Safari VS FireFox

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Level 1

4 points

Safari VS FireFox

Which is truly more functional, Safari or FireFox? I have been in a running argument with Ancestry.com over their refusal to support Safari. They site statistics showing FireFox much in the lead user wise and, of course, their goal is to make money. I briefly tried FireFox and found that it was cumbersome. I believe it is also admitted that Safari is more compatible to website design. Of course it is if one uses MobileMe for hosting. So why have so many folks decided to use FireFox instead of Safari?

G4 Dual, Mac OS X (10.4.11), all software updates

Posted on Mar 18, 2010 10:05 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

ocho_koch

Level 1

5 points

Mar 18, 2010 11:16 AM in response to dgbmunger

I think there is not much of "versus" in this. Safari and Firefox are rather similar in terms of their work - displaying web pages. And both good.

So it is a matter of some personal preference which browser to use.

Safari's pro's lay in the fact that it is bundled with OS - it is just there and well adjusted for its environment.

..........................

There can be no refusal of any kind towards Safari at any web site meant for general public. Safari is one of the major web browsers and a wide public web site must work well in it.

If still it is not (I wonder how its developers have managed it) - have then this Firefox alongside Safari. Firefox is not that big to cram up your HDD.

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Answer 2

Mar 18, 2010 11:35 AM in response to dgbmunger

HI,

Their Family Tree Maker is written for Microsoft Windows only. That tells a story right there.

It may be hard to see but the minuimum requirements in that graphic are Windows only.

They site statistics showing FireFox much in the lead user wise and, of course, their goal is to make money.

Not sure how using one browser or another is going to change their revenue.

If you search these forums, you'll see many users who have installed Firefox, used it then came back to Safari. Remember this... Apple writes Safari. So your internet browsing is much more secure then a third party browser.

If Ancestry.com doesn't support Safari, I wouldn't use it. But that's just me.

Carolyn 🙂

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Answer 3

Klaus1

Level 9

52,749 points

Mar 18, 2010 12:05 PM in response to dgbmunger

Safari is the fastest browser available for the Mac.

Firefox is not far behind, but is jerky in use.

I decided long ago not to use Ancestry.com due to their neanderthal attitude to Macs in general and Safari in particular.

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Answer 4

dgbmunger Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 18, 2010 7:52 PM in response to dgbmunger

I thank each of you three responders for corroborating all of my thoughts. Most of the time I have no trouble with the databases at Ancestry, but recently they have added many more. I suspect that all may not be programmed very well. If a customer complains about too many different responses to the same search, the Ancestry customer service may be instructed to pass the problem off as the user's and blame a Browser. Who knows? Most of us dislike many of Ancestry's policies, but they do still have the largest source of genealogical material on the WEB and my work depends upon that. Thanks again for your responses.

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Answer 5

John Galt

Level 10

140,954 points

Mar 18, 2010 9:40 PM in response to dgbmunger

If you're interested in genealogy, I recommend Reunion from LeisterPro.

I've been using it since version 1. Don't know how long that's been, but it came on a floppy disk. 🙂 I would imagine it could import a wide variety of databases.

By the way Safari wins the speed test right now. Of course Firefox is darn good too; I like its ability to save and restore a browsing session.

Between the two, using the most recent versions, only Safari passes the Acid3 test. To my knowledge, Chrome and Opera are the only other browsers that do.

No version of Windows Explorer does.

For what it's worth. 🙂

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