Last night I just had it with Safari. I couldn’t handle Safari freezing and crashing on me every time I opened a new tab. Since there are a number of Mac browsers out there, I figured I give them a try and see if I could find a replacement for Safari.

Safari

To start this article off, I figured you should know why I chose Safari in the first place. Well, it was the default browser once I installed Mac OS X, but that’s not the only reason why I came to use Safari. Safari has a great set of common web browsing features right out of the box. It has tabs, an RSS reader, and makes use of OS X features like spell check. Safari also has a number of extensions which add features like drag-able tabs.

Unfortunately, it also has a number of problems. Safari’s rendering engine isn’t completely up to par with other rendering engines. For example, sites like Google Calendar aren’t even usable in Safari. Safari also seems to get bogged down when a number of tabs are open. To make matters worse, Safari’s best extension, Saft, has the tendency to freeze Safari for several seconds on every new tab load.

Firefox

Since Safari wasn’t doing it for me, I figured I’d give my favorite Windows browser, Firefox, a try. Since Firefox is cross-platform, I was already familiar with Firefox’s great feature set. I was also familiar with the hundreds of Firefox extensions that could help make my web browsing experience even better. What I wasn’t familiar with was the number of problems the Mac Firefox has.

To start it off, Firefox for Mac does not exhibit the beautiful Mac OS interface. Firefox’s interface is rather clunky and feels unpolished. On top of that, Firefox’s scrolling speed is horrible on Mac. I’m hoping the problem lies with my hacked OS X version, since I can’t seem to figure out how a Mac user could handle the crawling speed of scrolling web pages. Luckily, if you put the crappy interface aside and can manage to scroll Firefox with ease, Firefox can be a great browser on Mac.

Camino

Next up on my list was the Mozilla Foundation’s Mac-only browser, Camino. Camino takes the power of Firefox’s rendering engine, Gecko, and adds the wonderful Mac OS interface to it. It performs in a similar manner to Firefox, but just adds that Mac experience to it. Similar to Firefox, Camino also has some extension capability, with CamiTools adding some of Firefox’s most popular extension features to Camino.

Unfortunately, Camino also has one drawback. There is no way at all to have a built in spell checker in Camino. That’s because it’s not a feature of Camino, and there is no extension currently which adds that functionality. While this may not be a problem for some, for a crappy speller like myself this is a huge problem. The good news is the Camino team is always working on improving the browser, and they’re looking to add native OS X spell checking sometime in the near future.

Shiira

After experiencing what the Mozilla Foundation had to offer, I figured I’d give some Mac-only browsers a try. Shiira was the first on my list. Like other Mac-only browsers, Shiira uses Mac OS’s built in rendering engine, WebKit. Think of it like the many IE clones available on Windows. Saying that should ring a bell. That means any problems with Safari’s rending engine also affects Shiira. Luckily, Safari’s rendering engine is fairly good, so that’s not too much of a problem. Beyond the engine, Shiira functions much like a beefed up Safari using Saft. All the power functionality is there, without the slowdowns of Safari.

Once again, no browser is perfect. Shiira’s interface really isn’t the best in my opinion. The address bar and the buttons seem out of proportion, leaving a weird feeling in your mind. Other than that, I didn’t find too many other problems with Shiira.

OmniWeb

Last on my list was the power Mac users favorite browser, OmniWeb. OmniWeb is another WebKit based browser, sporting the power functionality of a beefed up Safari. And, when I say power functionality, that’s not an understatement. OmniWeb has more features then you’ll probably use, and takes advantage of many of Mac OS X’s features, making it the most Mac-like browser out there.

You’d think with all the great functionality I mentioned, I would love OmniWeb. Unfortunately I don’t, and that’s because of one feature – tabs. OmniWeb’s tabs are a kind of thinking outside the box approach. Instead of displaying tabs as a horizontal list, OmniWeb displays thumbnails in a sidebar. While this may be a great feature for some, I have limited screen space, and a sidebar tabs list just uses too much of it. Besides the tabs, OmniWeb isn’t free. It costs $30, but is worth the money if you don’t mind the tabs. Just make sure you download the trial version first.

Opera

While Opera is another Mac OS browser choice, I didn’t test it. I’ve tried Opera on Windows several times in the past, and have always hated its interface. Something about it just irks me. So, if you can handle Opera’s interface, I’m sure it’s probably a viable browser alternative.

My Choice

One thing I’ve learned from all of this is no browser is perfect. Each and every browser has some flaw which turns me away. It’s just a matter of finding the browser with the least amount of these flaws, and coming up with solutions to deal with them.

So, with that said, I’ve chosen Camino to my browser of choice. While it doesn’t have spell checking, I can live without it. Sure, I might make spelling errors on some websites, but that’s better than living with a crappy web browser. Besides, Camino might be getting spell checking in the near future anyway.

On a final note, the decision between browser was a very close one. I’m sure if Safari would stop crashing, Firefox would work a little better, Shiira fixes the interface, or OmniWeb adds horizontal tabs, any of of those browsers could easily become my default one. With browser development continue to improve, I’m sure in the near future I will once again be faced with a browser decision, only without having to deal with major drawbacks.