Published: June 15th, 2007
Safari for Windows was no doubt the topic of the week. There is so much to look and try in a web browser that I decided to compile this comparative table highlighting pros and cons of each browser.
Give it a look and let me know what I left out.
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Safari
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Firefox
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Bookmarks
- Web feeds are displayed as a nicely formatter web page with options to sort the articles by date, title or source and set how much of an article is previewed.
- Bookmarks manager is displayed in the content area instead of a separate window and you can set it as you home page, which some users may find helpful.
- The bookmarks, the bookmarks menu and the bookmarks toolbar are three different things.
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Bookmarks
- Web feeds can be displayed as web pages, plus you can subscribe to them using a third party application, online aggregator or using native Live Bookmarks which refresh web feed contents automatically and are available as bookmarks.
- Bookmarks Manager is a separate window. A simple hack can move it to the contents area and set it as your home page as well.
- Bookmarks are bookmarks. They are all available in the bookmarks menu. The bookmarks toolbar is a special folder. This may change in Firefox 3.
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Tab browsing
- To open a new tab you have to right-click the tab bar and then select the only option (New Tab). How dumb is that?
- Safari has a nice tab drag effect.
- The only option to reach a tab beyond your screeen width is to select it from the far right menu that appears when tab overflow occurs (about 17 trab in my 1280 pixels wide monitor).
- Tabs can be merged into single windows or multiple windows can be merged into one as tabs.
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Tab Browsing
- Double-click on the tab bar to open a new tab.
- A simple violet arrow points where the tab will be dropped.
- You can either press the scroll buttons or simply scroll the mouse wheel over the tab bar to reach out of sight tabs.
- It is not defined if Firefox 3 will include this. In the meantime try Tab Mix Plus.
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User Interface
- It looks and acts totally out of place: it doesn’t use Windows theme, no application name in the title bar, no minimize/restore clicking in the task bar, uses its own font rendering.
- No toolbar customization available.
- The progress bar is merged with the location bar. It looks cool. So cool, Apple thinks this is enough to hide the status bar by default. However, without it on sight there’s no way you can know in advance where a link will take you. I guess 9 out of 10 phishers recommend Safari.
- To open a manually entered web address or search results in another tab you must open a new blank tab first.
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User Interface
- Behaves as a Windows application: there’s no learning curve for basic window interaction.
- You can customize which toolbars to show and what buttons go on each.
- The idea of merging the location and progress bars was discussed as during Firefox 2 development but no complete solution (one that doesn’t aid phishers) was found. Fission, a Firefox extension, replicates this behavior and addresses the security concerns. In the meantime the status bar stays for me.
- Press Alt + Enter in the location or search bar to open a web address or search results in a new tab.
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Private browsing
- Safari automatically deletes any cookie, download history, visited page, searched terms and form information you enter while in private browsing. The downside is that there’s no indication that you are in private mode and you could easily forget to turn it off.
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Private Browsing
- Currently under development for Firefox 3. In the meantime try an extension like Stealther or Distrust.
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History
- The History menu shows visited web pages nicely sorted by date.
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History
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Search
- You get Google and Yahoo! search in the search bar.
- No option to add another search engine or organize them.
- No search engine discovery.
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Search
- You get Google, Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon, Answers and Creative Commons.
- You can add as many search engines as you want.
- Web sites offering search engines are discovered and can be added with a single click.
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Languages
- No one knows for sure in how many languages will Safari be available. But I guess it won’t be many more than the current 18 Mac OS X is available on.
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Languages
- Firefox is currently available in 42 languages for Windows and Linux and 1 less in Mac OS X. Three others are currently under development.
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Security
- Apple believed and swore they had the most secure browser around. 24 hours and not less than 6 vulnerabilities after they were proved wrong.
- Fast patching.
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Security
- Mozilla’s development takes place in the open and pays for security flaws findings.
- Fast patching.
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Other features
- No Find as you Type.
- Spell checking, NTLM authentication and FTP directory listing are coming soon. I’d like to know if spell checking allows multiple dictionaries and quick switching them in a text box.
- No extensions.
- No themes
- No full screen mode.
- No automatic update.
- No patching system.
- No session restore.
- SnapBack is a feature that marks some pages as return points. For example web addresses you enter directly in the location bar or search results. Safari adds an orange arrow icon to the location and search bars accordingly so if you get lost, you can click it to get back there. Sounds interesting and may be useful.
- Bonjour, is a local network resources discovery service. No idea what’t the plan with it.
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Other features
- Find as you type.
- Spell checking, FTP browsing and NTLM all in place. Multiple dictionaries supported with quick switching.
- Extensions.
- Themes.
- Full screen.
- Automatic updates available.
- Updates delivered through patches not full downloads.
- After a crash, Firefox restores the previously opened tabs and windows. You can also ask to launch Firefox with restored tabs and windows every time.
