Why I Use Safari Instead Of Firefox(jwz.org)
jwz.org
Why I Use Safari Instead Of Firefox
http://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/04/why-i-use-safari-instead-of-firefox/
16 comments
>every few months I'm forced to upgrade [Firefox] and shit has moved around and I need to re-learn how to do a task that I was happily doing before
There is a fix for that, which I have been happily using for the last month: Switch to the "Extended Support Release" version of Firefox.
Since Mozilla makes it slightly difficult to get this version, I will provide instructions: go to ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/ and download and install the latest version with "esr" in the name. If you make a mistake in identifying the latest version, it will upgrade itself to the latest version when you run it.
There is a fix for that, which I have been happily using for the last month: Switch to the "Extended Support Release" version of Firefox.
Since Mozilla makes it slightly difficult to get this version, I will provide instructions: go to ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/ and download and install the latest version with "esr" in the name. If you make a mistake in identifying the latest version, it will upgrade itself to the latest version when you run it.
Sorry, but I refuse to read any content that makes my eyes bleed.
> Anyone who truly understands UI design realizes that every preference option is an admission of defeat: it's there because you couldn't just get it right the first time.
No, it's there because "getting it right" is subjective. If you're happy with Apple's defaults, the only thing it means is that your ideal of UI happens to coincide with Apple's idea of UI, no less, no more.
If you would like everyone to respect your subjective preference of one browser over another (and there's nothing wrong with that), let's keep it all consistently subjective and avoid using moralizing phrases, okay?
No, it's there because "getting it right" is subjective. If you're happy with Apple's defaults, the only thing it means is that your ideal of UI happens to coincide with Apple's idea of UI, no less, no more.
If you would like everyone to respect your subjective preference of one browser over another (and there's nothing wrong with that), let's keep it all consistently subjective and avoid using moralizing phrases, okay?
Why I Dismiss Webpages Instantly: Green text on black background.
My eyes hurt after only a few seconds.
It's not 1996.
My eyes hurt after only a few seconds.
It's not 1996.
Well, he did complain about tabs in the browser. Seems like he is stuck in 1996.
A very lucrative 1996.
I edit text all day with a black background, often with green text (but not blindingly bright green), and that still makes my eyes hurt. I didn't make it past the 2nd paragraph.
Some things get only so good - after that you're just engineering better cup holders.
Manual shifts for cars. The IBM model-M keyboard. Unix. Green on black text.
That said, he does have the contrast turned up a bit too much for my taste.
Manual shifts for cars. The IBM model-M keyboard. Unix. Green on black text.
That said, he does have the contrast turned up a bit too much for my taste.
I had to copy & paste into a text editor to read it.
I still see the reflections if I close my eyes :(
The ironic thing is that a lot of it discusses browser UI design.
The real question is why he does not use Chrome ;)
I can only speak to why Chrome irritates me (but apparently not enough to switch to something else yet).
1) When I copy the url, it adds the prefix into the paste buffer. This is the opposite of what I expect from an application -- "Do what I ask you". Even if you select just the hostname of a non-ssl site, it still prefixes the `http://`. This is a constant irritant when I try ssh'ing to a host or pasting a hostname to someone/something that only wants the hostname.
2) It displays some prefixes (https) but not others (http). I would prefer to be shown all prefixes. There was even talk of hiding https prefix for a while as I recall.
3) Location bar history completion always seems to show me the worse possible result. It often omits things that I want, and I find no way to complete to them. Sometimes it shows the result only if it type the full url.
4) Choices that make sense if you are trying to make the browser an OS, by ignoring OS functionality -- native printing dialogs/previews, native dns caches, tabs (custom window management), task managers, etc. Not all of them are choices I like (printing, custom dns cache). Some I like (tabs).
5) I am not sure how I feel about bundling flash. I have 'click to play' enabled, and the only thing I use flash for is the occasional youtube video someone sends me to view.
1) When I copy the url, it adds the prefix into the paste buffer. This is the opposite of what I expect from an application -- "Do what I ask you". Even if you select just the hostname of a non-ssl site, it still prefixes the `http://`. This is a constant irritant when I try ssh'ing to a host or pasting a hostname to someone/something that only wants the hostname.
2) It displays some prefixes (https) but not others (http). I would prefer to be shown all prefixes. There was even talk of hiding https prefix for a while as I recall.
3) Location bar history completion always seems to show me the worse possible result. It often omits things that I want, and I find no way to complete to them. Sometimes it shows the result only if it type the full url.
4) Choices that make sense if you are trying to make the browser an OS, by ignoring OS functionality -- native printing dialogs/previews, native dns caches, tabs (custom window management), task managers, etc. Not all of them are choices I like (printing, custom dns cache). Some I like (tabs).
5) I am not sure how I feel about bundling flash. I have 'click to play' enabled, and the only thing I use flash for is the occasional youtube video someone sends me to view.
