Recently in Web Browsers Category
I accidentally noticed today that my recent WebKit nightly 31667 passes ACID3 test flawlessly.
Kudos to WebKit team for their great browser!
For a while, I have been switching browsers on Mac on a daily basis.
1- Safari is a very nice and polished browser, but has major problems with internationalized pages and crashes once in a while. Does not support plug-ins. Not my preferred browser at all. Excellent for simple searches and general web browsing. However, the development builds (Webkit nightly builds) shows there are numerous improvements I hope we see soon in next releases.
2- Firefox was my favorite browser in windows. But in OS X it is far from perfect. Its very slow, and is a different beast in comparison with other OS X softwares. It is excellent to have all those nice plug-ins I had on Windows, here on a Mac. Firefox in OS X is very slow and is no way like its windows version. Firefox is a software which is designed for Windows, not for Mac.
3- Camino is the little sister of Firefox, using the same engine with a Mac interface. It is something between Safari and Firefox. So far I had the best web browsing experience with this browser on Mac. However, It is almost as unstable as safari. And no plug-in support. But its very fast and feels much more like a OS X native software than Firefox.
4- Other browsers including Opera, Shiira, SeaMonkey, ... . I would suggest you do not waste time on these browsers (on Mac). They seem to lost their goal. People want to enjoy web browsing. I really don't want to switch from one browser to other on my daily browsing journey.
The first thing I did after I finished installing Gran Paradiso Alpha 2, was checking if it passes Web Standard's ACID2 test, and unbelievably it did! And I was amazed to see it really passed the test!
The release notes says the browser is now completely standards compliance. Great!
There are other improvements that affect Mac version that I haven't tested yet.
Firefox has done it again! It just crashed while I was submitting a lenghty post on "Future of PDAs". It always crashed when you need it!
Someone give me a better browser please? Does any good web browser exist at all?
Update: Firefox 1.5.0.2 released to address some stability and security issues.
As of March 2006 my favorite Firefox extensions include:
1- Adblock - Everyone loves this extension!
2- Filterset.G Updater - The ultimate companion for adblock.
3- PDF Download - When I click on a PDF, I don't really mean to open it in my browser!
4- Tab Mix Plus - A good session saver and Tab feature enhancement
5- Image Zoom - The name says it all
6- Customize Google - Adds more features and privacy to Google search output
7- Window Resizer - If you have big screens, you will miss seeing webpages in 1024x768
8- Copy Plain Text - If you hate seeing HTML styles while pasting from webpages to your docs
9- Chrome Cleaner - Cleans up theme/extension dumps from your browser and makes it faster
10- IE Tab - IE is evil. But sometimes you need it. Remember WindowsUpdate!
I was using this trick for a while, and I wonder if people out there are using Firefox Quicksearch feature except for Google searches.
As a System/Network Administrator, I have quite a few handly utilities which I use in a daily basis. These utilities include (but not limited to) ping, traceroute, whois, nslookup and dig. My idea is to make use of these utilites on web, using Firefox Quicksearch and DNSStuff.com. So I can use these tools directly from my web browser's location bar.
As an example, to create a "ping" Quicksearch, go to dnsstuff.com, find the input-box for ping utility, right-click on it and select "Add a Keyword for this Search". Once the "Add Bookmark" shows up, enter "ping" as both Name and Keyword inputs. To test your new Quicksearch, enter "ping yahoo.com" in your location bar and THAT'S IT!
So do the same for other utilities you like, as I did for Traceroute, Whois, nslookup and many more utilities. My other favorite Quicksearchs include RIPE Whois search, RFC Search and OpenRBL Search.
There are unlimited possibilities using this feature. And this trick was from a Networker point of view. Now figure out what more you can do with Quicksearchs.
I started loving the new Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 (after all those Deerpark releases). Altough I call it super-unstable. Its quite easy to make it crash. Just go to flickr.com and refresh your page several times.
Despite the unstability (which is negligible for a Beta release), I love the new features, like the ability to move tabs. Its not a brilliant idea at the whole, and I wonder why no one have ever thought of this feature.
I also like the new UI changes like new options window (needs more improvements), as well as the menu-mouse-over trick. Its just getting more and more like IE. And last (but not least) feature I love is the new improvement they made in back-forward navigation speed.
The rendering engine also seems to be improved a bit. You can just see yourself how better it renders the Acid2 test page.
While Firefox comes with a lot of almost useless extensions, I use some of them repeatedly. You guessed it!
The best Firefox extension out there. To me, its impossible to surf web without it. Brilliant idea. As the authors best describes this piece of software:
Adblock is a content filtering plug-in for the Mozilla and Firebird browsers. It is both more robust and more precise than the built-in image blocker. Adblock allows the user to specify filters, which remove unwanted content based on the source-address.
I managed to setup an almost comprehensive block list for adblock, based on my webbrowsing experience. Using this list you can block most of annoying web ads and scripts.
To use this list, download and save it as a text file, then import it to adblock (Tools->Adblock->Preferences->Adblock options->Import filters). Make sure you append this list to yours, instead of overwriting your list.
The name is self-describing. SwitchProxy is an extension that lets you organize all your proxy servers. The best feature of this extension is anonymous browsing:
The SwitchProxy tool now has an Anonymous Proxy feature. An anonymizer uses a list of proxies that it randomly switches between at defined intervals. Many people used anonymizers to sheild their IP address and protect themselves from hackers, online tracking, havesting and other website snooping techniques.
I've tested many other extensions, like IEView, Tabbrowser Preferences, Forecastfox, ... . But most of them are not very handy, while they render your browser stable. I personally don't like loading my browsing with too many extensions that I may use them once in a month.
And it is why I was using Mozilla 1.7 for past couple of months.
FireFox 0.9 crashes on complicated pages which has flash animations and too many pictures. It happens on two of my computers. (Yes, I double checked the setup. It happens with and without plug-ins installed).
Goodbye FireFox for now. I love Mozilla 1.7.2.
Aren't you experiencing what I experienced?
You know it's out for public test before the final 0.9 realease.
I have only one thing to say: The new theme is aweful. It's not a Windows theme. It doesn't feel like a windows theme. Qute was way better.
Firefox team is making their own decisions without listening to the community. At least, I think so.
iCapture lets you see your website in as a Mac user sees it through the Safari. That's very useful if you are creating a website using your PC and you want to know how it looks in a Mac.
On the other hand, if you are a Mac user and want to know how does your website look on a PC, ieCapture is your pal. Not only IE (5.01,5.5 and 6), it lets you see your website with Mozilla Firefox as well as Opera.
Mozilla 1.7 beta has really impressed me by its features and performance.
Though its a beta, but its very stable and I haven't discovered any bug yet. I like the new icon set and finally the "Smooth Scrolling" feature. It also feels much faster in terms of launching and also rendering web pages.
If you are interested, there is a long changelog available.
If you are still using IE, I strongly recommend you using Mozilla or FireFox. The reason is that IE is getting too old and Microsoft is not interested in updating its browser to support cutting edge technologies. My weblog, for example, looks much cleaner in non-IE browsers, despite I am using standard XHTML and CSS2 features. Its time to switch.