- Try SnapBack to get some of these features.
- No Bonjour.
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Web Development
- No Page Info, Error Console, DOM Inspector. Activity, a provided tool provides some details on the files used by the web page and displays their download progress.
- Web page source code is opened with Notepad.
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Web Development
- Page Info, Error Console, DOM Inspector.
- Included source viewer with syntax highlighting.
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| Web standards
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Web standards
- Firefox 3 passes Acid2 test.
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I am sure there are more features and points to note on both products but I believe this is complete enough for a user to make up his mind on what browser to try or keep.
In summary I see no compelling reason for a Firefox user to move to Safari unless he really needs Bonjour or SnapBack. Definitely not the binary market Steve Jobs foresees.
On the other hand, I see enough reasons for Internet Explorer 6 users to jump on board. And I guess iTunes users who will will be very probably offered a Safari bundled update soon are the most typical profile. This should help to increase web browser diversity and press web application developers and vendors to embrace web standards as the only way to cope with it.
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June 15th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
It’s not really fair to add firefox extensions to the comparison. After all, you don’t know much about what extensions safari has.
(I do not consider firefox usable until two of my top extensions have been installed)
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June 15th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Tobu, your comment prompted me to check a little further and in fact I see there exist a number of utilities and plugin that replicate some Firefox features, like SafariSource which adds a source viewer with syntax highlighting.
Not sure if a fix exist for every Firefox feature Safari lacks but it would need like a dozen or more compared to Firefox’s 3 - 4 extensions/hacks I mentioned.
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June 16th, 2007 at 7:37 am
I’ve actually switched back and forth between Safari and Firefox a couple times over the past few years (on a Mac, of course), but I’m currently back to Firefox. A few random comments:
Safari’s RSS handling has one simple but crucial feature that doesn’t seem to be available in any way on Firefox: a dynamically updated (numeric) notifier as part of the feed’s bookmark name that indicates that new articles are available. If there’s a Firefox extension that provides this, please let me know.
Safari really does feel more responsive than Firefox especially after intensive use. I presume this is due to the ongoing Firefox VM footprint and memory leak/fragmentation issues that have existed since Mozilla and have been addressed only slightly in recent releases.
The look & feel of Firefox on Macintosh is quite non-standard, so the corresponding complaint about Safari on Windows is a bit disingenuous… In any case, the success of iTunes on Windows suggests that this isn’t a significant issue for most people. (I think this is true for many of the Safari deficiencies listed - most users just won’t care.)
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June 17th, 2007 at 4:22 am
Currently, there are no extensions for Safari on Windows. All require OSX which kinda makes sense. Apple Software Update does check for updates for Safari automatically.
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June 17th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Jeremy, it checks for updates but doesn’t download them. And they are not updates (patches) but full downloads. Full downloads mean its less probable a user will take it. It may seam it’s then a user’s fault but Mozilla and its patching systems has proved it can be done.
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June 18th, 2007 at 1:18 am
“I guess 9 out of 10 phishers recommend Safari.”
I had a good laugh when I read that. :D
Now the more serious part:
I took the Safari browser for a spin, and have had a few issues were sometimes flash objects never appear. I also found the layout of the whole Safari browser quite annoying. The way the buttons are, but that is probably cause im used to Firefox.
Two features that I loved from the Safari browser was how when you drag a site to the bookmark bar, you get to name it then. In Firefox, you have to right click on the newly created bookmark to rename it. Also, the way you can organize tabs by dragging them around on the tabs bar is a really nice feature. Would be neat to see those features in Firefox 3.
A major part of my experience was the speed of Safari. I have a few sites I view frequently, and I noticed Safari load much faster on a few of them. Images loud quite fast too, but about the same as Firefox. I expect the speed of Firefox 3 to be amazingly fast.
The download manager of Safari is missing one small but key feature. When s file is done downloading, I couldn’t seem to click it to open the file, whether it be a application installer or just a compressed file. It just wouldn’t open. Where as in Firefox, you double click and the file opens right up.
Anyways, I found this article very interesting, and I am greatly looking forward to the release of Firefox 3.
~Nick Finkbeiner~
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June 18th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Indecisive, as a recent new user of iTunes I can say I do not like the look and feel of OSX on Windows. This is the biggest reason I won’t try Safari as it is not Windows “compliant”.
You said: “Firefox on Macintosh is quite non-standard, so the corresponding complaint about Safari on Windows is a bit disingenuous”. Not really. You will note (I cannot find the link right now) that the Firefox crew is trying to make Mozilla apps look more like proper OSX apps. My point being that eventually Firefox will get the look and feel of a OSX application. I bet Safari will never get the look and feel of a real Windows application.
