Safari or Firefox?
So I’ve been using Firefox as my primary Mac browser for a while now. It seemed a little faster than Safari, and it had the huge advantage of developers tools like Firebug and the Web Developer add-on. I can’t live without those. Heck, you can’t even use StumbleUpon properly since Safari doesn’t support toolbars.
But then I noticed yesterday that I had Safari set to run in Rosetta mode — which makes it run as a PowerPC app, necessary if you want to run Shockwave. At least until an Intel-compatible version of Shockwave comes out. So I would run Safari if I needed to view some Shockwave content.
I turned off Rosetta mode and was amazed at how much faster the Leopard version of Safari was. It now blows away Firefox. Plus, Firefox 2 (2.0.0.9 and 2.0.0.10) are really starting to piss me off with their instability. I have to quit and restart several times a day once pages become unresponsive. Typically, this happens when you have buggy Add-Ons. But I’ve had it happen to me even with all Add-Ons disabled.
So, unfortunately, I need to continue to use both browsers. But I think I’ll be using Safari a lot more.
Which Mac browser do you use? Anyone have suggestions for hacks that can bring Firebug-like capabilities to Safari? The Safari debug menu doesn’t seem to have nearly enough.
3 Responses to “Safari or Firefox?”
I also found a great performance jump going from Firefox 2.0.0.x to Safari 3. However, Safari just doesn’t work as a true developer’s browser (like you, I love my web developer toolbar and other fun Firefox extensions).
I did want to let you know that Firefox 3 beta 1 is MUCH better than version 2. It’s faster and, even as a beta, more stable than 2.x. However, none of my extensions work for it…yet.
So, right now, I use Safari for standard web browsing (and testing to the extent that I make sure sites look right in it) and Firefox 2 and 3 for actual development tasks that I need those extensions for. I’m definitely planning on switching back to Firefox 3 once it’s a little further along and my key extensions have been updated.
Yeah, I noticed the same with Safari and FireFox. Safari runs really fast, but I don’t use it because I do A LOT of web development stuff and that is where FireFox’s Firebug comes in handy. Maybe Safari will some day have such a feature. And then maybe everyone will stop using PC’s and using Internet Explorers OR just use FireFox… even if it isn’t stable… the standards at least work
When I’m developing I mostly use Firefox. There are some days that it just eats up so much memory that I can “feel” it. Safari does feel lighter in boot times but I don’t have Plug-ins in my Safari so I’m sure that’s a part of it.
I use Safari for Flex debugging, since I don’t surf with it much so it can crash and I won’t loose articles/tabs I’m reading.
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