Browser Wars - Episode 3,532

So I've been using Safari more over the last few weeks for a couple reasons. It seems to be less of a resource hog than Firefox and it is a bit faster. Firefox seems to do more disk IO than Safari, which is one reason I prefer Safari over Firefox on my laptop (5400 RPM drive) more strongly than on my new iMac. While Safari feels faster in general, Firefox does seem to excel in browser multitasking, when I'm loading several pages at once and swapping between them. I also like Firefox's plugins, namely the Google Browser Sync and the Web Developer Toolbar. XUL in Firefox seems to be one of the culprits behind the slowness, but it is also what makes these plugins work. I used Camino for a while, as it is lighter weight than Firefox but it doesn't have XUL so no plugins. And if I'm going to lose the plugins, I might as well just use Safari. One of my favorite things about Firefox is the setting to open ALL new windows in tabs. Safari doesn't have that option but I found an addon to Safari to add it.

Safari/WebKit development seems as active as Firefox. The debug/develop menu adds lots of cool developer-oriented features, though Firefox still has more powerful addons to support web development, in my opinion. One of my favorite new features in WebKit (though not yet Safari) is full page zoom. Everything scales up/down proportionally... it is awesome. I sit about three feet away from my 24" display at home and I really like browsing everything at +1.

In other browser news, the head of Mozilla is complaining about Apple Software Update being used to distribute Safari. Apparently if you install QuickTime or iTunes on MS Windows it installs Apple Software Update (ASU). ASU keeps QT and iTunes up to date and now that Safari for Windows is out of beta it also installs or updates Safari. The Mozilla guy is complaining that this is unfair and seedy... a sneaky way for Apple to distribute Safari more widely. I can see why he doesn't like it, but I don't think it is as sneaky as he seems to. Apple is at least being internally consistent: Software Update on OS X doesn't just update, it sometimes adds software. The user can opt-out: they don't have to run ASU and you can un-check Safari when you run ASU (though annoyingly it seems like you'll need to uncheck it every time you run it). This is how the industry works: Google Updater does the same thing.

"Google Updater is a one-stop installation location for all of Google's Mac software. You can use the Google Updater to install Google Desktop, Earth, Notifier, Picasa Uploader, and other applications."
http://desktop.google.com/support/mac/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=60103

I haven't seen any complaints from Mozilla about Google Updater. Maybe cause Google partners with Mozilla and Apple competes with them? Hmm...

Update - 3/23: Drew recommended I try the Firefox nightly and ooo, I like it. Darn those browser makers and their continual improvement!