I’m not sure I’m ready to ditch Firefox. In fact, on my home system I have no need to. It does everything I need and is reasonably fast and responsive enough.
But at work it’s another story. Because at work I’m relegated to using old, outdated PPC hardware. For most of the work I’ve been doing lately — mainly programming and web development, of all things, which mostly amounts to the editing of various kinds of text files — this has been perfectly adequate. Where I suffer most is in the browser. Firefox, whose functionality and flexibility I love, just dies a horrid death on slower kit. And this has me looking for alternatives at work.
Chrome is out, of course, because it only runs on Intel boxes, and for some reason it always crashes my home system in serious ways I don’t understand. So I’ve been steering clear of it, though I do like it a lot in theory.
But Safari 5, with its new extensions functionality and its blazing speed, offers hope. I started off as a Safari user, but ended up moving to Firefox way back when I needed certain web app functionality that broke in Apple’s browser. But, over the years, Safari has matured. Safari 5 looks to be a possible contender for my main browser, especially at work. But since it runs well on both PPC and Intel Macs, I could also, theoretically, use the same setup across machines.
So I’ve decided to spend the day using Safari — and only Safari, no Firefox allowed — to see how she fares. So far, I have to say I’m impressed. Many of the features I simply can’t live without have already been mitigated by the appearance of extensions. There is already an extension for restoring your browsing session after a relaunch. Nice!
In addition, I’m also enjoying some extensions that I don’t have on Firefox. Namely Gmail Checker, which keeps a button in my toolbar to notify me of any new Gmail. I like this a lot!
Gmail Checker
I’d be surprised if there weren’t something similar for Firefox out there, but a quick search doesn’t yield quite what I’m looking for.
Anyway, I published my initial observations on Safari 5 last week. Here are some more after using it exclusively for a day.
What I Like:
- Fast! Even with many many tabs, and on PPC hardware, Safari 5 ususally stays very responsive.
- Keyboard commands work great.
- Extensions really improve functionality and there are lots already. I’m using:
- Safari’s Autofill is pretty nifty and I’ll use it because it uses Keychain, which I trust. Though I do prefer Firefox’s ability to remember only usernames, and not passwords by default.
- Gmail Checker is fantastic. It lets me keep Gmail closed — before I always kept it open in a tab — while still allowing me to stay on top of new emails. This means I don’t have to constantly check the Gmail tab, since I’m always looking at the browser and the indicator, a bright red badge, is readily visible from any tab and the button opens Gmail when you want it. It really cuts down on the distraction of email and helps me focus on what I’m doing. A very unexpected perk. I find myself thinking about — okay, obsessing — far less about email.
- So far all my web-apps work just fine.
- I’m really enjoying having a native browser again.
- I’m looking forward to being able to use some of the built-in OS features like the dictionary and text snippets.
- I also like the fact that Safari supports h.264. I feel it’s the wave of the future.
- I really like Safari’s built-in Developer functionality. It’s much better integrated than Firebug for Firefox.
What I Don’t Like:
- So far there’s very little I dislike about Safari 5.
- One thing I’ll miss at this point is Firefox’s Delicious functionality, which originates from a very nifty plugin that allows the browser full access to your Delicious bookmarks. I’ve really enjoyed this, but I find myself using it less and less. And it’s very possible we’ll see this sort of thing in Safari now that there are extensions.
- What I’ll miss most will probably be Firefox’s Sync (nee Weave) plugin, which allows you to sync your bookmarks, tabs, passwords — everything and anything in your current browsing session — to the cloud and across computers. At home but need a tab you had open at work? No problem; it’s synced. It’s very nice.
- I also sympathize with the Mozilla crew on the h.264 front. I agree with them, philosophically, on the matter. But the practical fact of the matter is, h.264 is here now and it’s very good. There simply are no good alternatives. While I understand Mozilla’s point, and I almost feel that they have to stick by there guns on it because it’s who they are, I worry that it will ultimately render Firefox obsolete. Still, part of me wishes Firefox could win on this issue.
- I may miss AdBlocker somewhat as well, though to be honest, I only used it to speed up Firefox’s shoody performance. So I may not even need it much in Safari.
- I also vastly prefer the way Firefox handles a very large number of tabs, which is to allow you to scroll though them. While probably not a deal-breaker, for someone like me Safari’s implementation can be limiting form time to time.
