Mac User Opinions: Firefox, Apple Scrooge, Spyware.

Few Mac applications are closer to our hearts than email and browsing. The new Firefox now has a healthy following, Mac and Windows. Is Apple shortchanging Mac customers? Who’s watching what you do on your own Mac?

Every week our Mac readers give us more of what they’re thinking. Here’s a sample. Firefox? About 20-percent of all our readers use Firefox and Safari is down to just about 50-percent. That’s a big change. Why?

Mac user “dawoodi” sums it up:

“I’ve started to use Firefox for some things (it works better than Safari or even IE for some of my banking sites.) The biggest niggle I have with Firefox is that it doesn’t use my Mac’s Location settings to get Proxy details.

This means I have to change the proxy by hand every time I move location - a bit of a pain.”

Many Mac users complained about Safari’s speed vs. Firefox (and Camino). Mac user “coogan71” was in the minority of responses:

"I think most of the press concerning Firefox is a lot of....just that:  press.  Most Mac users I know (read: few) are still sticking with Safari.  I think Firefox is nice, but since Safari loads pages faster, and when I can use Saft to boost it’s functionality, Firefox seems more like a distant memory than anything else.”

Writer Jack D. Miller complained about the increasing nickel and diming from Apple. There’s no Firewire cable in the new iPods now. And no AC adapter, either. Jack touched a nerve for many Mac users, most of whom disagreed. But not all.

“Wow. I thought I had drunk the Kool-aid having owned Macs since 1984 but some of you put me to shame.  Some of the new iPods don’t have POWER ADAPTORS!!!!!  WTF?  Losing a dock and a cable is bad enough but no power adaptor? 

Puh-lease Steve.  You don’t think every reviewer of every alternate MP3 player is going to point that out?”

One Mac user north of the US border gave readers a different perspective:

“Good article Jack.  Can anyone truly justify $49 for a ipod mini dock?  $59 for a photo dock? (All in Canadian prices)… $29 for a Firewire cable… How about another $40 for a wall charger?  Or $40 for the silly fabric case that shipped with the 3Gs… Smells like gouging to me. 

Apple makes tremendous margins on the products that they sell… hopefully they can start passing more savings on to consumers for a larger market share, and/or invest more R&D to avoid rushes of 1st gen buggy hardware brought to market (G5 I/O issues, iBook [Motherboards now at revision D], recent bugs in iLife 05)

I know business is all about catering to your investors, and I know 99% of electronics are produced out of east asia, but please…

Apple Store staff don’t make a good wage, resellers are complaining about razor thin margins, and on top of that, think about this for a moment… How many people would feel good opening their expensive G5 iPod and reading “Manufactured in an assembly line for $4.85 an hour by Apple in Malaysia”? 

Congrats to the Apple execs for making a buck, but please; M$ or DELL’s business plans doesn’t hold a candle to $teve’$ money making agenda.”

You’d think the last week of the month was Complaint Week. Here’s one from “wilgomez” though I got the feeling he and Jack are related somehow:

“Jack, thanks for a great article and for tipping us off to price changes at Apple. Yeah, I’m beginning to think we PAY through the nose for the privilege of sleeping with Apple products.

Everytime I turn around they want a little more money for something. The new iPods don’t ship with a charger.  The new iPod photo box does NOT say: “Mac + PC.”

The box now says “PC + Mac.” With no Firewire cable it’s obvious that Apple is going where the money is and is abandoning their Mac users.”

Tera has always recommended Little Snitch because it’s one of only a handful of Mac applications that watch what’s watching your Mac. It checks for outbound “connections” from Mac apps that don’t tell you they’re “phoning home.”

Mac user “jicon” voiced the same concerns:

“What you are seeing can be constituted as “spyware"… it all just depends on what is being sent to whom however, and how you feel about the intrusion. 

In most cases (Apple’s iTunes, Real’s RealPlayer) send back usage stats so they know where they can make improvements to products, or adjust their pricing for additional features. 

Unfortunately I think the Mac had better get an application like BlackIce Defender (Windows only) which allows you to specify what ports you would like a specific application to send traffic out on so you aren’t repeatedly given pop-ups…

That sort of behavior has users inadverently turning off protection during a game of WoW, then forgetting to turn the protection back on.  Another note of clarification:  Windows XP SP2 DOES have a firewall active to block all incoming traffic when is started, AND can be configured to stop outbound traffic that doesn’t have your concent.  XP, and XP SP1 do not. 

Regardless, neither OS has outgoing port traffic traps unless third party software is utilized.”

One of the more interesting facets of the Internet and Mac web sites in general, is that the “voice” of the reader can finally be heard. Sound off. And enjoy.

Check out the daily list of our 9 Word mini-Reviews at NoodleMac, and Kate's daily in-depth Mac software reviews at PixoBebo.