Last night I stumbled on a very well thought out article by John Gruber of Daring Fireball. John Gruber presented the argument that while Firefox 3’s Mac interface is an improvement from previous versions, Firefox is still faking the Mac experience.
I have to agree with John whole-heartily on this issue. Firefox 3 is generic cereal; while it may look like the name-brand cereal, the taste is horribly off. Firefox belongs on Windows, and I don’t think Mozilla can ever hide that fact.
Why Even Use Firefox?
That got me thinking, why should anyone use Firefox on the Mac? I mean, Safari is quite an amazing browser for being the default Mac browser. Safari has a mind-blowing user interface, is completely standards compliant (arguably better than Firefox), loads blazingly fast, and even includes some kick-ass web developer tools. Well, I think I have an answer: no one cares about that stuff.
The Voices in My Head
People have been trained over the years to despise Internet Explorer and embrace Firefox. I don’t think most people even know why they hate Internet Explorer; they’ve just been told by some geek in their life that Firefox is better and they should use that. When they make the switch to Mac, that sub-conscience kicks in and they feel the need to use Firefox.
Yesterday, my brother approached me and told me he hated Macs. Baffled by that statement, I pushed him for some reasoning. It turns out his school Macbooks have a really old version of Firefox (1.5) running on Leopard. There must be some bug in that configuration because the keyboard always freezes up on him. After hearing his reasoning, I simply told him to use Safari. He quickly responded, “Safari sucks”. Again baffled, I pressed him for a response. He couldn’t come up with one; he just assumed that every operating system’s default browser sucks and he should use Firefox.
I look back now, and when I first made the switch to OS X in 2005, I had the same knee-jerk reaction. Of course, back then Safari did kind of suck, especially on pages with heavy Javascript, but still; Safari was no where near the level of crappy-ness as Internet Explorer. I just assumed Firefox was the correct browser to use without ever giving Safari a try.
A Win-Win Situation
So, I’m not really sure what to make of this. Firefox certainly has a purpose on Macs; to offer an alternative, familiar experience to Windows users, while satisfying the power-user. And, Safari certainly has the short end of the stick; with many switchers passing over an amazing browser for a recognizable name.
I guess the true solution to this stalemate is just to be happy. I mean, this is a web geek’s dream. For once, people are using standards compliant browsers in mass numbers. The movement has become so noticeable that Microsoft has been forced to raise the bar on standards in Internet Explorer 8. A Mac user can’t go wrong; either option is a good one, and in the end as long the page displays correctly, that is all that should matter.
14 Comments
I care about standards compliance, but not in exchange for security. What browser automatically executes scripts that are inside archives? Safari. What browser let hackers in in last year’s PWN 2 OWN? Safari. This year’s? Safari. Safari also doesn’t have nearly as many extensions as Firefox.
Now I can give a list of reasons I think Macs suck. Hardware-wise: they run too hot and the single-button-touchpad thing sucks. Software… universal menubar, over-reliance on the mouse, no option for focus-follows-mouse, no way to keep a window on top when it’s not focused, no way to shade a window, greatly restricts your ability to customize your user experience, docks make already-short screens (ie widescreens) even shorter and are bad for usability because shortcuts to files all show the same icon instead of a preview, can’t hit delete to delete a file from directory…
I was almost about to drop Firefox on my Mac. Luckily a found an amazing theme which made my 3.0b5 installation of Firefox look 99% like Safari. Here’s said theme: http://www.takebacktheweb.org/ Yummy is the one you want.
You are right, Firefox for the Mac is more of an afterthought and done hastily after the Windows version was completed. However, I wish Camino was more actively developed, but I have to say, Camino does handle Unicode slightly better, especially with RTL based languages. Especially “sub-characters”, I am unsure of the correct term. It is usually when there is a character above/below another character, but not like an umlaut in a Latin based language.
Anyways, Camino renders it properly while Safari does an equally abysmall job as Firefox does on Windows. Now while you said Firefox belongs in Windows, I have to say, it performs equally as, if not better in Linux.
I can’t really speak on behalf of Mac, but I must admit that Firefox dominates on linux in my humble opinion…similarly, I find firefox lacking a bit in Windows and would much sooner choose Opera over IE or FF…granted, I havent given FF3.0 a spin on Windows just yet, so that may sway me a bit…
The browser wars are kind of irrelevant to me…as long as I can middle click, fast/speed dial, tabs on bar…etc. Right now, my only complaint with FF is that I cant middle click the tab bar for new tabs (like in Opera), and in Opera - I can’t middle click the back button like in Firefox…Those things aside - 6 to 1 and half a dozen to the other.
