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Mac OS X Browsers: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly. Part 1It wasn’t that long ago that the browser experience on Mac OS X was modest. Wait. I’m being kind. It was poor compared to the Windows experience. Remember, Microsoft embedded Internet Explorer into Windows OS and the Mac version didn’t get updated by Goliath for years. In the meantime, a few other browsers came along and continued to improve. Then, Apple introduced Safari. Here’s a quick look at the browser landscape for Mac OS X. Microsoft Internet Explorer Mozilla For example, Mozilla has a built-in email client, a newsgroup reader, and an HTML editor. Still, Mozilla renders pages well, and the latest versions outperform Internet Explorer. The latest version I have is 1.7.2, although some newer beta versions are out. Netscape While Netscape is generally stable, it’s page rendering is not much faster than Internet Explorer and the over all look and feel left the Mac platform years ago. The price is right. Free. The size of the download is huge. Over 45 megs once you get it on your Mac. That bloat compares to Safari’s less than 14 megs. Firefox Firefox is sweet. Very sweet. It’s lean, fast, clean, uncluttered, and intuitive; both on Mac and Windows. It doesn’t come with bloated features (that are free elsewhere) like email and newsgroup reader. Firefox is fast, often as fast as Safari at rendering pages. Firefox is at version 0.9.3. Camino You probably didn’t know there were so many browsers available for the Mac, huh? I’m about half way through the list. Opera I don’t like Opera. It just doesn’t feel like a Mac application. And it’s crashed a few times (something that’s happening less and less with the other browsers). iCab iCab feels unfinished. The developers certainly aren’t working on a bucket of features. This one is bare bones (my apologies to the BareBones folks who publish BBedit, which is used on the production of this site).
OmniWeb Tabs. Windows. Workspace. Thumbnails (like icons). Bookmarks. OmniWeb does it all well. And fast. Great autocompletion (better than Safari, which I’ve had problems with). Of course, OmniWeb’s publishers, OmniGroup, have been doing Mac OS X development since long before Steve Jobs came back to the Mac. OmniWeb’s newest version is 5.0 and is worth a download. Safari What’s surprising was how quickly Mac users dumped Internet Explorer and took to Safari. Substantial sales of Jaguar and Panther probably helped. So did the price. However, when I check server logs these days, there’s not much Mac Internet Explorer, and there’s lots of Safari. Safari is fast. Some say the fastest browser on the planet (he’s recovering from surgery these days). Usually, Safari is fast. Page rendering is very good and has improved, but it’s not the best. Yet. Safari is also slow handling some heavy Javascript pages. The latest version is 1.2.3. You won’t find many “features” on Safari. It browses well. It stores bookmarks very well. Google search is built in. Still, Safari auto completion gives me some grief sometimes. So does the Safari caching system. Considering that Safari won’t hit version 2.0 until next year means we have some waiting but something good to look forward to. There, that’s the good. Generally. It’s also Part 1. Now you’ll get Part 2. It gets uglier and the browsers get ranked. And you’ll get a chance to vote for your favorite in a browser shootout. Click Here for the results, the ugliest, and the reader poll. Off Topic Note: I’ve updated the Mac360 Store with over 100 new categories—More Macs, more iPods, more Mac books, more software. Click Here and select any category for more detail, or use the handy search function. Whenever you buy from Amazon through the Mac360 Store you help support Mac360. The Store has discounts and special pricing on Microsoft Office for Mac ($125), Apple’s iWork ‘08 suite ($62), and Adobe Photoshop Elements ($70). Where? At the newly remodeled Mac360 Store. Now with more fiber. • Article by Tera Patricks • Published on Thursday, August 19, 2004
• Category: Reviews • 1 Reader comment(s) • Email This • Digg This • Shop Now
« Previously Roundup: Apple's iPod vs. RealNetworks. Is It Over?
Nextly » Apple's Wireless Tablet Mac. Surprise! It's A Sony?
Talk Back to the folks at Mac360 gary diamond says:
Hi, Thanks for all the input. I’m using Camino on a G3 with OS10.4.11. Only complaint is I can’t watch videos except some youtube. Cnn etc news videos show very slowly, choppy and haltered. Once they start I cannot stop them. What’s do you suggest. Be Well, — Posted on Mon Aug 25 at 9:57 am by gary diamond
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