Chris Curtis dot Org

After Chris’s recent entry regarding Safari’s update, I decided that I’d once again switch my browser to Safari and give it another go.  Some major shortcomings discouraged me from doing it in the past, namely, a lack of an “import bookmark” function.  I have needed to sift through and reorganize my Firefox bookmarks for so long, though, that there was going to be manual bookmark labor regardless of my browser choice.  There are also few other major hurdles to jump.

A big one for me is the use of URL shortcuts within the address bar.  For instance, my bookmarks in Firefox are setup so that I can type “g tokyo post cards” to search Google for Tokyo post cards, “m Jude Law” to show my wife via iMDB.com all the different movies she can rent to see Jude Law, “d [word]” for dictionary definitions, “w [term]” for Wikipedia, etc.  There is a free add-on that will let you do that within the Google search bar, but that’s inconvenient for me.  ⌘L is a much easier keyboard shortcut than ⌘⌥F.  Thankfully, Saft takes care of this, and allows the same type of address bar shortcut customization as does Firefox.  It also lets you add search channels to the search bar, just like Firefox.  I have the free demo, and it doesn’t appear to be crippled, but they are asking for $5 for Saft.  This is a fair price considering all the other things Saft adds (full screen and kiosk browsing for example), but honestly URL shortcuts is somethiing that Safari needs to implement natively.  I’ll use Saft for now and pretend that it’s built into Safari.

The other major drawback is of course, the lack of plug-ins with rich abilities like the Firefox community has spawned.  I find I greatly miss the WebDev kit.  I didn’t find myself using it on a daily basis, but enough that I miss even the very presence of the dropdown menus, at the ready, waiting for me to need a reason to edit the CSS.

Last drawback: Safari still uses OS widgets for dropdown menus and buttons, ignoring a designer’s CSS stylings.  It looks much better than other browsers when it’s a widget with default/no styling, but this can really break the “feel” of many sites that do, and as a hobbiest web designer, I hate that Safari won’t obey what I want the user to experience, especially when it’s a Standard.  Capital “s” because to me, web standards should be just that: not privvy to deviation.

Those drawbacks aside, there are some things that they definitely got right.  It’s fast.  Did I say fast?  I meant fast.  There’s a “bug” button I never noticed before (View options).  Yes, it just brings up the same dialog as Safari/Report Bugs to Apple..., but I like the tiny ant.  Its inclusion is an affirmative indication of Apple’s desire to have Safari be the best browser out there, and willingness to listen to user feedback.

And though it took a century to set up all of my bookmarks, I like their organization in Safari better.  I can fit more bookmark folders in my toolbar than I could in Firefox, and the favicons look nicer (and Firefox would get some of them wrong.) Also, since I’m now using a real Cocoa app, font smoothing works to the extent that it should, as do some other “glossies” that Firefox just couldn’t have, since it was merely faking its use of Aqua.  (Don’t get me started on Camino, which is sadly still rubbish.)

JavaScript / DHTML support is phenominal.  Not like it’s ever been a huge issue, but boy, you notice it on JS heavy sites.  If you haven’t already, try this JavaScript benchmark utility.  Total time on my computer: 11.42 seconds.  Firefox took 17.89 (and flickered on a lot of the animations), and those extra 6 seconds felt painful on some tests, like the one with 50 layers of characters being pulled together to animate a phrase.  Of note is the average speed of IE 6.x: 41.42 seconds.

I’ll comment back in a few days and we’ll see if I’m still using Safari.  All previous attempts to make it my primary browser failed in hours.  I think Saft is going to make this more successful, and hopefully Apple will realize that many of those features need to be native.

Posted Tuesday April 19, 2005 in by Derek Jones

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