Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Cool tools, Internet Tools
From Firefox to Safari (and back again)
I realize I may not be your average browser user. As a web developer, a browser to me is two parts daily use, two parts testing, and one part challenge. Since 2005, I've been using Firefox in some form or fashion as both my primary browser and as a testing vehicle.
I had recently started a JavaScript-intensive project, and I appreciated Safari 4's lightning-fast JavaScript execution speeds. In Firefox, I rely mostly on add-ons like Web Developer and Firebug to help me analyze and test for mistakes in websites I build in Firefox. They work great, but enabling them slows the browser down.
That's why I was excited for the updated Web Inspector that comes as part of Safari 4. (Yes, Safari 3 first came with Web Inspector, it couldn't hold a candle to Firebug's Swiss Army knife of an add-on for Firefox.) Testing was easy, and Safari 4's Web Inspector's many improvements made me think I could migrate to Safari full-time.
Read on to see how it went.
The first hurdle I had to overcome was finding ways to duplicate the add-on functionality I was used to (for both web development and day-to-day browsing) in Firefox. Even though Safari doesn't have a formal plugin (Firefox calls them "add-on") system, many exist. I'm not the biggest fan of SIMBL plugins (some might call them Input Manager hacks). They can affect stability in some cases, and operating system updates can render them inoperable. Nevertheless, if I was going to use Safari, I needed it to work the way I worked.
A good reference for the variety of Safari plugins was pimpmysafari.com, which keeps a searchable index of plugins that was very easy to navigate. I found several I knew I would need:
- Saft, a widely-used plugin that we've covered extensively here before, that does a variety of things including tab management and ad blocking.
- DeliciousSafari, a plugin that allows in-browser access to one's delicious.com bookmarks.
- Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks), a tool that let me synchronize bookmarks among Safari and Firefox on both my desktop and laptop Macs.
- 1Password, for password management for all my clients' sites, servers and passwords.
Of course, the list of things that are missing is almost as long as the list of plugins I could find. A lot of functionality included in the Web Developer toolbar for Firefox is included in the Develop menu, but I missed things like object outlining and my treasured "Validate" key combination of ⌘ ⇧ A (cmd-shift-A). I also missed ReloadEvery -- a plugin that reloads a page at a chosen interval: Perfect for liveblogs and checking server status. Also, ScreenGrab: a tool for taking screenshots of entire web pages was missing from the browser, but apps like Paparazzi! and online tools like BrowsrCamp can fill that void in a pinch.
Day-to-day, Safari greatly appeals to me in one significant way: Speed. It's fast and reliable: Not only rendering pages and JavaScript faster, but playing Flash more smoothly than Firefox. Firefox, after I've had it running for a little while (cough several days at a time cough), causes Flash movies and animations to skip or pause during playback. Restarting Firefox solves the problem, but Safari -- when left running similarly -- exhibits none of those problems.
That isn't to say it's perfect: Reader Lou tipped us and said he was experiencing crashiness -- "4-5 times every day," he writes. I can't say the same, but if you're experiencing the same problems, leave us a comment.
As a web development testing platform, Safari is an amazing browser: it's fast, it's easy to use, and Webkit does a great job rendering web pages. The Web Inspector included with Safari 4 is vastly improved, and includes the ability to selectively enable and disable CSS styles, a JavaScript debugger, and a profiler to find where your site is the heaviest. Functionally, it's amazingly similar to Firebug, but arranged differently. It's like having all the same furniture in a new house: you'll bump your shins on the coffee table for a little while until you get used to where your things are.
The shin-bumping, though, began to wear on me. After a week, I was still pining for what I'd lost in the switch from Firefox. In fact, by the end of the week, I found myself running Firefox and Safari side-by-side and using both interchangeably. In the end, in a flurry of frustration, I switched my default browser back to Firefox, and things are back the way they were.
This isn't to say, of course, that I don't test for Safari -- I always have and always will. Coda, my IDE of choice, uses Safari (or more specifically, Webkit) as a rendering engine for displaying web page previews from within the app. Taking the two-pronged approach means testing for Safari from within Coda, and using my default browser to test for Firefox. Testing for IE means starting Windows and using either MultipleIE or version targeting within IE 8.
