Why would anyone wants to install four different web browser on a single machine? Well, there is one who would do that... yah, me lorh. =p
Internet Explorer 6
Firefox 2
Opera 9
Safari 3.0 Beta
The new addition to the set of web browsers I am using is the recent released Safari 3.0 for Windows.
A quick look at the features, you'll find the usual ones which are becoming the standard "must-have" in web browsers:
- Easy bookmarking
- Pop-up blocking
- Integrated search bar
- Tabbed browsing
- Build-in RSS
Safari also has some other unique features which I shall not elaborate here, you can read it here. However, I will compare some of the differences in the features between these browsers. I will not be discussing about Internet Explorer as I am not using the latest IE 7.
Add-ons - Firefox comes with a rich set of add-ons (extensions and skins) which makes it highly customizable. And the add-ons keep growing thanks to the open-source community. Ironically, I had used one of the Safari skin on Firefox sometime back!
Tabbed Browsing - The close-button [x] of the tab for Safari is curiously located at the left side of the tab, instead of right for Opera and Firefox. Perhaps that has to do with Apple's slogan "Think Different". I find the Firefox tabs most useful as it allows tab focus by having mouseover the tab (but you have to set the time before focus correctly, otherwise it can be quite a nuisance), and options to lock and undo closed tabs. Opera shows thumbnail of the tab and details of page when mouseover tab. It also has the undo for closed tabs in the form of tab trash.
Loading bookmarks folder - Firefox freezes hopelessly when you try to load many bookmarks in a folder (say... 30-50?). You must be thinking, why would anyone want to load so many bookmarks at one time?! Well, I do. lol. But I must admit using a RSS reader is a better option. Anyway, Opera loads the bookmarks better. You can still browse the tabs which were loaded while the rest continues to load. Eh I don't think Safari has this feature. Is there?
Home button - This is also curiously missing from Safari. Instead, you can find a Bug button to report any bugs found. Is this the same for Safari on Mac or just for this beta version? As I mentioned previously, Opera's Home button is cleverly hidden within the address bar.
Integrated search bar - All three has this feature. However, Firefox allows you to add in more search engines to it. Eg. I have added search for Javadocs, Lonely Planet, Wikipedia, Code Project, IMDB, Javaworld, Bittorrent, Webster, etc. It makes search very convenient.
Address bar - Most browsers will give suggestions based on history. Safari also gives suggestions based on bookmarks. I suspect it searches the bookmarks of other web browsers as well, cuz I have no bookmarks in Safari.
Download status - Opera has a neat way of presenting the downloads in a tab. Both Firefox and Safari has a pop-up window to show the status. However, there is a great extensions in Firefox, Download Status Bar, which display the download status in little buttons, for each file, on the status bar. It shows the percentage of download completed through a progress bar and you can launch the file downloaded by double-clicking it, in which it will promptly disappear.
Session saving - All three browsers let you recover the tabs when the browser crashes unexpectedly. In Firefox, there is an extension that allows you to explicitly save the tabs when you close it properly. This is very useful when you open many tabs and want to open them again next time. Opera will save the tabs automatically. Both of them will prompt if you want to restore or start new sessions next time you launch them. Safari should consider adding this to the next version!
Auto spelling check - Remember the wiggly lines beneath the wrongly spelled words in MS Word? Firefox has this in-built spell-check feature. And when you right-click, there are also suggestions for the correct words. I find this feature really neat when I blog!
Rendering of fonts - Opera and Firefox uses standard Windows rendering for fonts. However, Safari sticks to its Apple font rendering algorithm.
In Internet Explorer 6,
In Firefox 2,
In Opera 9,
In Safari 3.0,
The Windows rendered fonts are crisp and clear. The same fonts are blur in Safari. I found out the reason for the differences in font rendering in this Jeff Atwood's article. I think it is really personal preference. I prefer the crisp Windows font rendering.
Performance-wise, I can't tell much different between them (tho' Apple says Safari is 2x faster than other browsers... I wonder which versions did they use for comparison). I prefer Firefox. Sometimes, I will switch to Opera (especially when I load many bookmarks hah hah). I have stopped using IE 6, unless the stupid page (which I have to visit) fails to load properly on Firefox or Opera. It is also useful to load the same page on different browsers to see whether there is something wrong with the site or the browser. As for Safari, I think I will not use it until they fix the serious security bugs. Oh BTW, another bad news, the AJAX version of Yahoo! Mail does not support Safari on Windows. I guess it'll be quite a while before Safari gets a foothold on the Windows web browser market share.
