Convince me to use Firefox. I dare you!

Connor

I love both, usually I leave Safari for and quick searching and Firefox for all the daily stuff like flickr, last.fm, vimeo, etc.

felix

I am now trying to use Firefox 3 for a week and see if it deserve the parmanent place on my dock, displacing Safari from the throne,
So far its been a good experience.
Some of the add-ons I have used is: Ad-block, Lenspic, weatherfox (I think thats not the name)
The nice thing about firefox is that it import everything from Safari, including the often visited URL usually appearing on the address bar.
Just try for a week, and see how you like it. (the UI had also changed from version 2, which is a nice touch)

The Hopper

Lisa, I like Safari and use it, and of course I test everything I build in Safari, as well as Opera and IE, but FF has made my life a lot easier.
1. I love the smart way it reads CSS is like if the browser knows what I want (not like IE where I have to hack every other tag line )
2. Besides been fast, I also like the freedom I have to handle pluins and manage my bookmarks.
3. I like the developer tools (saves me time)
It’s a good browser. I recommend it!
The Hopper
http://www.nuregime.com

Mitchell

I’m a safari junkie too. Firefox just doesn’t do it for me.

bryce

Hi,
first of all, I have to admit, that before FF3, Firefox was not really the best option for macs. But with FF3, that changed. It now integrates very well and its as fast as on other operating systems.
I use FF mainly because of its performance (it uses less RAM and loads pages with js quicker) and a lot of plugins I like are either not available for Safari or harder to install / maintain.
Safari is not a bad browser, but with FF3 out there, I dont see any reason to use it, besides hardcore Apple fanboy/girlism (which I think you, Lisa, suffer from).
Sorry for my english, give FF3 a try and do not let anything shining, that has fruits on it, cloud your judgement.
Greetings
bryce

Brandice

If you use the new Firefox, magic jelly beans will pop out of your speakers and then Mozilla mails you a pony.

CONVINCED MUCH?

That’s what I thought.

AJ Batac

Some useful extensions for FF that Safari still doesn’t have…

1) SEOquake – into SEO? care about it?
2) Firebug – web designer/developer? do you have a website you care about?
3) Shareaholic – are you social? do you care to share?
4) Web Developer Toolbar – see #2
5) FireFTP – you still use separate apps like cyberduck, transmit?
6) ScribeFire – do you still blog outside Safari? Or inside WordPress?
7) Adblock Plus – how do you block those annoying ad inside Safari again?
8) FoxyTunes – how do you like your iTunes… inside your browser?
9) Undo Closed Tabs Button – how do you undo your accidentally closed tab in Safari? History?
10) Mouse Gestures – do you want to prevent RSI?

There are 5,050 more to choose from actually if those above still doesn’t convince you.

I also love Safari by the way, you just have to use the right tool for the job.

Cheers!

AJ

Pete

Customizable shortcuts in the URL bar. Type “w apple” to instantly search “apple” in Wikipedia. Or “i Jessica Alba” to search Jessica on imdb.com.

I don’t know if Safari has this feature. Other than that, I think it’s faster and you can’t go wrong with the massive list of plugins. Make the switch!

Chicken Say

I’ve been using FF for few years but never use Safari before…since JC said “if you want to stay broke, then stay with Safari.” then I might just stick with FF… :D

Diego

Firefox is a choice for windows users who don’t want to use IE7, if you have a Mac why would you consider using firefox. if you’re considering a different browser, try “camino” its a browser from the Mozilla team specifically for the Mac OS X. Search it, if you don’t believe me.

cheers…

Mark

It has to be Firefox for me every time. The main reason is the addons that you can download for Firefox. For a web designer “firebug” is a must and Safari just doesn’t have this functionality. It really is essential when fixing code problems etc.

Like you say Lisa, I also like Safari, its style and looks and also most of its functionality. The one thing I really don’t like which is another reason I use Firefox, is that I cannot get it to open new window links in a new tab instead, but maybe I am doing something wrong?

So lets turn your question on its head – convince me to use Safari!

Dan

To be honest, Lisa, in my experience there’s not much difference in the performance of either browser. Both are tabbed, both support web standards pretty damn well and both are pretty light and fast to load. I use FireFox because of all the great plugins available, and the fact I don’t use a mac *runs and hides*

Choice of browser is something web geeks the world over hold very dear to their hearts and as long as that browser isn’t IE, I have no quarrel with them.

Skiant

+1 with Dan.

