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Safari better than Firefox
People are very serious about what browser they use, and I understand why. I spend most of my computing life using one browser or another (my current fave is the Intel optimized FireFox variant). Now, I'm just an average Joe, so you can take my thoughts on browsers with a grain of salt, but Zeldman is a web design wizard. He knows of what he speaks.This is why I found this post titled 'Safari better than Firefox?' so very interesting. Zeldman spends a good deal of time listing all the things that are right with Firefox's engine, but one thing that is very wrong is text rendering. Safari, according to Zeldman and my eyes, renders text much better than Firefox. It is true that Safari is Mac only, so it need not worry about cross platform text rendering, but that doesn't change the fact that text looks very nice in Safari and not so nice in Firefox.
An Adium Xtra for linking any browser's current page
I know Adium can insert links from some browsers by itself, but I just found a script at the Adium Xtras site which offers much more fine-grained control over inserting a link from any browser, with the page name's descriptive title linked nice and clean, instead of the long ugly URL you get from copy/pasting. As you can see, specific commands are included for all the major browsers (and even some not-so-major ones), as well as a catch-all Default Browser command. The ones I can test seem to work pretty well, though I'll admit I don't have any copies of iCab or Netscape lying around. Enjoy.
HistoryHound - full text search of browser histories, NetNewsWire, more
HistoryHound is a handy search utility for anyone who does a lot of surfing and RSS reading between multiple apps. It offers a full text search of most of the major Mac OS X browsers including Mozilla's, OmniWeb and even Opera, as well as two of the more popular RSS readers: Pulp Fiction and NetNewsWire 2. It can be called with a keyboard shortcut, or a small search panel can be left to float above other windows, always waiting to do your bidding.How HistoryHound searches is customizable, as is how far back into the history it shines its spotlight. If you don't like bouncing between applications HistoryHound also includes its own WebKit-based browser for previewing any of your search results.This swiss army knife of a history utility has also recently been updated to a Universal Binary, along with a few other minor but useful feature tweaks. A fully-functioning 30 day demo is available, while a full license is $19.95.
Firefox commercial pokes fun at the competition
A viral Firefox commercial poking fun at its browser competition features the anthropomorphized icons of Internet Explorer, Netscape and Apple's own Safari acting, well - somewhat silly. No matter which browser you're a fan of, it's a pretty funny spot and one of the better offerings I've seen from the Firefox Flicks campaign.[via Netscape]
1Passwd - password/form manager lets Firefox use the Keychain
*Oh snap!* Agile Web Solutions has created a password and form manager extension for both Safari and Firefox that fixes one of my biggest gripes about Mozilla's flagship browser: it can store website passwords in Mac OS X's Keychain Access application. For those who haven't stumbled upon the wonders of the Keychain: it's a system-wide secure password manager that most other Mac OS X apps can use to store logins for things like websites and FTP access. 1Passwd is an extension that, amongst other features, lets Firefox join the Keychain party party so you can have one secure, centralized area for managing (and backing up) your logins. This also means that if you have a .Mac account, any passwords you enter into Firefox will sync between your Macs. But 1Passwd doesn't stop at handle just your login information. Check out the full feature list to see everything else it can do for both Safari and Firefox.If beer could be sent virtually through PayPal, I'd send Agile Web Solutions a twelve pack; this brings Firefox one step closer to being a true Mac OS X browser. 1Passwd is currently in a third beta release, and those who opt to test the beta and offer their email addresses will receive a discount off its (somewhat steep) $29.95 price.
Open letter to Mozilla: Where Firefox goes wrong on OS X
Firefox, inarguably, is one of the coolest browsers available and a necessity if you're using Windows. On OS X however, I've been on the fence during Firefox's existence as there are a number of ways that Firefox and Mozilla have gone wrong and ruined the browser's user experience.First up is Mozilla's directory of addons. Useful as they may be, these sites are still clunky as you have to always have to adjust what you're searching for - even when you're already browsing a specific section. Further, with the mountain of extensions and themes piling up, there really needs to be a way of limiting what addons you see to the version of Firefox you're using. Before I found Foxmarks, I was browsing the addons directory for a bookmark synchronizing extension, and Bookmark Synchronizer kept appearing in the results, even though it only works with Firefox 1.0. While this frustrates me, I'm sure it's even more confusing for all those users out there who can barely tell the difference between Firefox and Internet Explorer.Next on the list is Firefox's lack of OS X-ability. While Windows XP is lagging behind with barely 20th century technology (hence the need for things like Firefox's password management), OS X already has a bunch of goodies baked in - like the Keychain and universal spell checking - that Firefox really needs to take advantage of. Virtually all other OS X apps place application and web passwords in OS X's Keychain, a centralized resource the whole OS can use. One merely needs to copy the keychain database file (and know its password, of course) in order to back up a record of all the passwords they need to remember. Throw in .Mac service which can effortlessly sync your Keychain (amongst other things) with multiple Macs and you'll be on the next level of synchronization heaven. Let's also not forget OS X's built in, universal spell checking engine which offers a simple keyboard shortcut for a pop-up definition window. In other browsers like Safari, OmniWeb and even Camino, there are no plugins or extensions needed to gain any of these essential 21st century computing features.So please, Mozilla, answer the call of us Firefox fans who are hoping for a more OS X-ified and more powerful version of your most fantastic of browsers. Mac users everywhere will thank you, and I bet we'd even buy a few tshirts too.
