Ever since Apple Software Update forced me to upgrade to the latest version of Apple’s Safari web browser, I’ve been using it a lot, seeing how it stacks up against Firefox. Here’s what I’ve found so far:
The Good:
- Speed – Safari is smoking fast, especially on the very slow Java-heavy LMS site I have to use for my online classes. It renders pages very quickly.
- Spell checking — finally works. It’s off by default, but easy to enable (Edit, Spelling and Grammar, Check Spelling While Typing). This is a deal-breaker for me. My spelling is terrible. I’m a highly-functioning-but-not-officially-diagnosed dyslexic.
- Interface — It’s from Apple, so its purty. I particularly like that the title bar, tool bars, and status bar of inactive windows grey out very noticeably.
The Not-So-Good:
- The find feature — While very flashy, the find feature is slower and harder to use than the one in Firefox.
- Imprinting on other windows — Safari doesn’t play fair with some applications (e.g. Cygwin, Windows cmd.exe or command.exe). If I put a Cygwin window over a Safari window, then bring the Safari window to the top, then flip back to my Cygwin window, a portion of the Safari window will be imprinted on the Cygwin window. Minimizing and restoring the Cygwin window fixes it. This seems to only effect shell windows.
- Text selection — It’s just a little odd. I’m not sure how to explain it other than you have to be a little more deliberate when you drag-select text.
The Bad:
- Not open source.
- Not extensible — there’s currently no plugin architecture. So there’s no easy way to install 3rd party hacks to add functionality. This is a great strength of Firefox.
- Weird conflict that probably only effects me — The upload utility in the aforementioned LMS is Java-based and, for some reason, will not work in Safari. If they fix that, I’d use Safari for my online class, as the speed benefit makes it much more pleasant. But, for tasks that involve shuttling files back and forth, I can’t (currently) use it. This is probably an issue with the LMS itself, which has many usability problems. But it’s still a problem for me.
All in all, I’m digging it and happy to see some substantial improvements.