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Mac OS X: State Of The Browsers

Posted by timothy on from the but-apple-is-doomed dept.

NetCurl writes "Ars Technica is running a Macintosh Browser Smackdown feature. We've come a long way in the OS X browser experience, and the article delves into the details like only Ars can. This is a great breakdown of nine browsers in all. Let the browser war reignite..."

6 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. What about the codeless browser? by RalphBNumbers · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ever felt like programing your own web browser, but don't feel like writing the code? Well, now you don't have to!

    With Cocoa and Webkit, you can make a fully functional web browser without writing a single line of code. Check out the codeless browser From the same wonderful apple engineers who brought you the 13 line text editor.

    I'm hoping this kind of ease of creation will lower the bar to making your own browser, and encourage independant programers to innovate in the interface department 'since they don't have to worry about rendering unless they want to.

    There are allready some cool applications using webkit, like the live preview window in SubEthaEdit (the amazingly cool text editor formerly known as Hydra), or the japanese NagaraBrowser a webbrowser that can replace your desktop picture.

    --
    "The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
    1. Re:What about the codeless browser? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Next week, I'll be demonstrating how even a complete idiot can create their own operating system, using a simple hex editor and a copy of Windows.

      Creating an operating system, using Windows as the basis? Wow, that *would* be impressive. Microsoft's been trying for years, and still hasn't quite managed it.

  2. Real world experience by ihatewinXP · · Score: 5, Informative

    Signing up for classes at uncc.edu my browser (Safari) was halted by a message saying that browserX was not accpeted and that I should try again with IE 5 for mac or Netscape 4.7. being that this is a brand new (as of this summer) site I felt it was early enough that my cries might be heard. So i dropped a letter catching the computing staff up on Apple browsers.

    1st point - IE for mac is dead. dont tell me my only choice is to use a dead browser
    2nd point - Netscape for mac is dead. dont tell me my only other choice is a dead browser.

    After clearing this up I mentioned that Safari is now the default browser for Apple computers, that it works flawlessly with both my banks, and that if you want to include netscape in the list stick with Mozilla. If any browser besides Safari survives on the Apple platform it will be Mozilla based (sorry OmniWeb, I pray the switch to WebKit keeps you guys going).

    And ill be damned they actually wrote me back, asked a few questions, and updated the site.

    --
    ---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
    1. Re:Real world experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Cool that they responded, but for those sites that don't you can also fake Safari's user agent HTTP header. This is done from the Debug menu, which can enable in a number of ways:

      - use one of the utilities that plays around with Safari (check versiontracker)
      - use the defaults command from the shell: "defaults write com.apple.Safari EnableDebugMenu 1" or something like that
      - use vi or another editor to edit Safari's XML preference file (while it's not running) and add a key called "EnableDebugMenu" with value "True" (this is the same thing the above command will do)

      Next time you launch Safari it'll have a Debug menu on the right, from which you can set the reported user-agent.

  3. Re:The best part about this by edsel · · Score: 5, Informative

    One thing that Ars Technica didn't mention is that MS does still have a browser for OS X. It just isn't available for free download - you have to subscribe to the MSN isp (I think) to get it.

    According to this report MSN Explorer/Mac actually has the best support for CSS 3 selectors of any current browser. Too bad it's only available to paying customers.

  4. Lesson learned: Make noise, make noise, make noise by AvantLegion · · Score: 5, Insightful
    If a web server looks at their logs and sees that page requests from non-IE browsers are very low, percentage-wise, they will not be compelled to give anything else a second thought.

    On the other hand, if *everyone* in that 3% complains when a feature on the site doesn't work on anything except IE, suddenly their support inboxes are dominated by demands, and that 3% doesn't seem so small and ignorable anymore.

    If you go to a website that doesn't work right in your browser, e-mail them (without being hostile) and explain to them your displeasure with the incompatibility and implore them to support web standards and non-IE browsers. Feel free to toss in a little "we don't desire a Microsoft-only Internet" rhetoric if you so wish, but keep it brief and understated. Even if you can get into the site by using a header spoof trick or whathaveyou, please still take the time to fire a quick email their way.

    You can even have a "form" email that you keep saved just for such use, which is probably a good idea. Do have a place where you can specifically mention what part of the site doesn't work correctly (assuming it's not the whole site, a la BuyMusic).

    It's important to start making noise now, and let the noise grow as the non-MS browsers gain more widespread use.

    This isn't a case of "Microsoft == bad". This is a case of web developers needing to think beyond "Microsoft Browser on Microsoft Platform". IE will work with standards-compliant pages just fine.