Page 6 of 6

Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 2:38 pm
by RobertGonzalez
Cool, all it needs now is Greasemonkey and FireFTP and I will consider switching browsers. Thanks for the link AKAPJ, those are neat tools.

Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 2:49 pm
by AKA Panama Jack
Everah wrote:Cool, all it needs now is Greasemonkey and FireFTP and I will consider switching browsers. Thanks for the link AKAPJ, those are neat tools.
Actually there has been a version of Greasemonkey out for a long time. :) But nothing like FireFTP. Too many good FTP programs out there I guess. If anyone would make one it would probably be an Opera Widget.

Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 3:20 pm
by AKA Panama Jack

Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 12:03 am
by The Phoenix
AKA Panama Jack wrote:Yep, Opera and Safari have been about the only two browsers that have really been able to pass the Acid 2 test. :D
Hasn't been the case for a while now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid2 lists roughly a dozen production browsers that all can. Virtually every browser, except for Internet Explorer can. Firefox landed the change for it on December 7th, 2006. All nightlies and new betas of Firefox include it, and Firefox3 (due this year) will have it as well.

Still no commitment from Microsoft to even improve their rendering on Internet Explorer.
AKA Panama Jack wrote:Safari is fast and about as fast as Opera when it comes to page rendering. Firefox has always been dead last when it comes to rendering speed. Especially when javascript is being used. :o Never understood why people would want to use a browser as slow as Firefox but then again coming from IE anything would be better. ;)
Most published speed tests have been ridiculously [s]rigged[/s] to abuse particular oddball javascript behaviors. Even some Opera fans have found mixed results in their testing: http://www.scss.com.au/family/andrew/opera/firefox

Regardless, it is about to change substantially. Adobe has released "Tamarin", a JIT Javascript engine that is dramatically better than Spidermonkey. In fact, its up to 800% better in some tests.

Since Firefox is primarily driven using javascript (enabling its wonderful add-ons), the impact of Tamarin is going to be felt across the entire browser. Its incredibly fast, extremely powerful, and wonderfully engineered. I'm very curious to see if it makes Firefox more competitive in JS speed and rendering speed against Opera.
AKA Panama Jack wrote:Safari still has some problems with Flash. There are some sites where things are just completely missing from the flash content.
Agreed. More annoying to me is that the iPhone WILL NOT have Flash installed. It would have enabled a much larger scope of applications.
AKA Panama Jack wrote:The other thing that annoyed the hell out of me is the Apple way of dropdown menus. You have to CLICK on the highlighted menu item for the drop down to appear. That annoys me no end after being used to dropdowns appearing as soon as your mouse hovers over the menu selection.
Curious. In some areas, that seems to be the case (View, Text-encoding, choose one), but in others, its just like Windows (aka, hover opens) such as in (Bookmarks, Bookmarks bar, which then shows a list)
AKA Panama Jack wrote:But the menu selection thing and how they don't include a bookmark import for Opera among a few other niggling problems will keep me from making the switch.
Bookmark export: Opera, Manage Bookmarks, File, Export as HTML.
Bookmark import: Safari, Import Bookmarks, Choose file. Bookmarks, Show all bookmarks, and its in its own collection at the bottom left.
Everah wrote:Still not gonna ditch FF yet. But if Safari comes out with extensions like FF does, I would seriously consider the switch. Of course, I would switch to Opera if it became more flexible as well.
http://www.backupbrain.com/2004_08_01_a ... ml#a004097 - It has some, but nothing like FFox.

But back on topic (The topic *is* Safari, and not Opera v. Firefox, right?), iPhone apps are springing up now. I'm really curious about what the interface is that allows js access to phone features, as shown in the demo.

Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 12:34 am
by AKA Panama Jack
The Phoenix wrote:
AKA Panama Jack wrote:Yep, Opera and Safari have been about the only two browsers that have really been able to pass the Acid 2 test. :D
Hasn't been the case for a while now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid2 lists roughly a dozen production browsers that all can. Virtually every browser, except for Internet Explorer can. Firefox landed the change for it on December 7th, 2006. All nightlies and new betas of Firefox include it, and Firefox3 (due this year) will have it as well.
Actually it's far fewer than the list. ;) You will notice most of them use the same layout engine so you would expect similar if not the same result.
The Phoenix wrote:
AKA Panama Jack wrote:But the menu selection thing and how they don't include a bookmark import for Opera among a few other niggling problems will keep me from making the switch.
Bookmark export: Opera, Manage Bookmarks, File, Export as HTML.
Bookmark import: Safari, Import Bookmarks, Choose file. Bookmarks, Show all bookmarks, and its in its own collection at the bottom left.
Alot of work to go through when it should be added to the import in Safari.

BTW, there is a new update out for Safari Windows. Just popped up today when it performed an update check. Don't know what has changed.

Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 5:57 am
by superdezign
Numerous bugs were found. It was a tough first week. They needed to patch the security holes.

Just like IE for Mac was buggy, Safari for Windows is too. Their hoping that since IE took Mac from them, Safari can take Windows. They had well over a million downloads in the first few days, so it's possible, though highly unlikely. If FF and Opera couldn't do it... :P

Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:00 am
by Charles256
for the record, the latest version of firefox can not render the acid2 test. At least it looked all screwy on my browser the other day. Only Safari and Opera showed it well enough for me to say it was okay. Opera took it a bit farther than Safari, I.E. the nose, when you hover over it, changes color. Or I could just be imagining things... :-D

Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:05 am
by superdezign
The nose is supposed to turn blue on hover. Safari does it too.

And, for the record:
superdezign wrote:Whoa. Safari did better than Firefox.
:P

Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:25 am
by Charles256
You're right. Safari does. I went back and checked. My memory's starting to fail in my old age.

Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 11:41 am
by RobertGonzalez
FF did not pass the acid test the way that Opera and Safari did. For me anyway.

Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 12:06 pm
by The Phoenix
Charles256 wrote:for the record, the latest version of firefox can not render the acid2 test. At least it looked all screwy on my browser the other day. Only Safari and Opera showed it well enough for me to say it was okay. Opera took it a bit farther than Safari, I.E. the nose, when you hover over it, changes color. Or I could just be imagining things... :-D
Which build? Nightly? Firefox3 Alpha?

The Firefox 2 branch (the ones you get from getfirefox.com) doesn't have the changes landed. FF3 is coming out later this year. The nightlies and the FF3 alpha/betas *do* render the acid2 test correctly.

Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 12:07 pm
by Weirdan
for the record, the latest version of firefox can not render the acid2 test.
I bet you're talking about FF2. It's not the latest. It's the latest stable, but not the latest available.

Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 12:27 pm
by RobertGonzalez
FF 2.0.0.4 on Windows for me. I try to stay away from bleeding edge software unless A) I really really want it; or B) I am feeling particularly risky and don't mind restarting/reinstalling/rebuilding the app.

Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 2:16 pm
by The Phoenix
Everah wrote:FF 2.0.0.4 on Windows for me. I try to stay away from bleeding edge software unless A) I really really want it; or B) I am feeling particularly risky and don't mind restarting/reinstalling/rebuilding the app.
Yeah, FF2 is the branch prior to the fixes landing on the trunk. Need either a nightly build, or FF3 Alpha (now up to the sixth revision).

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/ ... k/?C=M;O=D

Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 5:07 pm
by Charles256
Yeah. I was talking latest stable release of firefox.