My ongoing Browser Wars

The big news is Flock. It calls itself the social web browser and uses the same Mozilla engine Firefox is built on. It's essentially Firefox with a different interface designed to act as a central host to all the social network sites you work with by plugging into them. It's got a built-in blog editor, photo and video uploader, feed reader, and a layout that keeps all the social networking accounts you belong to, if it supports them, in a sidebar for easy access. I don't use any of its built-in tools except for the feed reader because my work flow isn't made any easier by switching to them. I use it passively, as a viewer instead of actively as a tool. Since it uses the Mozilla engine, it supports Firefox add-ons and extensions, but there would be no reason to choose this browser over Firefox if you don't kick sand in the social networking sandbox.

Flock is in beta (what software isn't?) with version 2 at this time. Flock version 2 equals Firefox version 3. That's big news version 2. Firefox 3 is now an almost usable web browser. I've never liked the look and feel of it, just can't dance to it. But it's gotten quicker and more polished with version 3. There was no chance for Flock v1 or Firefox v2 to get anywhere near my computer. Firefox is still a Windows application dressed up to pretend it can fit into a Mac environment. It's on my computer but I've removed its icon from my dock.

Camino remains my main browser for the time being. I love its easy to find and use preference for blocking Flash. I can't find the words to describe how much more pleasant a web browsing experience is with Flash turned off. Camino feels like a Mac application and is rock solid for the most part. It's does NOT feel like the fastest browser and may eventually fail me if it doesn't pick up some speed.

Safari has gotten a lot better, and faster, but there are a few picayune factors that prevent me from using it as my main browser. It still feels thin to me. It doesn't support separators in bookmark menus, and the ongoing refusal to support Mozilla-made Bookmarklets really pisses me off. Bookmarklets are at the heart of my browsing experience and I will never reconfigure all of them just so I can use Safari.

Finally, I still keep using and updating a little browser called Sunrise for reconnaissance missions. The reason I use it instead of Safari or Firefox is because it lacks the pretension of those big name guns.