Filed under: Software, Internet Tools
Safari better than Firefox
People are very serious about what browser they use, and I understand why. I spend most of my computing life using one browser or another (my current fave is the Intel optimized FireFox variant). Now, I'm just an average Joe, so you can take my thoughts on browsers with a grain of salt, but Zeldman is a web design wizard. He knows of what he speaks.This is why I found this post titled 'Safari better than Firefox?' so very interesting. Zeldman spends a good deal of time listing all the things that are right with Firefox's engine, but one thing that is very wrong is text rendering. Safari, according to Zeldman and my eyes, renders text much better than Firefox. It is true that Safari is Mac only, so it need not worry about cross platform text rendering, but that doesn't change the fact that text looks very nice in Safari and not so nice in Firefox.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
NotAwesome said 4:12PM on 11-27-2006
Not that it matters for me since I'm still running Panther, but the one thing that's keeping me with Firefox (two actually) is the AdBlock Plus extension and the fact that WYSIWYG editors don't seem to like Safari (Panther version).
The second I need for work, but the first is essential. All those Flash ads and crap drive me crazy.
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Dan said 4:14PM on 11-27-2006
Safari > Firefox,
Shiira > Safari,
Therefore, Shiira > Firefox...
I agree
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Sean FInn said 4:33PM on 11-27-2006
I am using Camino right now (mozilla engine, i believe) because it supports all the Web 2.0 features better than Safari. I am basing this off of Netflix and Gmail, which are the Web 2.0 sites I use most often. I also have some issues with a credit card site when using Safari.
However, based on my non-scientific observations, Safari seems faster and cleaner loading. It also does a better job of stopping popups and I love the bookmark/password sharing that Camino doesn't offer.
If Apple updates Safari (or Google and Netflix fix whatever is not allowing Safari to work), I'd gladly go back to it.
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Si said 4:43PM on 11-27-2006
I just noticed how much better some images appear in Safari than in Firefox (in particular some of my own photos). I *think* this might be because Safari pays attention to the embedded colour profiles (or something like that). Whatever the reason, for some photos the difference is pretty dramatic. For example, have a look at the following (both taken on a Nikon D50 in RAW and exported from iPhoto):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32896740@N00/300352238/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32896740@N00/300348622/
I was pretty shocked when I saw how unsaturated my photostream looked like in Firefox...
Si
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Mikek said 5:01PM on 11-27-2006
Safari > Firefox,
Shiira > Safari,
OmniWeb > Shiira
Therefore, OmniWeb > Firefox...
I agree ;-)
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John S. said 5:13PM on 11-27-2006
I am serially monogamous with web browsers. I'll use Safari for a time, then I run across some website that doesn't look right, a control that doesn't work the way it's supposed to, or a form I can't fill in. So I switch to Firefox and use it for a while until I find a website it can't handle. Then it's on to Camino ... OmniWeb ... Shiira ... and back to Safari. No browser seems to work 100% for all sites, and none inspires such intense loyalty that I am willing to forsake all others.
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PhilG5 said 5:15PM on 11-27-2006
i think there is one browser that unites the best of both worlds: Camino! with the CamiTools freeware extension, it is the best browser i have ever used. it's fast and very well made. it's still under heavy development so there are a few rough edges. i can encourage everbody to give it a try. i also think zeldman should have compared safari to camino because it's a cocoa-based mac-only browser.
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Jeremey Barrett said 5:17PM on 11-27-2006
@Si, yes Safari (or CoreImage beneath it) correctly supports color profiles and AFAIK it's the only browser platform to do so. Which pretty much removes all others from contention for me... it's unacceptable to have wrongly rendered images... I find it difficult to imagine why Mozilla has ignored this given the number of things they've gone to great lengths to do right.
I believe any of the WebKit-based browsers should work the same in this regard.
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JHFarr said 5:38PM on 11-27-2006
The beauty of Apple lies in the integration of innovative hardware AND software. I would never, ever, EVER consider using any browser but Safari. I don't even have to try anything else, unless I need to access a site that won't play fair with Safari.
