Firefox is back in my life. Not like it ever really went away. It never left my Applications folder. I just stopped using it as my browser of choice. As I mentioned in a past post, I really liked using Firefox but there were too many Mac OS X specific things (Services support for instance) that Firefox lacked that I used on a regular enough basis to send me back to Safari.
Then, just the other day, Firefox 1.5 was released and I just had to give it a spin. Boy what a nice browser. It is unbelievably fast, especially when going backwards and forwards on visited pages. I have no idea what they did on the back end but it is by far the fastest browser I have ever used. Other new features such as drag and drop reordering of tabs has already been very useful. Then of course there are the nearly endless ways to customize it using third party themes and extensions (SessionSaver is a gift from the gods). It is this and so many more things that have made me realize how much I really missed Firefox. After all, I would easily qualify as a power user and this is a power users browser if there ever was one.
This leaves me with a tough choice because all of those things that I left it for in the first place are still missing. I use the services especially for spelling, text formatting and intra-application information routing that is key to my Journal postings you see here. But the speed and features and extensions and themes and…. Did I mention the speed? All of it is pulling me so strongly that I feel I owe it to myself to at least switch back for a little while and see if they outweigh the loss.
3 thoughts on “Firefox is Back (Maybe)”
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I am glad you brought this up, Patrick. I use browsers in a way where the services feature doesn’t matter so much, so for me, Firefox could be a viable replacement for Safari. However, my loyalty to Apple usually keeps me on the Safari side of things. After all, it is an awefully nice browser.
Version 1.5 made me testdrive Firefox again and wow, is it ever fast. It also offered to import not only bookmarks, but also my passwords, and cookies – so running it was a seamless transition from the ‘gold standard’ on the Mac. Just like you I enjoy the themes and extensions. AdBlock is one of my favorites here. So Firefox will definitely earned a spot not only in my applications folder but also in the Dock – and so far I find myself using it over and over again. I also installed 1.5 on all work computers, giving my co-workers the choice. 1.5 is a winner, and remembering times where a browser was hard to come by on the Mac, it feels great to have a choice of two great browsers – and plenty more to choose from.
I too officially made the switch to FireFox 1.5 when it was released. For the first time in my life Safari is not in my Dock and FireFox is set as the default. I am really enjoying using it. I espcially like the exentions. The I use a lot it Foxy Tunes to control iTunes within FireFox. A simple but essential part of browsing for me is listening to my iTunes. Patrick, it has been a little over a week since you posted this, are you still enjoying FireFox?
Try this for the Safari look in late version of Firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/themes/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&category=Modern&numpg=10&id=792