ok, last time…
Seems this blog has turned into to sordid story of fred and his browsers. ^^;; Ah, what the hell, i’ll go with it, at least one more turn.
I’m using Firefox again. Now for the details.
One thing i like about Safari is the fact that the data entry into it is much nicer. The boxes for entering text allow me to check spelling, the little glow around it is nice, and the buttons, while maybe a little too mac-ish (the whole aqua thing) are still nicer than the firefox buttons. Honestly, I do like the feel of it but i don’t like is the fact that you have this feeling you aren’t really allowed to change anything. It’s almost like they are trying to keep you to a particular way they want you to browse. Apple stuff tends to be like this, i think, and It worries me.
I get this creepy feeling that Apple wants to control what my computing experience should be like, because they know what’s best. Sure, its good stuff, but i worry about how hard it can be to tweak some of the core Mac programs. Ya, im sure you can get under the hood and tinker with them, but most people don’t do stuff like that. We need choices, and there needs to be not only lots of options in the preferences menu, but there NEEDS to be alternatives to Mac software. I don’t give a flying fsk about the next great glorious thing Steve Jobs is gonna introduce at the next Steve Jobs Is Awesome Expo… I do NOT want all the software on my machine to be produced by one company. I do not like the closed nature of my ipod. Yes, macs are good stuff, i love mine. They make great stuff, but they need to be careful. If i feel they have too much of a say in how i live my digital life, no matter how nice and comfy their little chains are, I will cut them free (as I hope will many others will). The revolution will be seen as a dictatorship, and that will be the end of it.
And they wonder why they have trouble selling the high end systems. But i digress.
Maybe that’s why i feel at least some need to use Firefox rather than Safari. The problem with japanese entry and the fact that Safari has a lot of trouble auto-detecting japanese sites were the other reason. So, i took some of the advice posted here and went in and removed old instances of firefox, firebird, mozilla and netscape. First i did it on my laptop. Seemed to work great, but the gif problem was still a problem. Tried it on the desktop. The gif problem had gone away. What the hell?
Now, i have seen mention of the fact that the problem only crops up when the screen is set to less than millions of colors. My screens have always been set to Millions of colors. So why the problem? My desktop machine has ALWAYS been set to millions, as has my 12″… or has it?
Of course not. For some bizzare reason, it was set to thousands. Once i changed that, the gif problem went away. I used Safari Bookmark Exporter to pull my freshly sorted bookmarks back into firefox. I installed a few plugins (including the bookmark synchronizer) and i’m going to run with this for a while and see how it goes.
- pirotunes: Hedfunk - Dark Blood -
February 8th, 2005 at 8:23 am
i too used safari before, but then switched to firefox. Partially due to some great extensions like fireftp,adblock and sessionsaver, as well as the ever useful tinyurl. A admit i am an extension hog, yet having complete freedom over how to configure my browser, putting as much functionality as i want, won me over. And the pinstripe theme isnt bad either.
Another thing was the ever useful live bookmark feature. I am rather looking forward to safari rss however.
Frankly though, i am pro choice. Safari is great, but i want more. Now if only gamespot would fix their pages.
February 8th, 2005 at 10:26 am
Normally everyone is too angry with/afraid of microsoft to feel the mac chains. Well, good for you!
Free your self from all constraints.
February 8th, 2005 at 10:30 am
Good luck with that. I’ve mostly gone with Safari due to really not liking how Firefox’s interface looks. However, I discovered the Firefox Developer’s Toolbar the other day… Hmm… Tempting.
February 8th, 2005 at 11:17 am
Good luck with Firefox, you really motivated me to prove it xD
ah! and take care of yourself… you were sick a days ago, so we don’t want you to get sick again…
that’s all!!… Fighto!!! xD
February 8th, 2005 at 12:24 pm
Shiira is basically an open-source version of Safari… and I’m willing to bet it handles Japanese text well.
http://hmdt-web.net/shiira/index-e.html
February 8th, 2005 at 1:02 pm
Wai! the bookmark sync stuff works great (tho i have to use a normal FTP site, not a SFTP like most of my servers are). Luckilly i do have access to one, and it works nice.
