The best Mac OSX browser is not Safari
By Jonathan Schlaffer
There are any number of browsers you could choose to use on Mac OSX, Safari, Firefox, Camino, Opera and others. The choices are almost limitless and yet some just stand out more than others. I think all Mac users can agree that Safari can become very sluggish but if you are just stuck on using Safari there are a few ways to make it not so sluggish.
Erik Kennedy of ArsTechnica is running an article all about optimizing Safari and making it faster though some of the comments disagree with him and claim that some or all of his ideas will fail to make Safari run any faster than it does normally. Maybe, maybe not but I don’t use Safari so I wouldn’t know. MacFixIt has even more suggestions but those articles are about to require a subscription in order to read them.
There is but one browser that stands out on Mac OSX for its pure speed. Before I go on, the other browsers that appeared in a test at MacInTalk were Opera, Camino, Firefox, OmniWeb and the Safari Webkit. The one browser that performs best on OSX is OmniWeb. Now, I don’t like OmniWeb not because it isn’t a good program but because you have to pay for the full version.
I realize that Mac users are in kind of a niche market but throw us a bone here, I don’t want to have to pay for a web browser. I can understand paying for PhotoShop, Micrsoft Office and any other professional tools but to have to pay for a web browser is just silly (even if it is only $14.95).
Nonetheless, OmniWeb is the winner next to the Safari Webkit. Actually, the Safari Webkit managed scores well within the realm of OmniWeb and the Webkit is free. I like free. Of course, you could run into problems using nightly builds and webkits, I’m not sure because this is something I have not tried (yet).
I’m not going to pay for a web browser, ever, period. Even if the free ones are slower than paid offerings, it’s not something that I’m going to do.
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April 18th, 2007
I concur. I don’t particularly care how good it is; Safari really is a decent browser, but Camino outperforms it in a lot of areas, and either way: for what I want in a browser, I can get it for free (be it either camino or safari). There are some programs I think could be worthy of a small fee (Adium, for instance), but I believe the Mac community on the whole buys into the free for all mentality, because, we are all in this together, and frankly charging for something someone else has for free never is good for business.
April 21st, 2007
[...] In other words, don’t use Safari, use Camino or Opera, those would be my choices or you could always ante up $14.95 in US money for OmniWeb but I don’t believe in that though it is the fastest Mac browser. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
September 13th, 2008
Hey Jonathan,
I totally understand your philosophy on this, although I have to say I don’t really concur. Much like Triston, I do believe that we’re all in this together, but saying that “charging for something someone else has for free never is good for business” is simply silly.
When you create a better product that what’s available in the marketplace, you have an obligation to your business to maximize the profit potential of that market. This is what fuels innovation, the potential for profit.
As I sit here typing this in my (paid for) OmniWeb browser I can certainly tell you that it was well worth the miniscule 14.95 I paid for it.
Yes, there are plenty of other browsers available for free, and there always will be, but owning a Mac has never been about price, if that were the case no one would own one.
Mac has always been about being BETTER than what’s available. Better performance, better usability, better looking etc., and Mac users have always shown a willingness to pay a premium price for this. OmniWeb’s pricing is simply an extension of that same idea, they know that Mac users have the money and are willing to spend it, IF the product delivers what it claims it can.
Clearly by your own admission, OmniWeb delivers. So, while your personal objections are well articulated and completely understandable, I personally think it would be more useful to focus on the amazing results of the OmniWeb experience, than the ridiculously low price of owning it.
Tai
October 7th, 2008
Two problems for me with OmniWeb, which I purchased a long time ago. the first thing is autofill. Why can’t they master this? It just doesn’t work. The second is the use of side drawers for tabbed browsing. When drawers were all the rage in the Mac world, this was okay. Drawers have gone the way of the Dodo bird. I really want to see traditional tabbed browsing on omniWeb.