Dustin MacDonald: Firefox on Mac OS X: Why?

I have noticed an increasing number of Mac users "switching to" or simply using Firefox these days as their main browser, instead of Apple's default browser, Safari. As much as I love the ability to have a choice of browsers to use, I only have one question to users of Firefox on a Mac:

Why?!

Firefox really is a great browser - IF you're on Windows. Mac users, however, may be blinded by the attention it has been getting on the other side of the fence. Infact, I see absolutely no reason to use Firefox on Mac OS X. It's not like Firefox is faster at rendering than Safari, because its actually pretty slow. And it's not like Firefox has better compliance for standards, because it still happens to fail the all-mighty Acid2 test. Maybe Firefox has more features? No, not really - perhaps if you're doing some heavy JavaScript development, but I doubt most users are. Oh, did I mention, Firefox doesn't look or act nearly as good as Safari does, partly because it is cross platform.

Safari doesn't have a monopoly on the Mac like IE does on Windows, either. Browsers such as Camino and OmniWeb are both well-done apps, and good alternatives to Safari. Firefox, though? It's a decent browser, sure - but there aren't any reasonable arguments for actually using it instead of Safari.

Can someone enlighten me on the technical advantages of using Firefox on a Mac, other than simply personal preference? Please?

Update: Okay, most of the responses seem to be liking the already large variety of Firefox extensions available. Sounds valid to me, although it's probably not impossible to develop similar plugins for Safari or Camino.

Drew Hamlin 4/4/06 12:08 AM

Seriously.

Six Sider 4/4/06 12:32 AM

Well, before I upgraded to my new MacBook, I found that Safari was running mighty mighty slow. Head to head, Firefox was kicking its butt.

Also tons of extensions, but the fact is I don't really use them. My main issue now is that I get weird results with Safari. On Blogger for example. When making a post on my blog, certain tools are missing under Safari
(no link tool for example).

In general I use Safari, but Firefox sits there waiting incase sites choke of Apple's browser.

anothergene 4/4/06 6:27 AM

I used FF on the Mac for a while till I realized... this app is a PIG. I currently hop back and forth between Camino an Safari. I find if Safari has a problem with a site Camino usually fixes the problem.

Advantages to safari ro camino? Native apps to OS X, not a port. They use Keychain to store pass words. Speed.

The only reason I like FF on the Mac is for the plugins.

krampo 4/4/06 6:43 AM

I use Camino, but somehow both Firefox and Camino from time to time "on idle" use some CPU resources, although it seems that firefox does it more frequently that's why I stick with Camino. Like for example http://www.top.lv (it's a stats page, but that doesn't matter) allways uses ~50% of my iBook's 1.3 CPU
Firefox on that site takes even more ~65%
Safari - ~10%
Anyway, I ditched Safari because gmail chat isn't working and Wordpress default WYSIWYG editor is not working.

Kiltak 4/4/06 7:13 AM

All the available extensions makes switching worth it.. If you don't use them, then don't bother, but there are a lot that are, in my own opinion, essential.

Kiltak
[Geeks Are Sexy] Tech. News

Vossman 4/4/06 8:56 AM

Two reasons:

Adblock Plus
http://adblockplus.mozdev.org/

Filterset.G
http://www.pierceive.com/

why bother having ads when you browse?

Dustin MacDonald 4/4/06 8:49 PM

For those that want Ad blockers, PithHelmet offers ad blocking in Safari and a lot more. It is, however, shareware.

Fernando Lucas 4/5/06 6:49 AM

I don't get this extensions thing. C'mon, they're not "essential". I don't use anything on my Safari or other browsers except for SurfRabbit. You won't die because of an ad or two. Safari is the very best browser on the Mac, IMO, because it does what it has to do and that's it. I'm sick of bloatware like Flock and OmniWeb, with all respect.

Peter 4/8/06 5:41 AM

I switched from Safari to Firefox on OS X when Firefox 1.5 came out. Firefox sucked before 1.5, but now it's amazing on OS X. It looks really cute (with the EosPro theme), and the widgets look better (hate those rounded Safari buttons on pages) if you install the right widget pack (OS X buttons are for applications, not Web pages). Other than that, Safari is a memory total pig and its JavaScript implementation sucks (I was sick of waiting for del.icio.us internal pages taking forever to load).

I use Firefox because I tried Camino and.. well, it's basically the same as Firefox but with worse support, less extensions, etc.

A lot of people seem to not have much luck with FF on the Mac though, and to them I say.. go use whatever you like. Firefox is fast and reliable for me.

Peter 4/8/06 5:43 AM

Oh, and as someone hinted at above, Safari doesn't support WYSIWYG tools and their ilk. Not really a problem, but many sites route around it in a horrible way (with alert boxes telling you how it won't work, etc). Again, this is because Safari's JavaScript implementation sucks.

Joey 5/18/06 11:03 PM

I use FF because of teh Web Developer Plugin and the Dom Inspector. The yreally help with building web pages. Although I have recently purchased XYLE Scope so I may not need the Web Developer Plugin any more and may go back to Safari

Brian 5/19/06 4:21 AM

I totally agree... I have firefox, but I only use it when something isn't supported by safari.... btw, great blog...

John Smith 5/19/06 9:45 AM

I don't care what the benchmarks say, Firefox screams on every one of my three Macs; Safari is far slower in the *real world*.

To echo what everyone else is saying, extensions are key to Firefox. My favorite is the plugin for BugMeNot. It accesses the site and automatically logs you into sites that require registration.

Another indispensable feature of Firefox is the "quick search" that can be done in the address bar. Type "wp Safari" and the browser takes you to the Wikipedia entry on Safari; type "amazon dvd Cinderella Man" and you'll be taken to the amazon page for that particular movie (just to name a few of the many types of searches). I use this feature at least ten times a day.

Overall Safari is slower, *less* feature-rich, lacks extensions, and has trouble accessing many sites. The superiority of Firefox is why so many Mac users are migrating. Apple should cease development of Safari and simply bundle Firefox as its default browser. It would be great press and all Mac users would benefit.

arunachalesha 5/28/06 10:33 PM

Whenever Safari crashes or you restart MAC OS X, you lose all the pages you had open. Safari does not provide a session manager to re-open all the pages you had open.
THis is one big reason to move to Firefox.

Add to that the *textarea editing* facilities that most blogging sites provide, and a host of other plugins.

Sure plugins can be made for Safari, but no one wrote a decent session manager as yet. The ones i bought, actually required you to manually do a Save, which sux since i never know when Safari will crash.

David Teare 7/6/06 9:46 AM

I find Firefox much faster than Safari, and Camino slightly faster than Firefox. I've found this to be true on both my PPC and Intel laptops.

My biggest grip with Firefox is the lack of Keychain support. They say they *might* add it in version 3, but many people believe this will never happen because of the cross-platform nature of Firefox. Having their own Password Manager really sucks for users like me that constantly switch between Camino/Firefox/Flock/Safari.

This is why I wrote 1Passwd. 1Passwd is a Password Manager & AutoFill program that integrates with the OS X Keychain. 1Passwd integrates directly with Camino, Safari, Firefox, and Flock so that no matter which one you are using you never need to leave your browser to find your passwords.

James 9/21/06 2:07 AM

I know this is an old post, but there is one simple reason we use it here - Safari doesn't properly support authenticated proxy server using AD credentials. In other words, our users log onto our Macs using their Windows AD accounts, the browser points to the Windows proxy which checks they're allowed to go online. In Firefox it works. In IE it doesn't. In Safari it doesn't. Case closed!

Travis 10/27/06 6:46 AM

What about Opera?