Posts Tagged ‘firefox’

Are you passionate about your browser? Do you think your browser is the best? Then, this is what you have to read. Having a fascination for your favourite sports team, actor, actress and arguing about their greatness is an age old phenomenon, but today’s world of late have been arguing about their browsers with their friends and colleagues. From the famous Internet Explorer to the new Opera browsers there seems to be people arguing which is the best.

This argument arises because of the difference in their feature, security, etc. so let us discuss in detail about them. Internet explorer is the widely used explorer in this world comprising nearly 80-85% of the browsing market. Mozilla Firefox stands in the second place with 8-12% of the browsing market. The third, forth and fifth places are occupied by safari, opera and AOL respectively. Nevertheless, all signs point to Internet Explorer losing ground, which is even more worrying for Microsoft considering that more people are getting online than ever before. With more and more people getting online due to the availability of netbooks, cheap laptops like the Asus Eee PC 701 4G designed for going online, in addition to accessing the internet with smartphones, it is not a good time for Microsoft to be losing market share. When it comes to the question of quality there’s a tough competition among all the browsers. Once upon of time, internet explorer was criticized for its poor safety measure but the new version has equaled its competitors in every sense and so does their counterparts.

Experts were put in a very great confusion when they were asked to judge who is the best and in the end gave a conclusion that each one is best in different aspects. Though a few argued that Internet Explorer is the best since it is the widely used browser, many disagreed. Like this there had been a lot of argument over this title. Only time can say which is the best browser because a poor browser will have no place in the market.

The mobile browser war has reached to new heights in the past recent months. Google, Mozilla Firefox and Nokia are redesigning their strategies with regards to the development and revamping of their web browsers for the PC as well as for mobiles. However, Apple and Microsoft were strictly focusing on their own web browsers only, i.e. Safari and Internet Explorer respectively.

But now the Apple too has decided to show a ‘green signal’ to other web browser vendors to develop their respective web applications for its most famous product, the Apple iPhone 3G. With the approval of third party web browsers, the Firefox and Opera iPhone version is most likely to hit the mobile browser markets. In fact, due to its dominance Firefox may be the first third party web browser to be seen in the App store. This may be followed by Opera, Google Chrome or even Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. But it’s only a guess as of now. The company has not announced the final beneficiaries that will be allowed to get a place in the App store.

The open source application; Mozilla Firefox is currently the biggest competitor of Microsoft Internet Explorer and disrupting the dominance the IE used to enjoy earlier. At present, Safari is the default web browser application for iPhone and may be the users get to use the Firefox’s iPhone version soon.

Apple Safari users are lucky to have it downloaded on their computers. It caters to all the demands of the internet users. After experiencing a huge success among other web browsers, Safari is getting criticized on various grounds. A new issue has popped up which is creating a controversy for Apple.

In addition to offering itunes and QuickTime to its users it is also offering Safari 3.1 on Windows through the Apple Software Update pop-up. Mozilla firefox opposes this by saying that Apple is adding a product to the auto-update list that users never requested. The update offers something more which is a breach of interest for other web browsers. It ultimately undermines the safety of users on the web by eroding that relationship. They call it as a malware distribution practice which should stop immediately. However, for Apple it is a marketing technique to popularize their software. They want their software to reach the desktop PC of the masses and that is what they are actually doing. They are making convenient for both Mac and Windows users to get the latest Safari update from Apple. The war between the browsers is never ending. For now Apple safari is surely creating a buzz among the internet users. Soon, it will take over the other browsers available in the market.

Safari is being used by many Windows users nowadays. Since its beta release, Safari has been tested on a different basis to find out whether it can make Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape Navigator and some others obsolete or not. Well, so far Safari has proved itself the fastest among all the available web browsers in the cyber market and it is still trying to earn extra points day by day. As the Safari has become quite popular today more and more internet users try it to experience the remarkable web surfing experience. There are a lot of new, unique and exciting features in Safari which instantly arrest the attention of users. But there are some loop holes which are responsible for the negative marking of Safari. One such loop hole is the way the fonts are being displayed on the toolbar.

Just below the address bar, there are different shortcuts which can take you to your favorite web page in no time. This is really a good feature, but some users find it hard to read the names of these shortcuts until and unless they roll their mouse cursor over these shortcuts. The reason behind this is that the background color and the font color of the caption are same. In fact, it seems that the caption does not have its own color, it is merely embossed. This bothers the Safari users, especially those who have poor eyesight. So they want something which is bright and easy to read.

Safari’s shortcuts on the toolbar

Apple Safari has really come up with highly interactive and user-friendly tabs. Today a lot of other web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet explorer and Netscape Navigator offer tabbed web surfing, but the way Apple Safari has created its tabs totally captures the interest of window users.

You will find a lot of vital features in Safari’s tabs which are absent in the other browsers. Safari tabs are more creative and exciting to work with. The major advantage of Safari tabs is you can drag a tab and it will show you a small snapshot of the web page associated with that tab. If you drop that tab anywhere outside the tab bar, a new window will open showing the web page of the corresponding tab. If you are working with more than one tab at a time, you can also rearrange them by simply clicking on a tab and moving it either left or right inside the tab bar. You can clearly see that the movement of other tabs when they adjust themselves according to the shifted one. This animated property of tabs makes it easier for the users to determine where the tab will get placed (which is being shifted) and how this rearrangement of tabs will look like. Mozilla Firefox does not have these kinds of animated tabs and thus I frequently face issues whenever I rearrange my tabs. Apple has really shown a great piece of innovation.

