plugins, or don’t know about Camino.

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Rainy Day wrote:
These are simply the best three browsers available for the Mac, IMO: Safari, Camino, and iCab.

I have to agree with the folks who say FF without plugins is like is like a day without sunshine. That’s sort of the whole point of FF. But relative to Camino, which uses the same HTML rendering engine, it is pretty clunky. Folks on the Mac only use FF if they want plugins, or don’t know about Camino.

Or they may be tired of Camino's continued problems with streaming QuickTime video. The developers say that it's a "bug" in QuickTime, but Safari, Firefox and iCab all do it correctly. Don't get me wrong--I like Camino and use it every day, but I keep Safari, iCab, and even Firefox available. That gives me three different rendering engines (Safari, Mozilla, iCab)--at least one might get a site right!

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brett_x wrote:

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Guest wrote:
You can move between the tabs in Firefox without clicking on them.

just use apple + "1" for the first tab, apple + "2" for the second etc, etc.

Those aren't tabs, that's your Bookmarks Bar.

Brett,

Just an F.Y.I. - that shortcut is for tabs...

I've been doing that since I think firefox 1.0 (maybe a little earlier or later)

I have 4 Mac Obs. articles open right now and I can bounce back n forth between them using those very keys.

It works here, on my mac at work, and at my GFs place on her mac. So please remember, just because it doesn't work for you, doesn't mean it doesn't work for other people.

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Paul Jennett wrote:


Another feature absent from both Safari and Firefox and every other browser I know of is the ability to save a web page to a single file.

Now I notice several people before me have mentioned iCab archive feature. It's great, I've used it alot. I've been using iCab since it first came to the mac in the "old days" when there was basically only 2 browsers - Communicator and Exploder. But if I read your post correctly you were talking about PDFs.

I would suggest you try (the browser) Shiira -

http://hmdt-web.net/shiira/en

It has a feature "save page as PDF" that will save a really long page (like this one) as a 1 page PDF. This is of course different than Print - save as PDF (which gives you a Multi-page PDF)

Or, try (the app) Paparazzi -

http://www.derailer.org/paparazzi/

It also makes multi-page webpages into single page PDFs.

Neither however put the date on them. (sorry not a perfect world, yet... )

HTH

P.S. I have a screenshot if this sounds confusing...

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Paul Jennett wrote:
Another feature absent from both Safari and Firefox and every other browser I know of is the ability to save a web page to a single file. Internet Explorer for Macintosh could do that. You could load the page from disk into IE and the links were live, simply click and go. All other browsers save a web page as a collection of separate files. That is messy and confusing. Fine for a developer. Not fine for the user. 2007-03-09 11:47:38 AM

Opera can also save to a single file. It's one of the options in the drop down menu when you decide to save a webpage. You can then load the saved page from your disk and the links work.

My main complaint with FF is that the program tries to help by putting windows where it thinks they should go! One site I go to I like to open many windows and when I try to put them where I want each one, as soon as I let go, FF puts it somewhere else, often on top of another open window. I will have to drag the window where I want to place it up to 5 or 6 times before FF will leave it there which can become so maddening, I've given up on it for that site.

Pretty much use Safari for everything that it can handle.

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Anonymous wrote:
My main complaint with FF is that the program tries to help by putting windows where it thinks they should go! One site I go to I like to open many windows and when I try to put them where I want each one, as soon as I let go, FF puts it somewhere else, often on top of another open window. I will have to drag the window where I want to place it up to 5 or 6 times before FF will leave it there which can become so maddening, I've given up on it for that site.

Pretty much use Safari for everything that it can handle.

First, potential solutions (try all):

1. Use shorter (not as tall) windows. (See below the ----- for why.) Are you perhaps using windows that are as tall as will fit on the screen?

2. Use tabs.

3. Open fewer windows. (Having a lot of open windows can slow things down a bit, not to mention be confusing.) You might consider a few windows, each with several tabs.

4. Stop using Firefox and use Camino, instead.

(See Charles Moore's excellent comparison of the Gecko-based browsers for the Mac.)

I don't know what's causing windows to snap back into place when you try to move them. I couldn't duplicate that behavior, no matter where I moved a Firefox window, including so that it extended off the screen.) If you are running some "haxie" that modifies the system, try disabling it (or them). (Several times, when I've called AppleCare for a problem, one of the first things the technician asked was if I were running any haxie. I asked one what he would say if I said, "Yes." He said that he'd tell me to disable it and try again.) You might also try disabling any Firefox extensions.

------

In order to explain what is happening, I need to describe what I've seen called stacked or staggered windows. This seems to be the standard behavior in OS X when you open a new window (command-N). (note 1) Each window will be offset to the right and below the one the last window to be opened in the stack (even if it's not the foremost window). That's so that you can see the title bars. (You can try this in the Finder, for example).

A problem arises when the next window would be too low. The definition of "too low" apparently varies a bit. In most Cocoa programs I tried (including Safari and Camino, since we're discussing browsers), "too low" seems to mean that the bottom edge of the window would be under the dock, if the dock is on the bottom. That is good, as it seems impossible to click THROUGH the dock. (Try it with Finder windows.) (note 2) If the dock is on the right or left, "too low" is if the window would extend off the bottom of the screen.

When the next stacked window would be too low, the program should open a new window offset to the right of the previous window, but flush with the top edge of the desktop (bottom edge of the menu bar). In essence, it creates a new stack. (note 3)

Firefox 2 seems to be different in two ways. It apparently always uses "off the screen" as the definition of "too low." Thus, it's possible for the bottom edge of the window (including the resize button) to be under the dock and inaccessible. When Firefox is first installed, the default open window takes up the full useable vertical dimension of the display. (At least it doesn't put the bottom of the window under the dock.) If you change the size of the last window you opened, then quit Firefox, when you launch Firefox the next time, the first window should be have the same size and location as the last one you modified (not the last one you opened).

The other way Firefox 2 appears to be different--this is likely the source of your problem--is that, when the next window would be too low, instead of starting a new stack, it puts the new window right on top of the previous one. That is definitely not standard Cocoa behavior.

Thus, it seems to me that you may be starting out with windows the full useable height of the display, thus triggering the odd behavior almost immediately. Reduce the height of your first window, then open new ones and see what happens.

You might report this to the Firefox developers. I don't know how responsive they are to Mac issues.

Notes:

1. This is not always the case, especially when a window is a document. Some applications allow you to define the arrangement of document windows you open for the first time (including new documents)--tiled, stacked/staggered, always in the same position, etc.

2. It appears that the dock "icons" essentially take up a rectangular bit of the dock. That's good, as it might otherwise be hard to hit an icon with transparent spots. On the desktop, on the other hand, one has to click on some non-transparent part of the icon.

3. In some Carbon programs (e.g., AppleWorks), instead of starting a new stack, the new window/document is offset down and to the right, but is reduced in height to avoid going under the dock.

I agree it's an important convenience to use the keyboard to switch between tabs. There IS a shortcut: control-pageUp and control-pageDown will switch to prev and next tabs.

I don't know how you can surf the net without adblock and flash block, both, as far as I am aware, only available in Firefox!