Firefox

[bubba]

What do you think about the new opensource browser Firefox?

[sheptech]

It's not quite as fast as when it was in Beta, but it's still my primary browser.

[dpyers]

Don't love it or hate it. Use it mostly to check css and various sites/pages. Primary browser is still the one I get the calls about so I need to be using it.

[mresell]

I like ff, but don't like sites that use ms stuff on their sites (mostly jsp), because there are issues there. Mainly like the fact that is doesn't integrate w/ my OS Still have to use ie, of course. They have made sure of that.

[craigdunlop]

I only use ff for testing.

What do people think is the best browser for Mac OSX Users and what browsers do most developers here usually support with their coding? I usually go for Netscape 6.2, IE 6, Firefox 1.0, Safari.

[Brangwyn]

Don't like it at all personally.

[dpyers]

Originally Posted by craigdunlop

What do people think is the best browser for Mac OSX Users and what browsers do most developers here usually support with their coding? I usually go for Netscape 6.2, IE 6, Firefox 1.0, Safari.

From what I can gather from css/html groups, Safari and Mac-IE seem to be broken more than most browsers and as it's hard for many to test with them and they have limited market share, many just ignore them.

w3schools has an interesting browser stats page that covers hostorical info at http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
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A point to remember though is that w3schools is geek oriented so they tend to attract more FF and Opera users than your average e-commerce site probably will.

[mresell]

I have seen that ff seems to work better and have better support on mac than ie and safari. I like all the addons and customizing that can be done w/ ff. There are kinks tho, as I said w/ some sites that is annoying.

[Curt]

I have to admit, I don't do any Mac testing. So few net users are on a Mac that it just doesn't have enough of an impact for me to bother (usually no impact at all actually). While it's a nice feeling to have created a site that works identically in all browsers, and it's certainly an educational experience, from a real-world standpoint, it's very seldom that a site that is untested on a Mac will actually look or work so badly as to prevent someone from using it if they really want to.

As for Firefox, I hadn't tried it until someone here mentioned it about a week ago, but since then, I've completely switched. (Thanks mysterious stranger, whoever you were! ) I still don't think it's a perfect browser, but it runs better than IE on all of my systems, and obviously isn't as prone to hacks. I've made it my browser of choice at this point, and I only expect to use IE for testing purposes, and occasionally for sites that don't react well to FF.

[dpyers]

FWIW... there's a big stink over the German version of FireFox. Apparently the built-in ebay search function was being routed through mediaplex - a data mining outfit that was paying for the privilege of logging FF users ebay searches.

It's a big hit on credibility when an organization that tells the world it's open source turns out to be putting out adware.

[Brangwyn]

They had lost some credibility with me a while back personally when i found they were not being totally open about some of the exploits in the beta code that had been discovered. ok it was beta yes, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there are still some exploits there which funnily enough may just be prevented from being run by Microsofts SP2 Program protection .. now aint that ironic!.

Just becuase a products open source doesn't always mean it's better in my book. I've used netcaptor for years (they invented tabbed browsing) and lately use Maxthon most of the time and am pretty happy with it.