Reluctant switch
I begrudgingly set Firefox as my default browser today.
It’s not that I don’t like Firefox–it’s a solid product and always has been. It’s just I’m more of a bundled browser kind of guy. On Windows I’ve been using IE exclusively since 4.0 was released in late 1996 despite many (sometimes better) competing browsers. On the Mac I’ve been using Safari since I returned to the platform in early 2003 (I took a Mac hiatus from 1996 through early 2003).
I haven’t used a non-Microsoft or non-Apple browser since 1995-96 when I used Netscape 2.0 and 3.0 on my Windows machines and Mac. Even at that time I used IE 3.0 on Windows whenever I could, but the product was buggy and slow, so I didn’t completely trust it.
I generally feel the OS developer’s bundled browser should be the most tightly integrated with the platform. This is definitely the case on Windows, for better and for worse. I like the way IE is integrated into Explorer and other areas of Windows.
Safari doesn’t feel as tightly integrated to me, but that’s not why I’m moving away from it. The reason is simple: site compatability. For a long time I’ve lived with a degraded experience on Gmail (rich text editing and chat don’t work), del.icio.us (the posting feature is degraded), and other sites. Even the WordPress admin console doesn’t optimally in Safari (rich text editing again). Since I use Windows as much as I use the Mac and I use the same sites on both platforms I’m constantly reminded of Safari’s limitations.
In the end Google Calendar is the straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s in beta, so I’m sure it will be compatible with Safari eventually, but I’m an early adopter of services like Google Calendar, so I don’t want to wait. I’m tired of second-guessing browser compatability when I visit sites.
I really want to use Safari and I think the Safari crew is working hard on the compatability problems. Until I can be confident that even the minor compatability problems are going to be a rarity, though, I’m going to be spending the majority of my Mac browsing time in Firefox.