Just switched to Safari

[Adam]

And I really like it! Man, is it fast!

Most of the reviews bemoaned (somewhat) the lack of available add-ons, but since I don't really like add-ons for a browser, this was a non-issue for me. Page-load times are about half of what they are in Chrome, though.

Good stuff.

[Frostbit]

And I really like it! Man, is it fast!

Most of the reviews bemoaned (somewhat) the lack of available add-ons, but since I don't really like add-ons for a browser, this was a non-issue for me. Page-load times are about half of what they are in Chrome, though.

Good stuff.

Welcome to the dark side.

[Adam]

Welcome to the dark side.

Honestly, I've never really "shopped" for browsers before. For the longest time, I just used IE (back in the "dark days" of XP and Vista). I never had an alternate browser until I actually had to have one (for modding at NU). I used Chrome and liked it OK, and I used Firefox and liked it OK. Once upon a time, in an internet far, far away, I sometimes used Netscape because it was technically more powerful than IE at the time. As IE grew better, I just abandoned Netscape. Lately I've liked Chrome more, but I've been a little unhappy with it, most particularly in speed performance. So I decided to shop around, and I read a bunch of reviews this morning and decided to try Safari because of the speed ratings, and I'm delighted.

[Frostbit]

Honestly, I've never really "shopped" for browsers before. For the longest time, I just used IE (back in the "dark days" of XP and Vista). I never had an alternate browser until I actually had to have one (for modding at NU). I used Chrome and liked it OK, and I used Firefox and liked it OK. Once upon a time, in an internet far, far away, I sometimes used Netscape because it was technically more powerful than IE at the time. As IE grew better, I just abandoned Netscape. Lately I've liked Chrome more, but I've been a little unhappy with it, most particularly in speed performance. So I decided to shop around, and I read a bunch of reviews this morning and decided to try Safari because of the speed ratings, and I'm delighted.

Can you use Safari on a PC operating system?

[Adam]

Can you use Safari on a PC operating system?

Yes. They have had a PC platform for Safari since 2007 (I think) according to articles I read on it today. Since I am presently using Safari on a PC, it's clearly possible.

[Tom Servo]

I used to keep a copy of every major browser on my system for site-checking when I was creating web pages. My knowledge of HTML and advanced scripting is nil, though, so everyone always looked the same across platforms.

For personal browsing I've used Opera since the days when it was ad supported. Opera abandoned their own rendering engine last year to join the Chromium crew, so it's now basically a Chrome-lite copy. The big difference is, besides being further behind in versions and improvements than Chrome, is that it's actually a lot faster than Chrome itself. There's a small but growing market of extensions available, too. Fewer than Firefox or Chrome but enough to add some functionality. Without addons, though it's a perfectly fine basic browser.

For the ultimate in customization, though, you still can't beat the older Opera, which stopped at version 12.16. It still blows Chrome and Firefox out of the water in speed, and can be completely changed around to whatever you want. The trade-off is it has a very steep learning curve to take advantage of all the under-the-hood stuff and as it ages, it's no longer being updated so some sites are broken when using it. There are also optional add-ons for 12.16, but you don't really need them since it has so much functionality built-in: mail client, RSS feed reader, BitTorrent, IRC chat, Dragonfly (webpage developer tools) and sync.

I wish I could pare down to just one browser, but it's an impossible task. One website I use extensively requires Chrome, but Chrome is slow in everyday browsing and too feature-limited for my taste. Opera 12.16 is the fastest, generally, but breaks on lots of sites. Opera 20 is also fast but isn't totally compatible with sites, either (some sites don't work in Chrome or Opera). One of the Baldwin County websites I use extensively requires Silverlight, so I need IE for that one stupid site. And the only browser that plays Flash videos smoothly anymore is Firefox!

Even on my cell phone and tablet, I have more than one browser. On Android, Opera Mobile kicks major Chrome ass, but I can't uninstall Chrome or the stock browser so I'm stuck with three.

[Lanie]

I've always thought of Safari as a Mac thing, but maybe I'll try it. Does it use a lot of memory? I've found that IE does that.