Journal Domini's Journal: The OS X browser wars.
Looking at the following:
1. Firefox 1.0
2. Safari 1.2.4
3. Camino 0.8+
4. Opera 7.54
6. IE 5.2.3
Evaluated Features:
1. Site Compatibility
5 - Firefox
4 - Safari
3 - Opera
2 - Camino
1 - IE
Not any browser works with all sites, and
every one has it's place. With firefox and
Safari I can do most things.
2. Tabbed Browsing
Safari and Camino supports the best middle
button -> Open in Background TAB options.
Firefox seems to have broken middle button
support in OS X, unless you load funky mouse
drivers (USB Overdrive). Opera can do vertical
tabs (cool!) and is overall the best here.
Firefox has a cool configurable extension and
may even be better than Opera. IE just plain
sucks.
3. Speed + Footprint
Camino is the fastest and smallest.
Firefox is very fast with bigger footprint.
Safari is slow and large.
Opera loads the slowest on certain sites.
IE is the slowest.
4. Integration with OS X
Safari, Safari, Safari. (obviously)
It slices and dices...
Seriously, It supports:
- System-wide keychain access
- System proxy settings integration
- System Spell-checking in input areas (!!!)
- Good mouse/keyboard handling
Next best is Camino, followed by Firefox.
Opera is OK and IE is way last.
5. Mouse features + gestures
Nothing comes close to Opera mouse navigation.
With that Said, Firefox can get plugin extensions
to do most of what Opera touts, but I find this a
pain to install, and it never quite works like
Opera. Safri and Camino follow closely and IE
trails.
6. Application integration and association.
Safari does not pass
iGetter download manager... this REALY sucks.
XML viewing is also sporadic...
anyone shed more light on this can mail me...
My Final Impressions
--------------------
I'll stick with Safari as long as Firefox does
not support proper proxy/keychain/speller
integration. I've gotten the Firefox mouse
handling to be more in line with Firefox on win32
and Camino and Safari on OS X at least.
I'm running both Safari and Firefox at the
moment... I used to run Camino, Safari and IE.
On windows I prefer Firefox above all else...
I hardly ever use IE on any platform. Ever.
The OS X browser wars. More Login
The OS X browser wars.
Slashdot Top Deals