So what's next? Release candidate builds of Firefox 3.5 are widely available, and they include performance and stability improvements, along with features (already available in Safari) like Private Browsing. All my plugins are compatible with it, so I think I'll give it a try next. Be sure to check back and see how it goes.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Gabe said 9:26AM on 6-29-2009
I have had Safari crash about once daily (light use) since my upgrade on an Intel Macbook Pro 1st Gen. Also, I've noticed Flash Video support is miserable in Safari. Videos are choppy and unreliable. I believe I have the most updated player.
I have also switched back to Firefox.
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Howie Isaacks said 9:37AM on 6-29-2009
Funny... I never have Flash problems with Safari.
shaunisadirty said 10:09AM on 6-29-2009
Howie: Have you never had problems or do you not like to admit that Apple products are not flawless? Because I've noticed you're on of those people...
Tom Waterhouse said 9:32AM on 6-29-2009
I think you hit the nail on the head right from the off, "I realize I may not be your average browser user".
I love Safari for it's fast speed and light footprint on my system, but I don't think I could singly use it for development work. The inspector is beautiful, but not half as useful as Firebug as yet.
I'm quite happy opening Firefox for when I do those dev checks, and Safari for everything else.
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Howie Isaacks said 9:36AM on 6-29-2009
Meh. These browser debates are really tiring. If it's not here, it's on Digg. My opinion is the same: Use what ever browser makes you feel more comfortable. There's really nothing more to debate. I think that Apple has done a kick ass job with Safari, and I also think that Mozilla has done the same. Why not use them both? That's what I do.
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adisor19 said 9:40AM on 6-29-2009
The ONLY thing holding me back from using Safari as my main browser is : Multiple TAB Rows. I have about 45 tabs open at the same time in FF on 3 rows and i need to be able to switch between them instantly. Tab Mix Plus allows me to do this. On Safari, there's nothing yet out there that supports this feature and having all my tabs in 1 row and being forced to use scroll buttons is no fun at all.
Adi
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Randy said 1:48PM on 6-29-2009
Dare I ask?
Why do you have 45 tabs open? What are you doing that requires 45 tabs to be open? Or do you not bother to close them?
Will said 9:43AM on 6-29-2009
Reading your article, reminds me of the requirements I have of a web browser :).
Having only had my mac for 4 weeks, switching from Fedora, I have settled into a routine of Safari for all of my browsing, bookmarks, history etc.
and
firefox, with firebug for development. I still haven't been able to beat firebug even though I spent a good few hours mucking around with safari's 'Develop' menu, and features.
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Alex said 9:50AM on 6-29-2009
I was a die hard firefox user but just recently made the switch and I love it.
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Harvey said 9:59AM on 6-29-2009
I would use Safari more if it didn't have it's own interface different from IE and Firefox. With a few minor exceptions, I can use the same key strokes to navigate the web in IE and Firefox (Mac/Win/Linux), but when I use Safari I always get annoyed when my work flow is interrupted trying to figure out a process.
Is there a plugin for safari to give it a more standard interface (kind of like Safari for Windows has...)?
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K said 10:54AM on 6-29-2009
WTF? Safari has a Mac OS X UI....
Harvey said 10:28AM on 7-16-2009
Yes, it has an OS X UI which is different than IE, Firefox(Mac/Linux/Win), and Safari (Win).
Update: OMFG! I just upgraded to 4.0.2 and standard keys finally work!
No more does the "OS X UI" require me to press some ungodly key combination using [, ], {, and }. Sweet!
Justin said 10:10AM on 6-29-2009
I have Safari 4 crash maybe once a twice a day. It happens when I am casually browsing, nothing intensive. Safari just hangs, and then crashes.
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Joseph said 12:13PM on 6-29-2009
I agree, not a very stable browser.
It is usually when i go to woot.com and click blog. Or am using logmein.com
accolon said 8:56AM on 6-30-2009
Funny thing is, the Safari 4 Beta was very stable for me. The final version however crashes all the time. Sometimes I'm typing inside a text field or scrolling down a page, and Safari simply disappears.