When it comes to using one over the other, i think the best thing here and my overall point is - i have a choice, and its a good choice (more than one too, i’ve tried Opera and Omniweb as well - most newer Mac browsers could work very well for me). The fact that i can sway back and forth between the two is a good thing - it comes down to personal preference.
Good stuff. Lets just hope apple stops pulling shit that discourages developers from creating great stuff for the os. They have this bad habit of assimilating things and trying to do everything themselves… whee.
February 8th, 2005 at 1:17 pm
There’s an effort to get firefoxes form widgets (like buttons) to look more like the Aqua equivalants. Here is the page: http://homepage.mac.com/travellers/software/Firefox/aquafirefox_en.html
Note that since I don’t use a Mac, I haven’t tried this myself.
And it won’t change the “skin” of firefox, you’d have to install a theme to do that.
For completeness, here is another effort that looks less complete : http://kmgerich.com/archive/000084.html (although again, I haven’t tried it
)
February 8th, 2005 at 2:35 pm
Did you try a recent release of OmniWeb? As in, the one they’re selling at the moment? It does the spell-checking in its widgets just like Safari, in addition to all the benefits that I and another use have previously mentioned on these forums. Really, if you’re not fully content with Firefox, grab OmniWeb and use it for a week. I’ll almost guarantee that you’ll prefer it.
And, don’t forget that paying for something is not always bad: it generates accountability between the vendor and the customer. If you’ve purchased OmniWeb and sometime down the road discover something that bothers you, as someone who owns a license, you have leverage to get them to change the product. They’re always been responsive to my comments.
February 8th, 2005 at 2:51 pm
actually, i tried OmniWeb 5 several times during the beta, but kept going back to safari/firefox. I also recently tried the release version, but for some reason it was *really* slow on my 12″ powerbook (even after the memory was added). I do like the preview panes, but i wonder if its just more screen space than i have available for me.
as for paying for a web browser, i have no qualms about that - i’d be more than happy to pay for it (and often have for many other small, useful programs - my mac is 100% legit) but i do just prefer the feel of firefox to omniweb at this point
February 8th, 2005 at 2:58 pm
>>
<<
I know nothing about Mac…. ^^;;
February 8th, 2005 at 3:06 pm
grrr. i tried the installer that replaced the firefox widgets with more aqua like ones, and it worked fine… except it did something unexpected - all of my link drop downs have bold text and i think a different font. Gehr. Is there a way to edit that in firefox without re-installing the whole thing and not trying this widget again?
February 8th, 2005 at 3:27 pm
nevermind, i just cleared and re-installed everything.
February 8th, 2005 at 11:13 pm
Ah…the trashcan method. When in doubt, trash it and start over…
Well, it always worked for me, anyway…^.^
February 9th, 2005 at 12:11 am
i kinda feel weird,i use the Saferfox theme for Firefox, cuz i hate ie and the defualt reminded me too mutch of IE…
anyway I dunno if it was a MAC olny problem but you should have been able to the themes menu and just been able to change it back to defualt…..
trashcan method = getting rid of the toaster you broke and buying the same toaster off the shelf
February 9th, 2005 at 12:38 am
>> you should have been able to the themes
>> menu and just been able to change it
>> back to defualt…..
The installer does something more complete than a theme change. It actually changes how firefox renders HTML widgets. (I think it works by overwriting the CSS files firefox uses internally.) Even the project page recomends a complete reinstall if you want it removed.
Sorry if it doesn’t work right, it was just something I remebered seeing from a while back.
February 9th, 2005 at 1:52 am
i am gonna sound completely retarded, but can anyone repost the link to that black and red themed comic. fred linked to it within the past two weeks, i think. (begs)
thanks,
joker
February 9th, 2005 at 2:31 am
that’s Clone Army:
http://manga.clone-army.org/index.html
the one you are prolly thinking of is “Paper Eleven”
February 9th, 2005 at 9:41 am
*laughs* you speak of your browsers the way some rebellious kids speaks about breaking away from their parents restraints. How cute
And firefox 0wnz. You can’t deny that