I have yet to find anything I like as much as Safari. Firefox needs a major UI overhaul (at minimum the OS X version does), and I find it a little sluggish. Chrome is ok, but I wasn’t crazy about a couple things interface-wise (why are the close tabs buttons on the right?–that’s how Windows should be, but on a Mac they go on the left), and it wasn’t any faster than Safari, which does (nearly) everything I want. For some reason, I also don’t like Chrome putting the tabs above the address bar, although I understand why they did that.
Safari isn’t perfect. I would like more support for add-ons. I think they are mostly overrated, but there are a one or two I could use, I’m sure. I would miss the Top Sites feature if I were on a different browser, but I wish it were snappier to respond. I’m also not crazy about the way Safari handles editing bookmarks, but that’s a pretty rare task.
By the way, Omniscient, it’s a bit of a hijack, but I find your iPhone analogy misguided. To say there is no difference between the iPhone and its competitors except for apps is, imo, to not “get it” in a big way. But I’m one of those people who would never trade more features for a worse user interface. I hate when UI is dismissed as “aesthetics”.
Just curious, why the obscure choices? I’ve never heard of either of these, and quick search didn’t indicate any killer features…in fact to be honest, looking at the reviews and screenshots, I thought: looks like Safari, but uglier and crashier.
So, I conclude I’m missing something. What’s the advantage to Demeter over the big guys?
I understand this. This is the beauty of my analogy though, because my dismissing the iPhones UI and saying it’s identical to the rest is the same as not acknowledging that browsers are different beyond appearances.
ETA: For the record I loathe the iPhone UI but I “get it”. I think the other OSes have stolen the best parts about the iPhone OS and stripped away the negatives while adding improvements. It’s basically what happened to IE.
Chrome. It could just be that Google hypnotized me long ago, but even though the Mac version still seems a bit bare-bones, I love it.
I use Safari to watch streaming videos on Netflix, since they’re not yet compatible with Chrome, and keep Firefox around just for when I need a change. Firefox seems tremendously sluggish lately, though, so I barely use it anymore.
Yeah, I know how, that’s very much like my FF was set up. However if you subtract the status bar at the bottom and the menu bar at the top of your image you basically cut what’s left in half. That’s what Chrome does. Then, when you open tabs in FF they claim more real estate, in Chrome they don’t, they live in the area occupied by the title area in your screen shot.
I recently switched to Chrome after using Firefox. Firefox is slow to boot up; Chome starts immediately. It also displays pages faster.
Though I did use Firefox, it’s clearly inferior to Opera.* The only reason I don’t use Opera is because too many websites aren’t designed for it. Chrome isn’t Opera, but it’s fast, slick, and simple.
I still need Internet Explorer for some web pages, but I haven’t bothered with Firefox since I switched over.
*Opera is where Firefox steals all its good features.
My main browser is Safari, but I occasionally use Firefox, especially for some sites that insist on IE compatibility, which FF does better. Safari has a more minimal interface, which I like. There were some things I didn’t like about version 4, so I tweaked it a bit to get most of the classic interface back while keeping the stuff I did like about the new version. I run PithHelmet, which I find works better and much more unobtrusively than AdBlock on Firefox.
Safari has been faster than other browsers in most benchmark tests for the last couple of years, including a recent test, so I’m pretty sure it’s just a subjective feeling.
Different browsers throw things up differently. I’ve noticed that Firefox prefers to show text and background first, even if text styling and images haven’t loaded yet. Sometimes that makes it feel faster, but sometimes it’s just annoying when it halfway loads, then blips and the whole layout changes as the other resources load. Safari renders most of the stuff and then displays it all at once.
I wish I could use Chrome on my Mac; Firefox has been driving me bananas. But it looks like Chrome is only for Mac OS X 10.5 or later. My OS is too old.
I have Chrome on my Windows laptop and it seems to be doing OK.
I loved the speed and stability of Chrome when I tried it out last month, but I couldn’t browse comfortably without NoScript. As soon as this gross oversight is rectified, I shall switch happily, but not a moment sooner.
a) Rightclick any link ——> open in background window. An absolute requirement in any browser I’d consider using. NOT, I repeat NOT, the same as opening in a background TAB. While browsing the 'Dope or other similarly hi-volume fast-paced msg boards I may open 40-50 background windows after doing “New Posts” and then I go back and read them. 40-50 TABS is immensely unpleasant to work with.
b) I skin my OSX experience, using ShapeShifter, to look like OS 9. Safari, along with some other Apple-branded apps like QuickTime Player, is immune. I just don’t like the look of native OS X.
c) Demeter’s faster to load each link. Dunno why.
d) Demeter has an “Open URL in…” menu item that lets me open current URL in Opera, Netscape Navigator, Flock, Safari, RealPayer, OmniWeb, FireFox, iCab., Devonagent, Camino, Shiira, etc.; when I design for the web, I can go there in Demeter and quickly spawn comparison windows in all my other Mac browsers. (Except X-Window Mozilla and other X-Window browsers which it does not “see”). Admittedly, I could still use Firefox or Safari as my primary browser and still cash in on this feature. And so can you, btw.
e) Better (though still not perfect) support for drag-and-drop any selected text from any website to textclipping on desktop
f) I took an original dislike to Safari and Firefox for not supporting click-and-hold to show contextual menu options for a link, which iCab did, and Shiira did. Back then I browsed more often with a single-button mouse or without mouse using the PowerBook trackpad and monobutton. Demeter actually doesn’t support it either but I never use single-button mice any more and really rarely browser with no attached mouse, and Demeter is actually a Shiira variant so I wasn’t window-shopping for a better browser so much as hopping “slightly to the side” in my switch from Shiira to Demeter.
Anyways, I used Firefox for one overwhelming reason: Live Bookmarks. It’s just a handy way to handle minimal RSS feeds. In particular, I keep my Facebook and Gmail up there.
