Dumping Firefox. Going to Safari.

By Daniel Miessler on September 21st, 2007: Tagged as Apple | Browsers | Firefox | Safari

safari

I’ve been getting more and more frustrated with Firefox over the months. It’s been getting to the point where I’ve been considering moving to Safari a few times, but I never had the eggs to pull it off.

Well, Ken mentioned today that he’s going make the switch for a whole month. I told him I couldn’t do it because of Quick Searches, and he replied that they probably had that functionality in Safari through extensions by now.

He was right. I just configured my Google and Wikipedia Quick Searches in Safari. Game over.

Safari is so much tighter than Firefox to me, and now that it has THE piece of functionality that matters most to me in a browser (searching websites from the URL bar) there’s just no need to go without Safari’s advantages any longer. We’ll see how it goes… 

  • Eamon Landon

    I use Firefox on my PCs but on my Macs I use Safari. I still have Firefox and Opera on my Macs, but I rarely use either. I just have always liked the look of Safari on OSX vs the others.

    One thing I did notice, Firefox seems to load pages a hair faster. I don’t know why but it does on my machine. But it’s still not enough to turn me away from Safari.

  • Eamon Landon

    I use Firefox on my PCs but on my Macs I use Safari. I still have Firefox and Opera on my Macs, but I rarely use either. I just have always liked the look of Safari on OSX vs the others.

    One thing I did notice, Firefox seems to load pages a hair faster. I don’t know why but it does on my machine. But it’s still not enough to turn me away from Safari.

  • http://anthonyvance.com/ Tony Vance

    What did you use to set up quick searches in Safari? SafariStand? I use QuickSilver to launch quick searches. To me, it takes the concept of a quick search one step further because I can launch a search from anywhere, not just from within a web browser.

  • http://anthonyvance.com Tony Vance

    What did you use to set up quick searches in Safari? SafariStand? I use QuickSilver to launch quick searches. To me, it takes the concept of a quick search one step further because I can launch a search from anywhere, not just from within a web browser.

  • http://jonsnetwork.com/ Jon Robinson

    I switched to Safari a few months after I bought a mac (10 months ago). I tried it out and it isuch more pleasant to use (I’m using the new beta now, which is also nice) and has better integration with the rest of the system. I found it much faster, but that seems to be different for everyone. I still use Firefox for the Web Developer, Search-status and DownThemAll, when I need them.

    I met the guy in charge of the Firefox UI at the Web 2.0 conference. I mentioned that they need to fix the UI on Mac and he said they don’t have any clear guidelines from Apple. It was then I noticed that Safari, Mail.app, iTunes, etc, all have different looks. I guess the Firefox folks haven’t decided which direction to go.

    Daniel, I remember you posted about only using Microsoft kit when using Windows to make sure the experience was what they wanted…you should at least try that out with Apple too.

  • http://jonsnetwork.com Jon Robinson

    I switched to Safari a few months after I bought a mac (10 months ago). I tried it out and it isuch more pleasant to use (I’m using the new beta now, which is also nice) and has better integration with the rest of the system. I found it much faster, but that seems to be different for everyone. I still use Firefox for the Web Developer, Search-status and DownThemAll, when I need them.

    I met the guy in charge of the Firefox UI at the Web 2.0 conference. I mentioned that they need to fix the UI on Mac and he said they don’t have any clear guidelines from Apple. It was then I noticed that Safari, Mail.app, iTunes, etc, all have different looks. I guess the Firefox folks haven’t decided which direction to go.

    Daniel, I remember you posted about only using Microsoft kit when using Windows to make sure the experience was what they wanted…you should at least try that out with Apple too.

  • http://dmiessler.com/ Daniel Miessler

    @Tony

    I’m using SAFT for the quick searches. How do you set them up in Quick Silver? I’ll have to check that out. Maybe that’s a better solution.

  • http://dmiessler.com Daniel Miessler

    @Tony

    I’m using SAFT for the quick searches. How do you set them up in Quick Silver? I’ll have to check that out. Maybe that’s a better solution.

  • http://sitening.com/ Jon Henshaw

    I’ve tried to switch several times, but as a Web Developer I keep coming back to Firefox. I find the Add-Ons that I use to be too valuable. I also prefer Firefox’s keyboard shortcuts (although I’m sure I could mimic those in Safari I wanted to).

  • http://sitening.com Jon Henshaw

    I’ve tried to switch several times, but as a Web Developer I keep coming back to Firefox. I find the Add-Ons that I use to be too valuable. I also prefer Firefox’s keyboard shortcuts (although I’m sure I could mimic those in Safari I wanted to).

  • http://dmiessler.com/ Daniel Miessler

    @John

    What Firefox-specific shortcuts do you use?

  • http://dmiessler.com Daniel Miessler

    @John

    What Firefox-specific shortcuts do you use?

  • http://www.stevengharms.com/ Steven G. Harms

    I actually tried going the FF route post-SXSW ( you coming ? ), and I find the lack of

    type-ahead find firebug

    To be real dealbreakers. The former as it’s incredibly freaking handy, and the latter because I don’t own an Adobe suite ( as i write my web code by hand ).

    Has anyone solved these?

  • http://www.stevengharms.com Steven G. Harms

    I actually tried going the FF route post-SXSW ( you coming ? ), and I find the lack of

    type-ahead find firebug

    To be real dealbreakers. The former as it’s incredibly freaking handy, and the latter because I don’t own an Adobe suite ( as i write my web code by hand ).

    Has anyone solved these?

  • http://jonsnetwork.com/ Jon Robinson

    @Daniel I don’t use any firefox shortcuts, and that is probably why I found it so easy to switch to Safari….

    @Steven I’m not absolutely sure what type-ahead find is, but in the Safari 3 beta, the find function is brought up to speed to Firefox’s.

  • http://jonsnetwork.com Jon Robinson

    @Daniel I don’t use any firefox shortcuts, and that is probably why I found it so easy to switch to Safari….

    @Steven I’m not absolutely sure what type-ahead find is, but in the Safari 3 beta, the find function is brought up to speed to Firefox’s.


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