Andrew Channels Dexter Pinion

Wherein I write some stuff that you may like to read. Or not, its up to you really.

December 20, 2004

Firefox or Safari

Tim Bray is talking about switching from Safari to Firefox. I'm in a similar position. I use Firefox on Windows and Linux, and have it installed on my iBook. It's great to have the same piece of software on every computer I use. But I much as I would like to use it full time on my Mac I can't.

Why? Because it crashes. Regularly. I haven't managed to figure out the exact cause, but it usually happens when a new window is popped up or when editing in a text box. I dutifully send the crash reports to mozilla.org and would file a bug report, except I can't (of course) reliably recreate the crash.

So I'm stuck in an inbetween world. I use Safari for most of my surfing, although it doesn't play well with the Movable Type installation on my server so I'm writing this in Firefox.

I also miss the status line at the bottom of the window that you get with Firefox. In Safari there is no easy way (that I know of) to see the URL of a link before you click on it.

My final gripe is that I'm not mad keen on the bookmark functionality in Safari. Even more so when compared to the del.icio.us plug-in for Firefox. It's a thing of beauty that gives you your del.icio.us bookmarks in a sidebar and in a context menu.

So until I can get Firefox to stop crashing on me I'm using Safari.

Posted by Andy Todd at December 20, 2004 10:57 AM

Comments

> In Safari there is no easy way (that I know of) to see the URL of a link before you click on it.

You mean like turning on the Status Bar from the View menu?

Take care.

Posted by: John Speno on December 20, 2004 11:12 AM

Why not Camino?

Posted by: Simon on December 20, 2004 11:20 AM

Thanks John. Note the cunning use of the qualifier "that I know of". My new year's resolution is to use that wherever I can, it saves me from actually having to find anything out myself ;-)

Simon, Camino is still a proof of concept browser and kind of defeats my 'one browser to rule them all' goal. I may well give it a try though.

Posted by: Andy Todd on December 20, 2004 04:08 PM