Comments on: macBrowser – The popularity contest

By: katie

katie — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 11:23:27 +0000

What I was saying is that Safari only supports the basic html gmail view, ie without chat. I have the advanced view in Camino however, with my chat window displaying.

By: Cormac

Cormac — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 10:40:03 +0000

It’s the other way round for me. Safari displays Gmail in full view but without Google Talk in the left sidebar while Camino only displays the basic Gmail page.

By: Katie

Katie — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 20:13:53 +0000

Ah a great review of my boards poll! I wasn’t really surprised by the results I must say, but I was very happy that people started to give Camino a chance after reading the various opinions from users. I use Camino all the time, and certainly don’t have any GMail issues with it. I only find that Safari is not supported, with the basic html view only.

By: Brendanger

Brendanger — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 23:09:21 +0000

I love that Firestats widget – I just pinched it for my own blog. Ignore the Union Jack though, I’m actually in Ireland!

By: Cormac

Cormac — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 23:04:11 +0000

Just noticed that Gmail doesn’t support Camino

By: Paul McCarthy

Paul McCarthy — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 10:21:37 +0000

I haven’t used IE in a couple of years. I just don’t trust it. There’s been so many problems with it in the last few years that I honestly believe that integrating IE into the Windows Desktop was one of the biggest mistakes that Microsoft has ever made.

The Internet has become such a large part of our world, I think it’s only fair that browser developers provide the best browsing experience possible, and that includes providing a decent security models as well.

And that’s only browsing, I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of complaints from web developers about how broken the IE rendering engine is and how they have to code pages for different versions of IE. It’s painful to use, and even more painful to code for!

By: Cormac

Cormac — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 09:41:30 +0000

^
There is a man who is passionate about his web browsing!

I’m using IE6 here in work at the moment and I have to say it’s the most depressing browser in the world ever. It hasn’t changed its appearance in what seems like a decade. It’s an utter disgrace to be honest.

Thank Christ for Firefox and the browser revival it brought. New browsers are popping up nearly every month. Many, such as Flock and Wyzo, are based on the open source Mozilla engine.

And browsers are diversifying into other areas of search. Songbird and Peel facilitate website based music/media search.

Good times.

By: Paul McCarthy

Paul McCarthy — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 00:42:21 +0000

The very first program that I installed on my Mac was Firefox, quickly followed by Thunderbird. I’ve been using both on all my Windows machines for quite a while now, and for me they were the natural way to go when I moved to my Mac.

Before using Firefox, I was a huge Opera fan, and still am, though I have found myself using it less and less. I have used Opera Mini on my Wii, and while the Wii interface is not the best for browsing, Opera Mini does a fantastic job on this platform.

My own stats show that most of my visitors are using IE, though that is mainly down to the fact that a lot of my tech articles are Windows related. (I come across a lot more problems on Windows than I do Mac OS X – draw your own conclusions!)

I have to say that I am impressed with the latest Safari Beta, but for me Firefox extensions are the deal maker. While Safari might render a page a couple of hundred milliseconds faster than Firefox, I much prefer the Mozilla product.

One thing that does gladden my heart, is that not only is there a great choice of browsers available, but that more and more people are becoming aware that they have a choice. Long gone are the days when everyone used IE and the only bastion of choice was Netscape. The old browser wars are dead, long live the new browser wars!

By: Cormac

Cormac — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 23:04:32 +0000

Hi Paul,
A lot of people are complaining about the bloating of recent Firefox releases but I haven’t noticed too much of a change tbh.

I’m not big into extensions though and I would presume they would be the main culprits in any slowdown.

Have you given Camino a spin? It’s not as feature rich as FF but it does the basics a lot better and is the most stable browser I have used on Mac.

By: Paul M. Watson

Paul M. Watson — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:54:28 +0000

If Safari supported Firefox extensions (a tall order I realise and probably with side effects) I’d be using it. It is fast, very fast and a good deal more stable.

In an effort to get my install of Firefox to run faster and be more stable I uninstalled all extensions but it didn’t help much. Not sure if there is leftover files from the uninstalled extensions and a complete install would be better or if Firefox is just that slow these days.

I hope the Firefox guys focus on speed and reliability. Looking at the Firefox 3 roadplan though that doesn’t seem to be the plan. Information broker and all that cool sounding kitchen-sink that was the birth-reason for Firefox out of the bloated monster that was Mozilla browser.

If I was an ordinary Joe surfing the web and not a web-developer jacked into the IV of Firebug, HTML Validator etc. then I’d be using Safari.