Browser Shootout: Firefox vs. Safari On The Mac.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008 | Encore Reviews | Read or Post a Comment

Browser Browsers are like religion. Everyone has an opinion, but only God knows which one is best, and he’s not making it too clear.

If you had to use only one browser on your Mac (or on a PC) which browser would you choose? Safari? Or, Firefox?

This battle of the browsers is not much different than the emotions stirred when comparing Macs to Windows PCs. Which is better? The obvious and easiest answer is, “it depends.”

Apple’s heritage shows all the way through Safari..... (excerpted).

12 Reader Comments

bj said:

Safari has one simple device I think missing in Firefox: you can forward a web page you’re looking at as a url or you can sent the whole page. That is not only useful for the times you want people to see what you’re sending without making them go to the site themselves, but it’s a convenient way of saving and filing web pages with content. I looked through the Firefox ad-ons and couldn’t find any that provided that simple option. Firefox itself lets you save the page or send the link, but not send the page.

sammy safari said:

Safari blows away Firefox. Pages show up faster and better looking. Firefox is just a Winbloz hack on a Mac.

Ray said:

What about comparison in terms of speed? Which one renders webpages faster?

jan76 said:

Bookit is da bomb. Firefox is the dog. I stopped using that piece of Windows crap after version 3 came out. It cannot do anything without crashing or farting or burping. Anyone using Firefox is a moron. Safari is the best browser out there. Firefox extensions are for children and geeks, not browsers.

Larry said:

How can you, in good conscience, even mention “Bookit” here. After several years of the developer lieing to his customer base about Bookit working with FireFox 3 “soon” it still doesn’t work…and he could care less…he put a statement up on his website that basically says this. He states that Bookit is not his day job so and that’s supposed to appease the folks from which he took money?

I’m a registered user of Bookit but I obviously don’t use it because it still doesn’t support FireFox 3. No…there isn’t a good substitute out there for everything that Bookit “used” to do, but when developers treat their customers like this one does…I’m going to take time out of my busy schedule to make comments and posts like this one.

Candy Camino said:

Camino was once a nice project and a good browser alternative. But no more. What does it have that’s worthwhile to differentiate itself from Safari or Firefox?

Nothing.

It’s become a waste of time and effort. Hardly anyone uses Camino these days. For Mac users it’s Safari and Firefox and nothing else comes close.

Stop the pain already. Mozilla folks need to learn to do something worthwhile with their time.

Double Helix said:

What about Camino? This is the Firefox engine written natively for OS X (so far fewer interface issues). OK it has no RSS and cannot use a lot of Add-Ons, but it does provide the excellent compatibility from the Firefox engine, is fast and as easy to use as Safari (it’s like a cross between Firefox and Safari, really). It has excellent flash/ad/java blocking and tabbed browsing, is easily skin-able and the search engine is easily customised. All Mac users should try it: http://www.caminobrowser.org
DH

Ian Orchard said:

Seadog: “Still trying to delete Bookmarks-no joy”
Bizarre! I just added this web page to my Bookmarks menu by clicking on the + button in Safari’s Toolbar, navigated to it via the Open book icon in the Bookmarks bar, selected the icon for this page and tapped [delete]. Gone!!
What happens if you try the same sequence?

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