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    Browser Choices?

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by wang259, Jul 24, 2006.

  1. wang259

    wang259 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hi everyone, I just made the switch from pc to mac and bought myself a MBP (very happy with my purchase btw). I am, however, very inexperienced with macs, so I downloaded firefox just like I had on my pc. To my horror, it was incredibly slow, and then when googling around, I read some articles that said firefox was a lot slower on Macs. I'm just wondering what browser everyone would recommend because I cannot stand slow web browsing. Thank you in advance.

    P.S. While I'm here, can anyone recommend me some good sites to familiarize myself with the OS X operating system? maybe some useful hints / tweaks that a lot of people do? anything is appreciated. Thanks again.
     
    wang259, Jul 24, 2006
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  2. gridtalker

    gridtalker Notebook Virtuoso

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    I use firefox and opera.
     
    gridtalker, Jul 24, 2006
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  3. Underpantman

    Underpantman Notebook Virtuoso

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    I use firefox and safari, both get the job done....do notice abit of a delay evey now and then on the iMac g5....but all in all both are heaps better than IE
    a
    :)
     
    Underpantman, Jul 24, 2006
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  4. Wooky

    Wooky Notebook Evangelist

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    There are some nice options for OS X available. Safari is pretty good and runs pretty fast, and the only thing I really miss from Firefox is an adblock feature. I tried Shiira, which is webcore based and has some nice-features that Safari lacks, but overall looks less polished than Safari.

    Make sure you're running an Universal binary version of Firefox. You might also try Camino, which uses Gecko (Firefox rendering engine) but is completely Acqua-based. And there is Opera, which is a pretty good browser, perhaps the fastest of them all. Again, I only miss ad blocking capabilities.
     
    Wooky, Jul 24, 2006
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  5. cashmonee

    cashmonee Notebook Virtuoso NBR Reviewer

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    I use Firefox, just as fast as my PC's version. Like Wooky said, make sure it is the Universal Binary that you have. I also use Camino on occasion, it is a really nce browser and it optimized for OS X.
     
    cashmonee, Jul 24, 2006
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  6. zadillo

    zadillo Notebook Virtuoso

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    Yeah, Firefox definitely shouldn't perform so slowly. Heck, I am on a junky old G4 Cube (with a 450 MHz processor and 768 megs of RAM), and Firefox still performs pretty quickly even on that.
     
    zadillo, Jul 24, 2006
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  7. xbandaidx

    xbandaidx Notebook Deity

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    I would have to agree with the original poster, I have the latest version of firefox that is universal, and it's slow, it takes about 5 seconds+ to load it up, I don't feel like the code has been optimized yet for Universal, merely just altered so it just works.

    Safari is what I use now, the ad block is has built in is wonderful, as well as the simple one click to turn on private surfing. The only time I use firefox is when I go to a website that isn't compatible very well with it, such as my online banking.

    I've decided I'm going to wait a few more updates or something to firefox and see if they can address some issues before going back to good ol' firefox.

    As for learning more about OS X, there isn't very many sites out there, Apples own .Mac site has a bunch of tutorials on how to use OS X, but it cost money after trial. I highly recommend getting the book 'Mac OS X Tiger Edition; The Missing Manual' by David Pogue, it's an EXCELLENT book to learn from, he makes it easy to understand, and even has a section that talks about the underlying foundation of OS X (Unix, and it's tools).

    Give it a look see the next time your in a book store. It's well worth the price.
     
    xbandaidx, Jul 24, 2006
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