Hi Peter, It tends to be a personal preference sort of thing. I got into using Firefox several years ago because, in those days, several of the websites I used didn't work well with Safari - however most of those problems have been fixed long ago. Also Firefox offered tabbed browsing whilst at that time Safari didn't (but of course it does now).
One of the things I do like about Firefox is the choice of add-ons/plug-ins - I don't use a lot of these - but the one I do use I really appreciate - besides the two I listed previously, others I like are: Multiple Tab Handler - Lets me select multiple tabs and perform actions on them (reload then all for example) - I find I use this all the time when I have a bunch of tabs open showing financial data - I can just update them all at once instead of having to cycle through the tabs, reloading as I go. DownloadHelper - Watching some video on a webpage and want to just download it - this add-on provides contextual menus that let you do just that. Firefox PDF Plugin for Mac OSX - of course you can view pdfs in Safari - but I prefer the experience in Firefox with this plug-in - Example you click on a pdf link but your browser window is too small for optimum viewing - so you click the green "+" button - in Firefox that zooms the browser window to maximum size and away you go - but click the green button in Safari and (for me) the window shrinks to some arbitrary size! To see what I mean, try something like: <http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20100215/pdf/31nph2f647ypdy.pdf> (or any other online pdf) Having said that, I still fire up Safari from time to time - generally if I find a website that doesn't work well with Firefox, then often Safari will open it OK. For yourself, if Safari does all you want then it does offer the more seamless Apple experience - on the other hand, as an ex-Firefox user, if you find yourself missing any of those add-ons/plug-ins -give Firefox a try. I believe it is always worth having at least two browsers installed so that if you find a web-page that your default browser has problems with you can always try it in a different browser. As a further aside - I was recently amazed to have Opera fire up on my Mac - amazed because I have never installed Opera!! I used Spotlight to search for the Opera application - but it came up empty - even more confusing. Since Opera was still running, its icon was showing in the dock - so I used the "Show in Finder" option from the dock icon to find that the Opera application is bundled INSIDE the Adobe Bridge CS4 application which itself is installed as part of Photoshop Elements 8 installation! Interestingly, I wasn't even using an Adobe application at the time - I hit the wrong download link on a webpage and selected the BitTorrent feed rather than the direct download - and that link seemed to automatically invoke Opera (even though I didn't even KNOW I had Opera hidden away inside another application! I haven't had time to play with Opera yet but, since it is there, I may have a play one of these days! Cheers Neil -- Neil R. Houghton Albany, Western Australia Tel: +61 8 9841 6063 Email: n...@possumology.com PS If anyone has Photoshop Elements 8 (or any other installation which includes Adobe Bridge CS4) and wants to see where Opera lives: In Finder, right-click the Adobe Bridge CS4 application and select "show package contents" Opera can be found in the Contents/MacOS folder. on 24/2/10 11:10 AM, Crisp, Peter at pcr...@hatch.com.au wrote: > > Just a general question re Firefox for Macs. I am a newcomer to the world of > Apple and currently use Safari as the default web browser. I am familiar with > Firefox having used it on my Windows machine for some time. Are there any > benefits in using Firefox or does this expose protection weakness? > > Generally Safari does everything I need of it but always on the look out for > better ways of doing things. > > Thanks > > Peter... > > > Kind Regards, > > Peter Crisp, Associate, BE Mech > HATCH > (Phone + 61 8 9428 5437 > 2Fax + 61 8 9428 5555 > ÈMob 0402 001 019 > ?E-mail pcr...@hatch.com.au > Website <http://www.hatch.com.au/> > > -----Original Message----- > From: wamug-ow...@wamug.org.au [mailto:wamug-ow...@wamug.org.au] On Behalf Of > Neil Houghton > Sent: Wednesday, 24 February 2010 10:49 AM > To: WAMUG > Subject: Re: Blocking Flash > > > Yes, I use Firefox but agree that these plug-ins are great for removing > unwanted ads and flash - speeding up browsing significantly. > > There are several plug-ins for Firefox, but the relevant ones which I am > currently running are: > > - Flashblock - as for clicktoflash on Safari it blocks all Flash assets on a > web page until you explicitly click on them. > > - Adblock Plus - this strips out all the other (non-flash) ads based on > whatever filter set you add (I use Rick752's EasyList - which seems to work > well for me) > > > Cheers > > > > > Neil -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Unsubscribe - <mailto:wamug-unsubscr...@wamug.org.au>