James Donevan said 10:09AM on 6-29-2009
Let's face it Safari isn't intended for the customisation that a web designer needs. Firefox offers those capabilities out of necessity: to attract Mac users who need customisation that Safari doesn't offer. Without that customisation Firefox has no other advantages, and several significant shortcomings (speed and Flash) as pointed out in your report.
Having retired my web designer's cap some years ago, I find a plain vanilla Safari more than capable of steady, heavy duty consumer use. It never crashes and Flash is not a problem. Add a plug-in or two (like Saft) and the crashes begin, rising in frequency in correlation to the breadth of plug-ins being employed.
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David said 10:20AM on 6-29-2009
I too have Safari 4 crash maybe once a day -- although that's far less than the beta version crashed on me. (I also strongly dislike how the thumbnail history feature takes up close to a gigabyte of disk space when I don't use it.)
But Safari is indispensable to me because none of the other browsers appear to support the key commands which are locked into my fingers -- use of Cmd-# to open items in the bookmarks bar. Cmd-1 loads Facebook, Cmd-4 Digg, Cmd-5 Wikipedia. This is so ingrained that when I use other browsers it feels painfully slow to navigate to my frequently-visited sites.
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Wilbur said 11:00AM on 6-29-2009
When upgrading to Safari 4, I had issues with frequent crashes. What worked for me was cleaning up the previous plugins I had with Safari 3.
You can check to see what plugins Safari 4 is using by going to Help -> Installed Plug-ins. In a Finder window, go to /Macintosh HD/Library/Internet Plug-ins. Also check the Library/Internet Plug-ins folder in your user folder. Cross check the installed plugin list that Safari gives you with these folder. If a plugin doesn't exist on Safari 4's list, delete it. I have had no problems since then.
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alex_dlc said 10:36AM on 6-29-2009
the benefits in firefox outweight the ones in safari. safari 4 is not a bad browser, but its hardly customizable at all. im not just talking about the apearence, but also its behaviour. with firefox, you have thousands of ways to make it work and look just how you want it. however, if you find a flaw in safari (it has some flaws, its not a perfect browser) you cant do anything about them. yes, its true, it passes the acid3 test perfectly, but it dosnt feel like thats such a good thing. firefox dosnt pass acid3 test, but i havent found any website that didnt load well. i recently found something really annoying in safari 4, which made me forget about even trying to use it. if you write in forums a lot like i do, and you post a comment or reply, firefox lets you go back without any kind of problem. it even remembers what you wrote. in safari however, if you try to go back after posting something, it will try and send it again! it simply wont let you go back. i quote: "To reopen this page Safari must resend a form. This might result in duplicate purchases, comments, or other actions." i dont want to send it again, i just want to go back!! thats just one of the flaws safari has. and on a sidenote, safari 4 seems to freeze momentaraly sometimes. maybe thats just my mac.
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Scott Whitlow said 10:32AM on 6-29-2009
I have to admit - I absolutely love Safari for my daily browsing. Fast, secure, etc. Just can't beat it for me.
However, as a developer, it is hard for me to get away from Firefox because of Firebug. Especially the little status bar at the bottom right that displays (X amount of errors) when a javascript error happens. Then, I click on it and it tells me what line, etc. that the error occurred.
I know, I know, you can see the same info in Safari if I click on the Develop Menu, then click on Show Error Console, Scroll down through all the "Resource interpreted as other but transferred with MIME type image/jpeg." rendering errors that it found, and then finally find that the last possible few error events at the bottom could possibly be the culprit. However, I just prefer the quick click on the status bar in Firefox and it shows me only what I need and gets me to the error much more quickly.
On top of that, I have to wonder why when I right click to inspect an element in Safari, then I see the code, I cannot select a section of code and copy it so I am able to paste in later? Firefox Firebug allows me to do this with no problems. In fact it lets me right click the code in Firebug, then select EditHTML which allows me to only view that section of the code to copy.
As I said before - I love Safari. But, until the Webkit Inspector comes up to speed with the features of Firebug (which I think it's almost there) I will be forced to use Firefox for development and Safari for my day to day browsing.
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