I'm even a Web developer, among other things. Small potatoes, but still. Safari, Mail, whatever gets bundled with OS X, that's for me. I never have to give it a second thought.
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Mikek said 5:38PM on 11-27-2006
Si and Jeremey, If you load up a few web browsers with a sample image and then look at the image with the DigitalColor Meter Applications=>Utilities you will see a pretty wide difference in the color rendering even in WebKit browsers. I know I was frustrated for quite some time because I was trying and failing to get the output of my 1d to display properly in these various browsers. It really kills you when you jump over to a PC and find that IE, Firefox, and such are even worse. My 2 cents. BTW the lord nelson is great image to make these comparisons with. Take Care --Mike
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Paul said 5:45PM on 11-27-2006
i swoon for safari!
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Scott S said 5:48PM on 11-27-2006
Safari likes to stall out for some reason when i'm browsing. its getting really annoying. it will just spin and spin and never pull up the page. firefox will! :P
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Alex said 5:57PM on 11-27-2006
I think firefox is great, but since switching to Mac early last year, I haven't used it except to test pages. Safari is so much faster on my machine (iMac g5, 2 gig ram,) that there's no contest. I do have the g5 optimized build BonEcho, but it's still a slug compared to Safari.
Safari blocks every popup I've ever encountered, and it works everywhere I've tried. Yeah firefox has a ton of nifty extensions, but I was never interested in them to begin with.
I would use firefox on windows no problem, if I used windows anymore.
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Macskeeball said 5:58PM on 11-27-2006
Safari lacks the features I need (most notably FlashBlock), and Firefox doesn't fit in with the Mac very well. Out of the box, Camino is lousy, but coupled with CamiTools, CaminoSession, GrowlCamino, CaminIcon, select bookmarklets (JavaScripts stored as bookmarks that have the ability to act-on the current page) annd the browser-independent RSS Menu, it becomes a very nice browser indeed for the power user.
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This is Me said 6:06PM on 11-27-2006
Another vote for OmniWeb.
http://www.omnigroup.com/omniweb
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systemsboy said 6:07PM on 11-27-2006
Yes, but Firefox actually works with the majority of sites, where Safari often fails to do so. I guess it's a matter of priorities. Personally, I'm much more interested in my browser properly handling forms and web apps than I am with minor differences in text and image rendering. I can't do half the things I need to do with Safari. I can with Firefox. If images look a little washed out, I can live with that.
Oh, and the differences between Safari and Firefox text appearance are so minimal (I have FF set to use Helvetica Neue) that you'd have to be an anal graphic designer to even notice or care. Does Safari look better? Yes, a bit. Does it work better? Unquestionably, no.
Firefox is by no means perfect. No browser is. But my life has been significantly better since I switched.
-systemsboy
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Kellsworth said 7:01PM on 11-27-2006
Give me a live page search and i'd use Safari more often. A find button is for chumps.
But I use different browser for different things. I like how Firefox handles RSS bookmarks, and I use Safari or Camino for my, *ahem*, adult themed searches.
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Joel said 7:09PM on 11-27-2006
Cairo gfx just got checked in on the development trunk, and I'm using a freshly built Camino. This should begin to fix the text rendering issues talked about in the article.
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Baz said 7:21PM on 11-27-2006
Firefox 2.0 here.
Adblock Plus and the newly tweaked Tab Mix Plus added and absolutely essential. Kill off the ads and make sense of the tab features of the browser, like a click on a Bookmark opens a new tab and double-clicking the tab kills it. No keystrokes to recall or additional buttons or part of the bar to click first.
Toss in CookieSafe to block unwanted cookies and the product is far and away more user-friendly than Safari.
Rendering isn't an issue here so far, but there is no one browser (or web standard) that makes rendering foolproof.
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Justin said 7:32PM on 11-27-2006
I dunno I use FF. I read the article and some of the comments so I fired up safari and compared. I opened some pics in flickr then I looked at some sites with lots of text like slashdot and some others and I didnt notice any difference at all. Oh well I'll be sticking with FF for a long time. Unless apple does something really radical with safari in the future.
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