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June 18th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Bob, I agree. Firefox may not have a 100% look and feel in Mac OS X currently but it’s working on it (native widgets, Keychain/Growl integration) and will get there. Apple on the other hand obviously doesn’t care a bit about making Safari fit in Windows UI.
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June 20th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
The extension “Tab to Window” (http://sogame.awardspace.com/ttwindow/ or https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2062) can also be used to merge tabs into single windows and multiple windows can be merged into one as tabs.
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June 20th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Thanks Popos, that’s the one I was trying to remember. I couldn’t so I pointed to Tab Mix Plus which, of course, is an overkill for just this.
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June 21st, 2007 at 9:46 pm
I think you have been a little biased, like saying Firefox 3 passes the Acid Test. I think you should really wait till Firefox 3 is out for that.
And as some else said mentioning extensions is unfair, because that makes Firefox the best browser there is because you can always get the features you want :p
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June 22nd, 2007 at 9:54 am
Michael, Safari 3 is in beta, Firefox 3 is in alpha is the comparison is unfair it is on the Firefox side. You think Firefox 3 final may have some change that make it fail Acid2 test? Really?
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June 22nd, 2007 at 11:30 am
I have been testing Safari for a while now and also see no good reasons to move away from Firefox. Safari is just not that good. They just now got tabs. That took way to long.
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June 25th, 2007 at 3:41 am
If you just compare the out-of-the-boy-features, then Opera would have a much more features than Firefox. I think the number of features is not the most important thing for the average user. Most people dont even use 20% of the features of Safari/Opera/Firefox. They dont need no themes, developer tools. So ease of use and speed are much more important.
PS: Camino also supports Bonjour. Maybe you should ask them what they plan with it.
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June 28th, 2007 at 6:51 am
safari is good but i am not able to understand why it is not opening the mesenger thing of gmail …
not at all showing the list of online people at gmail and I am not able to chat on gmail ..what the hell is this …
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June 28th, 2007 at 7:39 am
Well stop looking at stupid browsers. Just use Opera.
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July 1st, 2007 at 1:58 am
Safari 3 does restore sessions, but it’s in an odd place. In the History menu, you can choose either “Reopen last closed window” or “Reopen all windows from last session.” I’m not a session-saver, so I can’t attest to how this compares with Firefox.
Also, check out the new Web Inspector in the WebKit nightly builds may answer some of your Web Development criticisms. You might want to add “resizable text fields” to Safari’s other features as well as near-compliance with CSS 3.0 (supports 18 of the new styles).
One huge plus Firefox has over Safai that you might want to add is compatibility with sites that use rich text editors. Safari 3 (supposedly) supports these now, but it has been pretty flaky in my experience. Finally, I doubt Safari’s spellchecker will support multiple dictionaries in the near future.
@indecisive: Have you tried Camino?
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July 5th, 2007 at 4:07 am
2/10
It seems to be written from a very subjective perspective.
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July 5th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Nice article. Wanted to point out that the safari toolbar is in fact customizable (I think it is under the edit menu on windows but don’t quote me–Can’t look at it now as I have neither a Mac nor a Windows machine here at work-sola linux.), however still not as customizable as firefox.
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July 5th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Few more things: there is find as you type in Safari. What do you mean there isn’t? (Ctrl+F) Probably the best around with the large orange highlighting of the words you are searching for. (Please please please put this in FF3) Also, there is a nice DOM traversal gadget (at least on Mac) in Safari 3 beta that works really well, but must not be in the windows version (sadly, hopefully that will come because it is really cool.)
Finally I really like the little orange button in the search bar and address bar that will allow you to jump back to the root of a page or back to your original search results page. Maybe that is also in FF3-I’m still using 2.
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July 5th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
OK, I’m quoting you anyways. If there’s a way to customize the toolbar please let me know. I just checked again and couldn’t find a way.
That’s SnapBack. The SnapBack extension mimics the manual part of Snapback but no automatic marking for typed urls and searches. I’ll update this article and post a review later. It is definitely not scheduled for FF3.
FAYT is a feature that allows text to be searched just by typing within a web page. You can activate pressing / or ‘ (to search only links text). You can also avoid the / and ‘ commands at all by checking Search for text when I start typing in (Tools menu, Options, Advanced page, General tab).
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July 11th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Can you please let me know what the price(s) are for Safari Internet Browswer for pc’s (Windows XP and Vista?
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July 11th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
@Mary,
It’s a free download at http://www.apple.com/safari. Doesn’t cost a thing.
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July 16th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
umm LiAR!!! YOU CAN TOTALY CUSTOMIZE THE TOOLBAR IN SAFARI, it looks and acts as itunes does, and you CTRL+click to open a new tab you should definatly do youre research better and not side with one if you are doing a coppairison
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November 3rd, 2007 at 8:35 pm
There is a status bar in Safari.
And Safari has “Find as you type” - Feature that looks much better.
