The First CrabApple: Safari
Posted by JohnnyAppleseed | Under Crabapple, Software Friday Apr 11, 2008One of the “myths of Apple” is that Safari is a better web browser. The Apple folks must believe it; they are pushing it out even to Windows users that simply want to upgrade iTunes. Many of those hard cider drinkin’ boys (our name for the Apple fanboys) seem to believe it also. And we have no problem with anyone choosing a favorite browser from among the many choices available, but we think that such choices should be made with good information. In other words, just because you own a Mac, you should should not be pushed toward Apple software unless it’s genuinely better software.
Now, we will be the first to admit that Firefox 2 was not a sterling example of great programming. It had memory leaks, and crashed a bit too frequently for our liking, but we put up with it for one reason only: Extensions (a.k.a. Add-ons). No other browser has such a vast library of extensions, many of which are genuinely useful. The extensions let us tweak the little things about Firefox, things that are either untweakable in Safari, or that can only be tweaked by using a NON-free plugin. Only in the Apple world would people pay for a browser plugin, but we won’t - however, that’s another crab for another time.
For example, we happen to like the Firefox Tab Mix Plus extension. It gives us much more control over the circumstances under which new tabs are opened (basically we like to have almost everything open in a new tab, so that we don’t inadvertently navigate away from a page we aren’t finished with yet. Try getting that functionality in Safari). Another new plugin we like is Taboo, which lets us save thumbnails of pages we aren’t quite finished with yet, but don’t want to add to our permanent bookmarks.
Those of us brave enough to try the beta versions Firefox 3 have been finding that, starting with about beta version 3, Firefox really is giving Safari a run for its money. It is much faster and more stable. Okay, we hate the new Mac theme that is provided in the Mac version of Firefox 3 (”hate” may be a bit too strong a word, but we sure hope we’re not stuck with it for long - it’s just too dark for our liking), and a few of our favorite add-ons haven’t been updated by their authors yet, but overall it is a much better and more stable browser than Firefox 2.
However, the above might be considered just our subjective opinion - and indeed it is to some degree - but now it turns out that the folks at ZDnet used the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark test to run an actual test to see which was faster. Not only did they report that Firefox 3.0 Beta 5 holds a 7% lead over Safari 3.1, but it also leaves Firefox 2.0.0.12 in the dust.
Now, we will grant that 7% isn’t much of a difference, but then again, it means we can get faster performance AND still use the extensions we love (and did we mention that nearly all Firefox extensions are free?). So tell me, where is the advantage to using Safari? To be fair, we’ve found only ONE, and it’s a somewhat dubious advantage - in Safari, if you highlight a portion of a web page and drag it to the mail icon, it opens a new message that includes the formatted text, plus any images included in the selection. Do the same thing in Firefox and you get just plain text and no images. There used to be an easy solution for that, a Firefox extension called Safari View, but so far it’s not been “officially” updated for Firefox 3 beta 5 (though you can still make it work if you know how). Of course, some people would prefer to only send the plain text of an article, so that may actually be an advantage of Firefox in the eyes of some readers.
We know everyone has an opinion about which is the best browser, so feel free to leave a comment. Comments are moderated and we don’t allow comment spam, so if your comment is more self-promotion than actual comment you’ll probably be wasting your time if you try to leave it here. Otherwise, we welcome comments, even if you disagree with us (as long as you’re reasonably polite about it).
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Thanks for links to Taboo and Tab Mix plus. Big help!
Safari is a non-starter for me. As far as I am concerned it is a great tool for navigating to mozilla.org and downloading Firefox.