Internet Explorer 6
A quick look at the features, you'll find the usual ones which are becoming the standard "must-have" in web browsers:
- Easy bookmarking
- Pop-up blocking
- Integrated search bar
- Tabbed browsing
- Build-in RSS
Safari also has some other unique features which I shall not elaborate here, you can read it here. However, I will compare some of the differences in the features between these browsers. I will not be discussing about Internet Explorer as I am not using the latest IE 7.
Add-ons - Firefox comes with a rich set of add-ons (extensions and skins) which makes it highly customizable. And the add-ons keep growing thanks to the open-source community. Ironically, I had used one of the Safari skin on Firefox sometime back!
Tabbed Browsing - The close-button [x] of the tab for Safari is curiously located at the left side of the tab, instead of right for Opera and Firefox. Perhaps that has to do with Apple's slogan "Think Different". I find the Firefox tabs most useful as it allows tab focus by having mouseover the tab (but you have to set the time before focus correctly, otherwise it can be quite a nuisance), and options to lock and undo closed tabs. Opera shows thumbnail of the tab and details of page when mouseover tab. It also has the undo for closed tabs in the form of tab trash.
Loading bookmarks folder - Firefox freezes hopelessly when you try to load many bookmarks in a folder (say... 30-50?). You must be thinking, why would anyone want to load so many bookmarks at one time?! Well, I do. lol. But I must admit using a RSS reader is a better option. Anyway, Opera loads the bookmarks better. You can still browse the tabs which were loaded while the rest continues to load. Eh I don't think Safari has this feature. Is there?
Home button - This is also curiously missing from Safari. Instead, you can find a Bug button to report any bugs found. Is this the same for Safari on Mac or just for this beta version? As I mentioned previously, Opera's Home button is cleverly hidden within the address bar.
Integrated search bar - All three has this feature. However, Firefox allows you to add in more search engines to it. Eg. I have added search for Javadocs, Lonely Planet, Wikipedia, Code Project, IMDB, Javaworld, Bittorrent, Webster, etc. It makes search very convenient.
Address bar - Most browsers will give suggestions based on history. Safari also gives suggestions based on bookmarks. I suspect it searches the bookmarks of other web browsers as well, cuz I have no bookmarks in Safari.
Download status - Opera has a neat way of presenting the downloads in a tab. Both Firefox and Safari has a pop-up window to show the status. However, there is a great extensions in Firefox, Download Status Bar, which display the download status in little buttons, for each file, on the status bar. It shows the percentage of download completed through a progress bar and you can launch the file downloaded by double-clicking it, in which it will promptly disappear.
Session saving - All three browsers let you recover the tabs when the browser crashes unexpectedly. In Firefox, there is an extension that allows you to explicitly save the tabs when you close it properly. This is very useful when you open many tabs and want to open them again next time. Opera will save the tabs automatically. Both of them will prompt if you want to restore or start new sessions next time you launch them. Safari should consider adding this to the next version!
Auto spelling check - Remember the wiggly lines beneath the wrongly spelled words in MS Word? Firefox has this in-built spell-check feature. And when you right-click, there are also suggestions for the correct words. I find this feature really neat when I blog!
Rendering of fonts - Opera and Firefox uses standard Windows rendering for fonts. However, Safari sticks to its Apple font rendering algorithm.
In Internet Explorer 6,
The Windows rendered fonts are crisp and clear. The same fonts are blur in Safari. I found out the reason for the differences in font rendering in this Jeff Atwood's article. I think it is really personal preference. I prefer the crisp Windows font rendering.
Performance-wise, I can't tell much different between them (tho' Apple says Safari is 2x faster than other browsers... I wonder which versions did they use for comparison). I prefer Firefox. Sometimes, I will switch to Opera (especially when I load many bookmarks hah hah). I have stopped using IE 6, unless the stupid page (which I have to visit) fails to load properly on Firefox or Opera. It is also useful to load the same page on different browsers to see whether there is something wrong with the site or the browser. As for Safari, I think I will not use it until they fix the serious security bugs. Oh BTW, another bad news, the AJAX version of Yahoo! Mail does not support Safari on Windows. I guess it'll be quite a while before Safari gets a foothold on the Windows web browser market share.
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