Browsers

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  • acescence0

    I use Safari for the reasons you state, it's fast, developer tools are great. The only thing that really bugs me about it is that animated gifs slow it to a crawl, but obviously that's minor, who uses animated gifs anyway? Chrome is great as well, some UI bits bother me though. I could get used to it I suppose. Firefox gets used strictly for testing, it's just way too slow these days. I've never really given Opera much of a chance, maybe I'll check it out again.

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    • stewdio

      I'm operating on a Mac, so this is from a Mac perspective. (Specifically OS X 10.6.2 Snow Leopard.) I was just playing with the new Opera 10.5 beta and although this is not necessarily news I was inspired to wax browsers. What are you using? What do you like?

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      Safari 4.0.4 (6531.21.10)
      http://apple.com/safari/download…
      My favorite browser. Apple's Safari was the first big browser built on the open-source WebKit project (years before Chrome) and it's fast. It handles HTML5, and in fact is the only browser that handles running multiple HTML5 audio instances to my satisfaction. JavaScript executes speedily thanks to the SquirrelFish engine. The built-in WebKit inspector makes developing and troubleshooting a snap. It's frequently updated too, so when new features come to HTML5 you'll probably see them in the WebKit nightly builds instantly and Safari soon after.

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      Chrome 5.0.307.11 beta
      http://google.com/chrome
      Google Chrome is also built on WebKit (because Google decided it had no qualms about bending over Apple and ruining their board relations over the phone, browser, and OS markets) so it comes with many of the benefits of Safari. I see a lot of interesting interface design elements in Chrome like the all-in-one address and search bar, the top-tabs (which actually debuted in Safari 4 beta, but were removed for Safari 4 final), the vanishing status bar and so on. I don't think it's surpassed Safari yet, but it is certainly nipping at Apple's heels. The JavaScript V8 engine is quick. Annoyingly, the HTML5 audio support is crap when it comes to multiple instances; sad for Browser Pong. When I see this browser on other people's machines it's usually skinned. I don't understand why. Browser skinning seems ridiculous to me. Like fancy graphics on a skateboard. Why? It's ugly. Real skateboard design is about the weight, width, tension, resistance, etc of the board, right? The paint is the stupid part. Similarly, why splash paint over a good UI design?

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      FireFox 3.6
      http://mozilla.com/firefox/
      What a slow beast. I used to be such a fan, built from the ashes of Netscape (Mozilla) via the open-source Gecko engine. Now in addition to looking ugly it just feels heavy and bloated, always nagging about updates at inappropriate times. But it does handle HTML5 audio much better than Chrome, so that's something. What's with the pastel design theme on their site that's in total contrast to the actual look of the browser? And again, why the ugly skins? I'm really happy this thing took a chunk out of Internet Explorer's market share back when it seemed all was lost in the browser wars, but seriously Mozilla, pick up the pace here. And make better interface choices. I want to like this browser again!

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      Opera 10.50 Beta
      http://opera.com/browser/next/
      This new beta version of Opera is looking very promising. It's not totally refined yet, but it's the first time I've found myself seriously looking at Opera in a long time. The top-tabs with visual previews are nice. The WebKit "Top Sites" feature has made it in. (Opera runs on its own proprietary Presto rendering engine.) This new beta release makes me curious. I would love to see a final release worthy of some real attention. Browser competition is always a good thing.

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      Internet Explorer
      Ha. There's no Internet Explorer for Macintosh silly.

      stewdio
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