- There are little things I’ll miss, like the ability to keep the download window closed when initiating new downloads. Just little niceties.
But so far, I have to say, I’m enjoying using Safari as my main browser quite a bit. I have yet to run into any serious limitations, and that’s the main thing. Will I switch over completely? It’s too soon to tell. But I might, and that’s big progress for Safari in my book.
In fact, things have gone so swimmingly that I’m extending the experiment. I’m now trying Safari as my primary browser for a bit longer, and I’m trying it at home on my Intel hardware as well.
Just one note on that front: I did a very unscientific speed test of the two browsers, at home, on my fast, relatively new Intel MacBook. I tested launch and quit speeds for each browser with two tabs open, my Gmail and my Netflix queue. Firefox took a full 30 seconds to completely finish loading both tabs at launch; and it took a perplexing 12 seconds to quit. Safari launched and loaded both tabs in about 13 seconds — less than half the time it took Firefox — and quit nearly instantly, the only thing slowing it down being the confirm dialog at quit (which you can turn off). These are major speed gains, and it’s here that Firefox has always lagged. If the features have gotten good enough in Safari, I may well switch. Only time will tell.
Either way, I’ll keep you posted.
ADDENDUM: Today I performed the same tests on Firefox and Safari and both browsers performed much better. Both Safari and Firefox were able to launch and load their pages in about 7 seconds, and both quit immediately. I’m not sure what the difference is between today’s tests and yesterday’s. Perhaps there is something funky with my account or my computer. Perhaps our Internet connection was slower yesterday. In any case, I think it’s still fair to call Safari the faster browser, particularly under adverse conditions. And when those conditions exist the difference can be fairly pronounced.
14 Comments
Rather than using a Safari extension for Gmail notification, why not use the most excellent menu bar app Gmail Notifr.
Open source, very full-featured, and works very well with a minimal CPU and RAM footprint.
Yes, I have used menubar apps that essentially do what Gmail Checker does, but in the menubar. For some reason I always end up ditching them.
I know one problem I’ve had is that they launch as login items, and — again, especially on my slower CPU — I’ve really tried to keep my login items to a minimum for performance reasons.
There may be other reasons I’ve disliked the menubar version of these things, but maybe I just didn’t have the right one. I’m going to give Gmal Notifr a shot and see how it works for me.
Thanks!
-systemsboy
Gmal Notifr takes zero CPU when it’s not checking and it’s got a user-adjustable checking interval.
It’s a no-brainer unless you’re severely RAM constrained, or unless you’re menubar space restrained.
(Not to mention that it handles multiple gmail accounts, and that you might want to know about new messages even when Safari is hidden or non-activated.)
Don’t forget that Safari is using CPU cycles to handle those extensions, and given that webkit javascript rendering is always more CPU intensive than smartly coded native code, well, you can do the math…
Yeah, I’m trying it right now and it’s pretty good. Also has the advantage of working even when there’s no browser running, which is nice. And it does seen to be very lean in resource usage (which I don’t think was the case with others I’d tried in the past). I barely notice when it loads at launch.
I’ll let you know how it goes for the long term.
-systemsboy
Oh, BTW, are you a Firefox or Safari user?
-systemsboy
“Oh, BTW, are you a Firefox or Safari user?”
Neither. OmniWeb. All praise be to OmniWeb.
Since OmniWeb has handy site-specific prefs, I surf with Javascript and Plug-ins turned off by default. This means I can have 100+ open tabs, and have my browser using 0% CPU once the pages have been initially rendered. That’s the killer feature to me. Keep tabs open for weeks, if you know you want to get around to them later on.
When I need to use a site that requires Javascript and/or plug-ins, I either enable those CPU eating features in a site-specific fashion in OmniWeb (like your site, for example, since I need Javascript to post), or more often use a handy keyboard Applescript trigger to simply launch my current OmniWeb page in Safari.
For a few often used web apps, I create SSB’s using (outdated Mozilla-based) Fluid.
Firefox has never turned me on, since OmniWeb lets me easily do what Firefox extensions let those users do, so I use Camino for those few modern Mozilla oriented sites that Safari can’t handle.
I frankly hate web apps, since they eat up so much more of my precious resources than native apps, and try to avoid them whenever I can.
—–
I’m still on Safari 4, since the Safari 5 upgrade changes all kinds of system frameworks, and I tend to wait a week or two before doing any such upgrade, to wait for the problem reports to work through teh internets to my consciousness.
