Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Browser wars

I'm a Mac user. Therefore I felt a little guilty when I made Firefox my default browser, but I had my reasons. For some reason, Gmail's text formatting options don't work in Safari. And I like the way I can organize my bookmarks down the sidebar in Firefox. And it doesn't crash when I open the Weather Channel Web site. And Firefox has integratetd a lot of cool plugins and search bars, which I use. It's not that Safari isn't a good browser, but I've grown to like Firefox a lot.

But I have one fairly big issue with Firefox -- it doesn't support OS X's services menu. So I can't highlight the text of something in Firefox and save it directly into a text document or into MacJournal, like I can with Safari.

And now my browser situation has become even more complicated -- today I downloaded the newest version of Opera and I think I'm in love. It supports the Services menu, it has very nifty options for the sidebar, I successfully imported my Safari and Firefox bookmarks, it's fast (though with the university high speed connection, that's not usually an issue for me), and its interface is clean and easy to use. But -- it's not the best for posting to Blogger because all the options don't show up in it (which is also a problem with Safari) and, like Safari, it doesn't work with Gmail's text formatting.

I remember when I first started using the Web -- in 1995 when I took a class on communication and technology -- and I used Netscape 1.0 and thought it was pretty cool. I checked my e-mail through telenet, using a program called Pine. I had no idea how far the technology could come in 10 years. So, I'm happy for the choice I have now. And if you haven't tried either Firefox or Opera yet, you should. They're free and easy to use.

3 comments:

David Meigs said...

Why can’t computer programs just get along?

Merry CHRISTmas my sister.

Lori said...

Do you think you'll go with Firefox or Opera? You're the first person I have heard of using Opera, by the way. Thanks for the info, as I am always up for a safer browser!

lindaruth said...

Lori, Actually I'll probably keep using both, because each has some advantages. Both are safe, fast browsers and do a good job of blocking popup ads. I found something else cool about Opera after I posted this the other day -- you can search your bookmarks. If you're like me and have a ton of bookmarks, this is a pretty nifty feature. It has a little search window (quick find) above the bookmarks in the sidebar and it works great.
Linda