Safari dethroned

Perhaps only temporarily, I have made Camino my default browser. Recently out of beta, Camino has been released as a full 1.0 version. The browser uses Mozilla, the same framework as FireFox, but has been designed from the ground up as an OSX application. It takes full advantage of the Mac’s Quartz rendering layer, making web pages look as nice as they do in Safari. Bookmarks are easily imported, and the browser chrome looks good without getting in the way.

But what helped me decide to switch was its rendering speed. Sometimes there is a slight delay when first loading a page, but then the page comes in quickly, and subsequent pages on the site tend to load without the delay. But what really got my attention was how quickly pages on the NYTimes site load. The Times brings my version of Safari to its knees, each link accompanied by a Spinning Beachball Of Death. No such issues in Camino.

So for now, I’ll be doing my primary surfing with Camino.

Comments

With the advent of 10.4.4, I’ve noticed that Safari has been spending far too much time at the beach with his spinning ball, not to mention odd cocoa errors (all NS) while loading pages. I’ve had to force quit it numerous times, killing my session with *many open tabs and windows in the process. I’ve now started using Safari Stand to create a workspace every so often, so I can pick up where I left off.

I was a huge fan of Camino, and I’ve been keeping up with the updates. I may do the same switch, at least for awhile.

Posted by: CM Harrington on February 16, 2006 11:55 AM

Man. I’m such a browser snob. Here in OS X land we have a better and wider choice of quality browsers than have been available to any OS ever, and I’m still not satisfied. That said, I have also switched to Camino for the time being. My first such switch since Safari was released.

I’m doing it for the speed. Safari bogs down. It bogs down when you have a lot of tabs open. And it bogs down to painful slowness on some form intensive sites. Safari however does so many UI bits so perfectly I miss them. So my ideal would be a mash-up of Camino and Safari. Heck if they threw GreaseMonkey in there I’d pay money for it!

Posted by: Xian on February 16, 2006 12:44 PM

I hear you both! I’ve experienced the same pain of losing many windows and tabs to unexpected quits, and of course my main reason for switching is the speed issue as well. I agree with you Xian, that Safari gets a whole bunch of the UI right, which is what kept me enduring all the other issues for so long.

Posted by: Mark Newhouse on February 16, 2006 03:02 PM

Shiira?!!

Posted by: mickimicki on March 7, 2006 12:40 AM

I’ve noticed Safari on Intel-Duo is lightning fast at page rendering (much faster than Firefox or Safari on my G3 or G4). I haven’t tried Camino recently but I will now. I am currently at work on a G4 or I would compare the two now.

Posted by: gary on March 7, 2006 12:11 PM

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In which Mark switches his browser to Camino...

February 16, 2006 | Apple

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