Are you a Windows user who wants to give Bill Gates a symbolic heave-ho?
Have you tried dumping Internet Explorer but never entered a committed relationship with Firefox?
Did you mourn the passing of Netscape?
When someone suggested SeaMonkey did you just laugh?
Will you admit, confess and repent of downloading Opera, the European browser of the Beast?
Yet, in all this time, you've never been able to evaluate the browser most beloved of the Apple heretics: Safari.
Now you can. Safari 3 for Windows beta.
It's free, it's different and it's (choke, choke) quite good.
8 comments:
As one attempting to reconcile all sorts of different browsers to make some sense out of the formatting of some of my websites [and having had great difficulties with Microsoft Web Expressions doing it until I discovered AWT], I can certainly approve of FireFox. I will probably try Safari.
Be warned: The behavior of the different browsers can be problematic, especially for those visiting herbertwarmstrongvideo.net or even Felix Taylor's site: Internet Explorer is the way to go, particularly with embedded You-Tube or VEOH videos.
Note though, that Internet Explorer (IE) has radically different behavior between versions. OK, radical only if you are trying to avoid JavaScript or care about complex formatting. IE5 works differently that IE6 and the latest, IE7 works differently than the other two. Also, it should be noted that different releases of IE5 work differently from one another.
Some of these folks so proud of how "leading edge" and "state of the art" their particular CoG website is, don't seem to appreciate that they often lose an entire segment of the population who would have examined their site if only the browser hadn't crashed on them. Thank Heaven for small favors.
The advantage of FireFox [even if it behaves badly with You-Tube embeds] is that it is free, sophisticated, fairly free from both bugs and security risks and has plugins galore. Being open source means that a lot more collaboration is going on and the dedication of the developers really shows.
Well, yes -- they are all free, but some are more free than others.
I tried firefox but it hung up a lot and when I uninstalled it I could no longer pull down automatic updates for iTunes.
Not sure if I will try Safari as IE 7 works really well for me anyway.
Charlie brings up an important point: Never install a browser unless you are prepared for the consequences [that mostly you will either have to reinstall it or start from scratch with another one].
And the worst part is, if you don't have a browser to get another browser.
On Windows systems Firefox and IE can both be installed without interfering with each other. When I used to use Windows I could quickly switch from one to another if the website warranted it. the real problem is not the browser but ignorant programmers who create websites based on Microsoft's crappy and non-standard HTML and CSS code.
Now I am a dedicated Ubuntu Linux user. I live in a world without windows and gates and I am a happy man. I am most happy about the fact that I have a complete set of programs (browser, e-mail, spreadsheets, word processor, etc., over 21,500 different programs), and it ALL CAME FREE with my Ubuntu operating system.
Safari, so good.
Seamus
I've been happily using Firefox for several years now and only use IE for those sites which refuse to work properly with any other browser (like Microsoft's). Firefox, when combined with add-ons like NoScript, FlashBlock, and AdBlock Plus is the most secure browser available.
I've tried Opera a few times over the years, and while I like it I still prefer Firefox. I don't see any need to try Safari at this point.
Microsoft has created such an adversarial relationship with many of their users I think most will abandon them as soon as a viable alternative is available. I don't consider Apple and alternative because it's far too expensive and proprietary. Linux just isn't there yet, it's still too complicated for general use and there are simply too many applications that won't run in that environment. If that situation ever changes, I'll drop Windows and go with Linux in a heartbeat.
For Ubuntu users :
Ok, I downloaded the 700 meg package. Now what? All I have is an ISO file, which Windows can't open! So far, with all it's promise, Ubuntu looks like "No-buntu." The idiots forgot to tell us plebes how to open the package!
Per Firefox, biggest piece of crap of a browser I've every tried to use. Nothing but one problem after another. Hung pages, pages that don't open, etc., etc. I'll stick with IE, at least until I can get No-buntu to be more like Some-buntu.
- Stinger
Stinger,
Go to the Ubuntu web site again and look for their documentation pages. All the installation information is there. Also they have a fabulous section of forums that discuss all aspects of Linux. I have never had a question that someone wasn't willing to help me with. the nice thing about the Linux community is that everyone is willing to help each other. This is a pleasant surprise to those who are used to the snotty remarks you get from the Windows forums just because you don't know as much as they do.
If you are not 100% sure that you want to switch to Linux you can set up a dual boot system. That way, each time you boot up you are given the choice of which OS you want to use. That's what I did. I still have Windows 2000 on my hard drive but I haven't used it for a couple of years now. With the exception of only one program, I have not found anything that Windows can do that I can't do equally or better on Linux. It is a little different, and takes getting used to, but I have found the effort to be well worth my while. And I am laughing all the way to the bank because all open source programs are free.
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