Sometimes I wish I had the money to burn to buy a Mac though - just to try and understand the fuss…
Double click on the tab bar in FF opens a new tab.
For me, my reasons for not using Safari are pretty much the same reasons Gruber doesn’t use Firefox: small little things that are huge for me. I feel all the “non mac-like” comments he made have equivalent arguments against Safari in different areas. It feels like people have always loved to bash firefox for not being “mac-like” and just continue for the sake of it. I feel like this was a relevant argument previously, but not with the v3 release. Also keep in mind that 90% of his arguments can be nullified if you only use one window to browse (which I do).
1. Tab switching via keyboard works about 50% of the time in Safari. This makes me want to throw my computer out the window.
2. Safari’s form autocomplete pisses me off. It seems to be at odds to how I fill in forms.
3. Safari crashes constantly for me. (this is definitely completely relative and has something to do with how you browse; I know lots of people with opposite problems)
4. Recently closed tabs is HUGE. So is restoration of tabs after crash.
5. Extensions: Firebug, Adsense notifier, Pagerank display, Screengrab, Web dev toolbar.
6. Find-as-you-type via “/”
From my perspective my question is: why should anyone use Safari on the mac?. Both are good browsers, but I just see no advantages to using Safari over Firefox (unless you’re talking FF2 vs Safari 3). And unlike most people bashing browsers, I have tried using Safari extensively. Since Safari 3 was released I’ve used it almost solely for browsing. Unfortunately this past week I switched back because I’m sick of constantly cursing at my browser.
Not to mention the fact that the web is simply a richer place without Safari. Many websites disable Javascript functionality due to it’s track record of js compliance (just browse Netflix for an example of how severe it can become). With 3.1’s latest breakage of Prototype’s
document.getElementsByClassNameyou’ll also find that dozens of websites seemingly don’t work like they should. Without the ability to run multiple versions of Safari on one machine, as a developer you just have to give up and say: screw Safari, I can’t support something I can’t test.Very true, but KDE and Gnome both try to emulate the appearance and functionality of Windows, so Firefox does perfectly fine in those environments.
I’m fairly certain I’ve seen an extension in the past that allows middle click tab creation in Firefox.
Hmm, I never really thought of it that way. I do have some horrible memories of previous Firefox versions on Mac and that may cloud my judgement.
Never been an issue for me.
Agreed, but I have since switched to 1Password and don’t find this to be an issue anymore.
Yeah, I tend to have the reverse problems. Whenever I’m working on a client site in Firefox, Firefox always loves to beach-ball up on me.
Safari by default has a History > Reopen All Windows From Last Session. If you want undoing of closed tabs, Saft handles that just fine with Command+Z.
The new Safari 3 inspector functions just as well as Firebug / Web Developer Tools. For screengrabs I just use Paparazzi! and everything else lives on my dashboard.
I didn’t know about that once, and it’s kind of cool, but is Cmd+F that hard?
I use Firefox all the time as well. It’s my main browser when I’m working thanks to all the extensions, but I could never see myself using it for leisurely web browsing anymore.
True, but that’s become less of an issue recently. All of Google’s services now work fine in Safari, and almost anything which is newly launched has support for Safari (ex. GameFly’s new queue browser).
I don’t know about that. Running multiple versions of Safari hasn’t really been an issue for me. Almost anything that works in Firefox works just fine in Safari. And besides, most Mac users automatically receive Safari updates, so support of older versions hasn’t really been an issue.
That’s about the only true statement you made. And I agree, an extension API would be great for Safari. But there’s still a couple great benefits, namely blazing fast render times, and being the most standards compliant browser on the market.
Where’s your proof of that? Vista runs MUCH hotter on my MBP. OSX runs quite cool. Granted, it does have the newest Penryn chip, which is smaller, but OSX’s power management is optimized for specific hardware, making it run much more efficiently than any non-Apple PC out there. Where’s my proof? Well on my MBP running OSX, I get about 4.5 - 5 hours of battery life. On the same machine with the same battery running Vista or XP in Boot Camp, I get about 3 hours. Also, every non-Apple laptop I’ve ever used ran much hotter than my Apple laptops.
Right. Because it makes so much more sense add needless buttons than to just have one button and add a modifier to change it’s functionality. That’s pretty much the motto of all non-Apple products. “Just throw as many buttons and stickers on as we can so people think they’re getting their money’s worth”. What a joke. I used Windows and two button mice/trackpads for about 12 years, and after using a one button version for about a month, I would never go back. Usability is not about having a button for each function, it’s about finding the simplest and more efficient use of the tools available.
