How do you web sling?

I'm trying to figure out which web browser to use, so I just wanted to see what the users in this forum use on OS X.

Since I've been using Firefox for years on Windows, it was practically instinct that led me to install it on OS X. And because I will not touch Internet Explorer, my other natural tendency was to not even try out Safari.

For now, Firefox on OS X is pretty good, even though it did crash once. I'm also trying Camino, but I'm not sure if I'll stick with that since it can't use AdBlock Plus like Firefox can.

 

I mostly use Safari. Here are some threads that may be of interest to you.

Poll: Firefox, Safari, or other?

Browsers on mac?

Firefox or Safari?

 

yea i think its split on the forums, firefox, safari and camino broswers.

I used firefx like you on windows for al ong time, so i kept using it when i came to osx. And yea adblock plus is a really good extension, and so is the customizable search bar, with tons of sites to search easily.

 

I use Opera. It's on OS X too, and uses less memory than Safari or Firefox. And the wonderful features... I feel like I'm hobbled when I try to use the Internet without it.

As an example of a usage scenario: I do a google search for something, get linked to these forums. I hit period and type half of a word, and the quicksearch leads me right to the relevant content. I see that it's a long post, and there's multiple links I'll want to peruse later. So I duplicate the page for later (this copies the tab, back-history, position, everything), and hit back to return to the search results. I see that there isn't much else of interest, so I hit F8 to put focus back on the address bar, and I type "g ice cream" to search google for ice cream. (shift-enter, I think it is, opens that url in a new tab.) You can customize these -- I've got "am" for an amazon's search, "wk" for wikipedia, and "new" for newegg, "ud" for urban dictionary, among others. Thinking about ice cream, my mind makes the connection to the interesting article I started to read two days ago about what would happen if a grizzly bear fought a robot. So, as I have about 50 tabs open at this point, I hold down the right mouse button, and scroll with my scroll wheel to the appropriate tab. I've even got a combination of middle clicking and scrolling backwards one to go to the tab encoded in muscle memory. This is how I use the browser all the time.

(If you think that paragraph was long, consider that those are only the features that I use constantly )

As an aside, I never bothered to do away with ads. I've got everything with "intellitxt" in the url blocked, and I've got flash only working on whitelisted sites. It makes my browsing experience plenty sane, and once in a blue moon, on a decent site (penny arcade, for instance; these forums, even), I do click an ad.

Oh, and if you hit , instead of . it does the same kind of search but only highlights links. You can often use that to highlight part of a link and hit enter, which can be a lot faster than taking your hands off the keyboard to actually click something.

 

I use firefox because of the web developer extensions.
Unless you use add-ons there's no reason to not use Safari. I personally don't like Safari because of a lot of little things, the most recent thing I noticed is if you click a mouse scroll wheel in firefox you get the 4-point arrow and the page scrolls wherever you move your mouse. That doesn't work in Safari. Not huge, but it bugged me.

 

Sorry guys, I really should have done a few searches before asking. I would have easily seen (as Xander pointed out) that there have already been at least a few discussions on the topic.

After reading some of the links Xander pointed me to, I am curious about these "Intel-optimized" versions of Firefox for OS X. I might give that a shot.

 

if you use firefox I can recommend the NoScript extension, you'd be surprised how often it blocks google-analytics!

 

It depends. At first I'd wear a custom-designed bracelet with pressurized pellets that would jet outwards. After a while, I'd just fold my palm backwards and it would come out of my wrists naturally....

Take a test-drive with Shiira and Omniweb if you're in the mood for good browsers that aren't as commonly used.

 

Yeah, Safari's not bad (compared to IE6 for Windows). I use it mostly, just out of habit and I've gotten used to Safari's look.

If you use Firefox with extensions on Windows, and you want to continue using them, then use Firefox for Mac.

If you want Firefox with a more Mac look, try out Camino.

 

I go back and forth between Safari and Shiira. Both are excellent browsers. Safari TBH is really good and is more than adequate for most everything.

 

i use opera

 

Omniweb!?! That thing costs like $15! I wouldn't pay a penny for a browser.

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but for Firefox 3, I heard that it's going to come with Mac native look. If this happens I don't think there will be a reason to use Camino anymore.

 

Yeah, that's the thing...I wouldn't mind OmniWeb either (and I've tried it out), but its the price tag that turns me off. In this day and age of so many great browsers out there, I just don't see paying $15 for one. Then again, I'm always broke, so maybe that's why .