By the way, i’m a long time Firefox user (recently tried Opera but it didn’t convinced me), and i’m quite a expansion-holic.
Here’s the list :

– Adblock Plus : No more ads on the web! <3
– Back to the top : Go to the top (or bottom) of the page in a single click.
– Batch Download : Allows to download the whole pack of image galleries.
– BBcode Xtra : Adds bbcode/html/Xhtml insertion to the right-click menu. Very useful for hardcore boards users.
– Foxmarks Bookmarks Synchronizer : Very handful to keep the same bookmarks from my home installation to my Mobile Firefow installed on my portable hard drive.
– Location Navigator : useful to browse images gallery with incremental names.
– Ma-config.com (french site) : Hardware-detection plugin, in order to get the latest drivers. I guess it’s not very useful for mac-users.
– Minimeter : web traffic restriction monitor. Great when your ISP sucks.
– Mouse Gestures Redox : Allows to control your browser by doing drawings with the mouse. Looks like a gadget, but i can’t do without anymore.
– NoScript : block any potentially harmful script on web pages.
– Web Developer : various useful web dev tools.

David

It’s tricky isn’t it!? FF now has an extension to deal with online pdf reading and nice skins, along with the myriad of plugins, but it hasn’t got near webkit for css support yet, or satisfying the Acid test. Safari/Webkit has quite an array of SIMBL plugins and that fantastic Inspector.

I actually run neither, favouring iCab because of it’s adaptability, filters and geo meta data support. It’s also faster and when run on a webkit nightly scores 100/100 in the Acid test as well as being faster still. It also gains the newer webkit Inspector in this guise, but some versions of iCab have an altered Framework, so don’t allow this shell script to functioning.

flo

To make FF3 look more “apple” take one of aronnax themes at http://www.takebacktheweb.org/
For me it’s mostly that while safari is extendable too, most of it’s good extensions cost money, and with 20+ tabs open, FF is more stable most of the time. Other extensions I use are PicLens (although available for safari too), Stylish, Foxmarks, Firebug, Adblock Plus (Safari equivalent costs money) and the Quartz PDF plugin (uses preview to display pdfs in the browser) Plus bookmark syncing is essential for me, and the only thing safari is good at is syncing with the iphone. Also, I like FFs behaviour when you click an rss link (remembers what you want it opened with) much better then safaris embedded rss view), cause I can directly add it to google reader. That said I do use safari from time to time, and engine-wise it’s probably the better one, so if the above things don’t bother you no reason to switch i guess.

David

Oooer aren’t we all getting competitive :-D See what you’ve done Lisa!

Here’s a little comparison chart for current versions. (NO, I’m not doing any more browsers…)

Sunspider
iCabWK 2477.0ms
Webkit 2653.3ms
Firefox 3905.0ms
Safari 4241.2ms
iCab 4611.4ms

Acid 3
Webkit 100/100
iCabWK 100/100
iCab 75/100
Firefox 71/100

Mathew Ballard

@ p.

Are sure that its FireFox. Cause I’ve never had any problems viewing photos on Flickr with any browser. Especially with photos being washed out and etc.

Mike Styles

Simply put… because I said so! lol… just playing. Besides I think your interview looks better on it ;)

andresmtz

Hi Lisa,

I like Safari, but I prefer FF because it can be enhanced with too many useful tools for web developers and daily tasks and runs faster in my laptop (with WinXP SP2). One of the most useful plug-ins for wd is “Firebug”, because it enables you to deeply inspect all your webpage code including css, javascripts, etc and highlighting elements while you roll over the code and it shows you a table with the time it takes to load all images, css files, etc…. And one cool plug-in for common navigation is “piclens” which emerges you in a 3D navigation experience to view pictures and videos with great usability and cool efects… by the way… that’s why I reach your blog, I saw your pic in black biki in piclens and you look so sexy, so it drives me here jeje

Wes Fierce

Security:

I dont know what kind of security issues Safari / Mac’s have, but I recommend Firefox to pc using family and friends as the first line of defense against spyware and malware.

Extensions:

– Web Developer Toolbar: Has alot of great uses, like validation quicklinks, display switching, css info hovering (awesome), and compliance / quirks indicators.

– Foxmarks: Sync’s my bookmarks between my main system and my laptop. I really couldnt live without it now.

– Google Toolbar: pagerank indicator.

Browser:

Also, I can fit the file menu, controls, url bar, and the icons I use from web developer and google toolbar, all on one row, since the browser is customizable.

Joe

When I saw your tweet about convincing you to use FF, I thought you meant full-frame. Silly photographer me.

I’m a Linux user, so I can’t really comment on the “versus” part, but I love Firefox to death. Someone mentioned how awesome Safari search is. In Firefox, typing a slash brings up a quick, as-you-type search bar. So /lisa highlights the first instance of “lisa” on the page. And with FF3’s awesomebar, typing in the address bar searches your history and bookmarks. How much better can it get?

Every time I think, “Man, I wish my browser could do THIS,” I find an extension that makes it easy. What’s not to love?