You must not know much about usability, because a universal menu-bar is one of the single greatest advantages in usability that OSX has. A menu-bar is not specific to any Application, because every application has them, and most are almost exactly the same. So in what world does it make sense to give every application a menu bar, rather than use a single standardized UI component that will always be the same place, and thus be much quicker to locate?
You’re joking right? I could easily stop using the mouse altogether on OSX if I had do. Macs are pretty much pioneers of keyboard shortcuts. Also, it’s got a UNIX backend, so the terminal on OSX is in an entire other class than the command line in Windows. I’d like to see a Windows user go 5 minutes without using the mouse.
Why on earth would I want my focus to be jumping around to whereever my mouse is? However, in Leopard, I can scroll unfocused windows with my mouse by moving over them. It doesn’t bring them into focus unless I click on them. Sounds about right to me. Works amazingly well when writing code, and trying to follow an API doc.
False. VLC does it. Video > Float on Top. It’s up to the developer to implement that. Buch the functionality is there.
Relative to what? Tell me how Windows or Linux is more customizable, and I’ll tell you why you’re wrong, just like I have for every other so-called “point” that you’ve made.
Windows has a dock. KDE and Gnome have docks. They just don’t call them docks, and they’re about 100 times uglier. What could be better for usability than quick access to your most used programs and files? Files don’t all show with the same icon. Text files have a text file icon, Movies have a movie icon, etc. Why would I care if it’s an accurate preview? No one on earth has vision good enough to make out details at the size anyways? All I can about is that I know what type of file it is, and when I hover over it the file name appears. OSX does both of those.
You’re right. I have to hit Command-Delete. It’s sooo hard pressing 1 extra key, and in the process eliminating inadvertent and accidental deletes.
In closing, you should probably do your research a little bit before spewing out false and misleading information about a platform you obviously have no real experience with. There’s a reason the Mac sales are growing so fast. People are starting to realize that the myths people like you spread are just that, myths.
Ron,
Have to agree that Safari rules on Mac, but I couldn’t live without Firebug.
Firefox is a must for development, since almost the entire Linux and a good chunk of the Windows community use it. And Firebug … I couldn’t say enough about how wonderful that extension is. I forget how I did any sort of AJAX without it! Since Macs are great for development in general and web development in particular, I don’t think this is a trivial issue by any stretch of the imagination. Sure, I could fire up Parallels and run Firefox there, but I appreciate the work the Mozilla team is doing to FF in OS X just for that reason.
In addition, a lot of “custom” sites (like my wife’s online classes for her degree) don’t support Safari. While this sucks, I understand why it is and I appreciate that they at least support FF. I think most Mac users could get along fine with Safari, but having FF there as a great competitor and a different option for such things as I mentioned above is very much worth the effort in my opinion.
johnny
Well, Safari runs on less than 10% of available desktops. Why get comfortable with such a limited piece of software when Firefox is available on every modern desktop platform? I run Ubuntu, I run Windows, I occasionally run Mac. I use the Foxmarks plugin and my bookmarks are then available on any computer I am using.
Firefox may be “faking the Mac experience” but in reality, most people are more interested in a genuine web experience than some genuinely Mac fanboy experience.
Cheers,
-danny
@Danny
You do realize that Safari is available on Windows right? I think that might make your 10% figure just a little bit incorrect, haha.
@james:
No, Safari isn’t available on Windows. Some bug-riddled software that doesn’t even render the same as Safari has been called “Safari” by Apple and is available on Windows.
I use Firefox and can’t stand Safari. I’m on a Mac. It’s the little things that make me like Firefox better, in addition to having easier to learn features. Hell, Safari won’t even Maximize.
Safari crashes for me on any page using Google image ads that are actually Google Flash Ads. A bunch of websites I use don’t fully support Safari. Plug-ins/Add-ons that I use aren’t available in Safari. I don’t like Firebug…it slows everything down massively in my experience. Besides, Web Developer does a ton more for me. Safari doesn’t support a lot of the JavaScript that the other browsers do…so it’s a pain in the ass for me to support in my code. Tabbing straight up sucks in Safari. Why the hell can’t I tab to links or dropdowns?
Oh, and if someone can tell me how to access the Window menu via a single keystroke that’d be quite superb. Nobody has been able to show me that one yet. That means I need to use around 12 keystrokes to get to another window using the Window menu in Firefox, and about 19 in Safari.
hi, i have just been trying firefox 3 and i think it is much better than ie7 it has not crashed for me once , but ie7 does it all the time . i am getting a new imac this week so i will try safari and if it is better i can not wait. regards John
What a lot of senseless garble. You obviously haven’t “used” firefox. As in take advantage of “all” it’s functions. There’s still no comparison to Firefox and I gave Safari a fair trial, I really did try. Biggest let down is auto filling login fields.
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