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November 21st, 2007 at 6:26 pm
when did u down load safari cuz some of the things u mentioned are a thing of the past
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November 21st, 2007 at 8:55 pm
nujad, indeed: “Posted on June 15, 2007
Safari for Windows was no doubt the topic of the week.” Beta 1.
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November 25th, 2007 at 8:16 am
If Safari on Windows was as good as Safari on OSX it would be a fair fight.
No mention that Safari for Windows is only a beta….and Firefox is a much more evolved browser on the OS. Way to go mr. Bias :D
I would re-do this if Safari becomes like it is on OSX….because on OSX Safari wipes the board with Firefox.
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November 25th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
“No mention that Safari for Windows is only a beta….and Firefox is a much more evolved browser on the OS. Way to go mr. Bias”
You tell that to users. Safari (2003), as a product is older than Firefox (2004). It’s new on Windows. Anyway this review is based on the first Safari beta so you may better just ignore it.
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December 18th, 2007 at 3:57 am
Safari is way better than Firefox or Thunderbird, infact its the best web browser in the world.
Just try it Dude.
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December 28th, 2007 at 7:03 am
This was tested using Safari 2 for Mac OS X. Safari 3 for Windows should only be different by replacing cmd with ctrl.
- Open a new tab: right click and select “New tab” out of a menu of two items, one of which is “Reload all tabs”
- Open a new tab: press cmd-T.
- Looks and acts totally out of place: it was designed to fit with OSX, surprisingly enough.
- Little bit of toolbar customization available. Not as much as in Firefox, though.
- Open a manually entered web address in a new tab: cmd-shift-Enter. In a new background tab: cmd-Enter.
- Automatic updates: tell Apple Software Update to run itself regularly.
- http://pimpmysafari.com/
- You never mentioned that Safari is, on average, almost twice as fast as Firefox. (apple.com/safari)
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February 3rd, 2008 at 2:34 am
Clearly, this article wreaks of bias. But that’s what I like about it.
My concern is not with Percy, bur rather with the reader who couldn’t detect the apparent bias all over this article. “Firefox 3 passes Acid2 test”, though, I think is a giveaway enough. :)
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February 7th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Safari over-saturates the JPGs… It’s fine for photographs but it’s a pain when you background color doesn’t match the over saturated JPG.
FYI.
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March 17th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
incorrect/out-of-date info.
few things:
-you can access manually entered website by pressing Alt+Enter
-there is a feature like restore session: Reopen All Windows From Last Session (found under History)
there are many reasons for switching to Safari:
-more eye candy. nice blue highlight when entering text, adding bookmarks,
-simplicity. Safari is not clogged up with add-ons and buttons. easy to learn
-new features: resizeable text field, drag tab off to make it a new window (very nice visual effect), merge all windows, ability to import both ie and safari favorites and bookmarks,
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April 11th, 2008 at 4:29 am
Personally i prefer firefox.
The only reason i refuse to use any apple software on my pc is because i hate the interface,it does not look like a windows app nor does it behave like a windows app. When they decide to use the windows API to draw the interface of all their apps than i will give it ago.
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May 27th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Safari sucks so much I can’t even begin to describe it. It’s invasive and intrusive on windows, doesn’t work right, missing a few little things, and generally feels wrong for a long time Firefox+lotsandlotsofextensions user.
It is fair to include extensions in the comparison. In fact, it’s so much fair that is the reason why Firefox is better than every other browser out there. It’s faster (Fx3, of course), it’s THE fastest, it’s secure (and with NoScript, AdBlock Plus and CS Lite it’s THE most secure) and it’s very customizable. You get what you want to get, you have what you want to have. You work how you want to work. Of course, if you’re one of those paranoid geeks that say extensions are a security issue and whatnot, then you don’t get the sweet candy Firefox has to offer. Including resizeable textareas, using an extension with the same name. And lots more, of course. It’s the beauty of open source.
And with all this safari on windows and stuff, I think the browser wars really do benefit from it, because Internet Explorer will have to work harder, will have to become more standard compliant, and generally tips the ballance more to users choosing what browser to use.
And if they use Safari and they like it, that’s always a good thing. It’s always a good thing when people use browsers that they like and love. I for one love my Firefox:
BEAT THAT SUCKA!!!
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MorbusMay 27th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
And by “that” I mean: http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/4922/62925503mv8.jpg
:)
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July 6th, 2008 at 9:20 am
You can tell where a link will take you on safari. Just look at the bottom left-hand corner of the frame. Well, atleast that’s how it works on Mac OS X.
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July 17th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Firefox 3 just blows Safari out of the water. A fairer fight would be Webkit vs Firefox.
BTW: this thing was done ages ago before all those new features came into place.
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July 17th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
I had started using Safari, i was using Windows. But cos of this Safari most of the times windows crashed. I hav uninstalled it. FF 3 roxxxx
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