Safari Tabs showing a snapshot of the web pages when getting dragged

The Apple Safari Menu

Last week I found that no menu appears when I right click on the tool bar. This week my internet work speed slowed down because of lack of appropriate options in the Apple Safari’s menu, which pops up when I right click in the area where the web page is displayed. There are some options which I use frequently in Mozilla Firefox, but they all are missing in Safari’s menu. Options which facilitate background image viewing and sending the web page links are missing. One of the most important option ‘Select All’ is also not there in the Safari’s menu. Therefore I was not able to select all the text on the web page quickly and easily.

The Firefox Menu

The Firefox menu provides all these functions and some additional ones also. For example, in Firefox if you select some text in the web page and then right click your mouse, you will get an option named as ‘View Selection Source’. With the help of this option you can see the HTML source code of the selected portion only. Safari does not have this feature too. Firefox menu has an another comprehensive option (View Page Info) which is rarely used but can provide complete information about the web page. Its time to seriously revise the menus of Safari.

Can anybody help me with the Add-ons in Safari for Windows XP? I am not getting interactive menus for installing new add-ons and themes for my Safari. When I click on the Window add-on option in Safari, it shows me the complete list of installed add-ons as a web page. But I was expecting the list of Add-ons in a separate window from where I can install new Add-ons and themes to customize my Safari according to my taste.

This kind of facility is available in Mozilla’s Firefox. Its add-on option shows up the current installed add-ons and themes. It also has options which directly take the user to Mozilla’s webpage. From there you can select different extensions and themes to be installed on for your Firefox. Apple should also offer a similar kind of facility for its customers. Of course Safari’s method is still more simple than with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. I have tried a lot to find a simple way to install new themes and add-ons but didn’t get any such option. May be its there as sub-option under some tab (which I am guessing only), but still there should be an easy way to get it because everyone uses these kind of options to dress up his browser according to his preferences and should be accessible easily.

Safari’s way to show add-ons:

Mozilla’s way:

Apple Safari for windows XP is still ahead of the Mozilla’s Firefox due to its animated pop up windows. For the first time, Apple has introduced great style of presenting the pop up windows which comes out when you select any particular option from the menu bar. For example: If you click on Edit on the menu bar and select the last option i.e. Preferences, you will get a window popped out on your screen. Now the way this window has been designed is just fantastic.

For the first time a unique creativity has been unfolded while developing animation for these kind of pop up windows for Safari. When you browse through different tabs in the window the size of the window gets adjusted automatically according to the options under a particular tab. For eg. Suppose you are on General tab, now if you click on Appearance tab then the overall size of the window shrinks according to the matter. Again if you click on General tab or any other tab the window will get automatically resized according to its contents. This feature makes Safari distinctively ahead because neither Microsoft’s Internet Explorer nor the Firefox gives this level of user interaction. Both of them provide the same old fashioned static windows. By applying simple creativity, Apple has earned lots of additional points.

See how window automatically adjust itself according to the contents

Day by day I am getting impressed by Safari on my Windows XP because some of its cool features like fast speed, animated pop-up windows etc. But suddenly I found some thing wrong which crashes all my thrill and excitement.

Last night I was surfing the web via my Safari and suddenly I got a web page which was showing an extra large image of my favorite game character. I decided to increase the viewable area by hiding the navigation toolbar which I do frequently on Mozilla Firefox. So, I just put my cursor on the navigation bar and right clicked my mouse. Oh! Where is the right click menu? It is something which is very necessary. Now, I have to go to View on the menu bar every time I want to hide the tool bar? And its shortcut is also not easy to remember. I was expecting a right click menu in which there should be an option to show/hide the navigation tool bar, but all in vain. Well I hope that in future these kind of small issues will get rectified which will boost my interest and enthusiasm while exploring the fun via Safari.

Having a menu without a right click option not only sounds ludicrous but is quite impractical too

No doubt that Apple Safari for Windows is faster than Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer, in fact initially this was the only feature which made me to shift from Firefox to Safari, but one thing which disappoints me is its toolbar.

I was expecting its toolbar as more user friendly including a lot of functions on it, but all I got was a messy toolbar which does not have all the basic features even. Seriously, the toolbar needs to be revised. There is no GO button, so one has to press Enter or Reload button to open the typed URL which is not at all convenient. Secondly, the Refresh and Stop button is same which creates a lot of confusion while surfing the web. There should be two different buttons for two different options. Now most disgusting thing of all is that there is no Home button and the back and forward button doesn’t show up the list of currently viewed URLs. I use these functions a lot and thus I am not able to use my Safari conveniently. The drop down list of visited URLs in the Address Bar is also missing. Safari’s tools should be restructured with all the basic features included and some advanced one also in order to get one step ahead of Firefox and Internet Explorer.