Wow. Quite a workflow… That is. Um… What’s the word I’m looking for… Oh, right.
Psychotic!
Actually, I’ve considered using OmniWeb, because it does have a plethora of cool-sounding features built in. But the learning curve was always too steep for me. There’s all these features, but I never have time to really learn them all.
*sigh* Maybe I’ll take another look, since I do seem to be in browser evaluation mode.
Killer features for me seem to be in the categories of bookmark management and syncing between computers, but this is likely changing. (I still really like Firefox’s Sync plugin, though, and any switch will definitely force a learning-to-live-without-it scenario.) Sometimes I feel I’m constantly reassessing how I use the browser. This is probably pretty common for us system-folk.
Yeah, everybody hates web-apps, but they’re sometimes a necessary evil. There was a time when I had no choice but to use a bunch of them (don’t know if you remember the Panassas days? Oy!) and at that time Safari just didn’t cut the mustard. To this day I can barely stand to utter the words “network appliance.”
Anyway, I’m going to go download OmniWeb now. But I’m not sure how far I’ll get with it. It’s awfully sunny out.
-systemsboy
OmniWeb first impressions:
LOVE the per-site settings, and the built-in ad blocking. Those’re pure genius. HATE the tab implementation. I forgot how much that bothered me. Not sure I could ever get used to vertical tabs. They’re fine in theory, but, I dunno, they just rub me the wrong way.
Workspaces are cool, but they may be too complicated for daily use. This was a feature I remember wanting to like but never being able to use regularly because it was too complicated.
The built-in bookmark sync jazz looks pretty nifty as well. It’s amazing how much coolness Omnigroup has baked right into this browser.
I doubt I’ll switch, but I’m willing to give it a try for a few days.
OMG, just discovered this form editor pop-out window. Very cool! I’m shocked at how much thoughtfulness went into this browser. Is there anything it can’t do?
I’ll try it for a few days and see if I can deal with those godawful tabs.
Cheers!
-systemsboy
“Because at work I’m relegated to using old, outdated PPC hardware.”
Are they punishing you for something? I mean – why? It sounds just cruel to me.
Good luck!
Yeah, they beat us too. It’s horrible.
Anyway, thanks.
-systemsboy
I just realized that OmniWeb solves a major issue with how I tend to use the web. One thing I do a lot is open a window and fill it with a shitload of related tabs. Say I’m researching motion control shoes. There’s a window open with a bunch of tabs with shoe info in them. Then I open another window, with another set of tabs on another topic. I like to keep these windows open, sometimes for a long time, until I’m done with my research. But this means that every time I reopen my browser it takes, like, half an hour to open and load all those tabs in all those windows. This is part of the reason I’ve been looking for a faster browser. I use a LOT of tabs.
OmniWeb’s workspace feature, which I know I poo-pooed earlier, is the solution to this problem. It lets you save a bunch of tabs as a workspace for later access. This means you don’t have to load all those tabs at launch, but you can access them at a later time when you need to. It’s tab storage, and I just realized I’ve needed tab storage for a long, long time.
I keep discovering ways in which OmniWeb is a very good choice of browser for me. Possibly the best.
But I still have two major beefs: 1) OmniWeb has no way that I can find to reopen an accidentally closed tab; 2) I still hate the tab implementation. The tab thing I can learn to live with, the accidentally closed tab thing, I’m not so sure.
Still, it’s looking like a browser war is brewing in my future. Or my present. Or something.
Thanks, Chucky, for, as always, providing some new insight.
-systemsboy
It also now occurs to me that this tab storage problem could be just as easily addressed with “Bookmark these tabs…” As much as OmniWeb appeals to me, I’m still leaning toward Safari as my mail browser. It just feels better to me.
Ah, but now I get the feeling I’m just talking to myself. Expect a post on all this sometime in the not-too-distant future.
-systemsboy
For replacing AdBlocker, I recommend Safari Adblock. I’ve been using it for a few days now and it feels very solid and reliable.
Also, I usually have between 40 and 80 tabs open in Safari. While I used to have a strong dislike to restarting Safari (or especially reboots), Safari 5 feels *a lot* faster in this situations so I’m pretty happy now.
Yeah, I just discovered that a couple days ago. So far it seems to work well.
Thanks!
-systemsboy