Tabs, I guess.
It's bizarre that this guy doesn't use tabs. Oh well, to each his own.
I use Safari instead of Firefox because the swipe gesture to go forward and back works so much better. I love that I can swipe away half the page, get a peek at what I'm going back (or forward) to and then return to the page I was on without triggering a reload or anything happending. It breaks some sites a little bit (GitHub especially) but it looks cool on most of the Internet so I'm fine with it.
I use Safari instead of Firefox because the swipe gesture to go forward and back works so much better. I love that I can swipe away half the page, get a peek at what I'm going back (or forward) to and then return to the page I was on without triggering a reload or anything happending. It breaks some sites a little bit (GitHub especially) but it looks cool on most of the Internet so I'm fine with it.
There is a school of thought that prefers applications to delegate their window handling duties to the window manager, in order to have consistent behaviour across applications.
In that case, both MDI and tabbed UIs remove the capability of the WM to manage that specific rectangle of content, and require you to use in-app controls, which may not even exist.
This is especially pronounced for those who use non-standard window managers, say Ion or Awesome window manager which let you tile new windows rather than having them appear whereever they choose.
Dunno if that's jwz's reason, but it's one good reason that I've had in the past (although not for browsers, the number of tabs I keep grows too rapidly to manage nicely alongside long-lived windows)
In that case, both MDI and tabbed UIs remove the capability of the WM to manage that specific rectangle of content, and require you to use in-app controls, which may not even exist.
This is especially pronounced for those who use non-standard window managers, say Ion or Awesome window manager which let you tile new windows rather than having them appear whereever they choose.
Dunno if that's jwz's reason, but it's one good reason that I've had in the past (although not for browsers, the number of tabs I keep grows too rapidly to manage nicely alongside long-lived windows)
I'd be shocked, since he's using a Mac for its UI and extolling its virtues. I'm not aware of a way to swap out the Mac WM for another one.
That's a good point actually. I'm in the opposite camp just now - I'm on a mac, but I'd quite like a way to alter the WM behaviour for some apps.
The Apple 'our way is best' approach is often great, but when it fails, you're stuck without easy (or even hard) ways of fixing it.
The Apple 'our way is best' approach is often great, but when it fails, you're stuck without easy (or even hard) ways of fixing it.
He's using something tab-like, the task bar or whatever it's called on Mac. I use my (linux) task bar to see my separate apps (like everyone does), with sub-"apps" in Firefox tabs. His "tabs" are just migrated up to his task bar as separate instances of Safari. Same thing, different implementation. They both bookmark locations of concentration. The difference is that, on the Mac, for jwz, it works well with Safari and not with Firefox.
Actually, his "tabs" are just migrated up to the "Window" menu of Safari since there is no bar or anything that allows you to switch between windows of a single app. (The Dock, unlike the task bar in Gnome 2 or Windows, only lets you switch between apps.)
You can also switch between windows with the Command-backspace key and with Expose (if you are on Leopard or Snow Leopard) or Mission Control (if you are on Lion), but those are pretty lame IMHO.
>The difference is that, on the Mac, for jwz, it works well with Safari and not with Firefox.
Not true: on the Mac, switching between the windows of Firefox works the same way as switching between the windows of Safari.
You can also switch between windows with the Command-backspace key and with Expose (if you are on Leopard or Snow Leopard) or Mission Control (if you are on Lion), but those are pretty lame IMHO.
>The difference is that, on the Mac, for jwz, it works well with Safari and not with Firefox.
Not true: on the Mac, switching between the windows of Firefox works the same way as switching between the windows of Safari.
I tried using Safari when it was first ported to Windows, back when I used Windows, which means at least 5 years ago. It was slow and I couldn't do the things I was used to doing in Firefox or Opera, so I switched back after about a week.
I can't live without tree style tabs, noscript, ghostery, firemacs, facebook purity and especially adblock plus, which is why I have stuck with Firefox for a good part of a decade. Does Safari even have plugins?
What, besides allowing you to turn off tabs and being the unchangeable default on Mac, does Safari have going for it? In my extremely limited experience, it seems to fall short of even IE, let alone Firefox, Opera or Chrome.
I can't live without tree style tabs, noscript, ghostery, firemacs, facebook purity and especially adblock plus, which is why I have stuck with Firefox for a good part of a decade. Does Safari even have plugins?
What, besides allowing you to turn off tabs and being the unchangeable default on Mac, does Safari have going for it? In my extremely limited experience, it seems to fall short of even IE, let alone Firefox, Opera or Chrome.
> It was slow and I couldn't do the things I was used to doing in Firefox or Opera
It's still slow. But you can do all the stuff you can with the other browsers. I use it for developing mobile stuff, the ability to switch user agents is built in and it's at least slightly similar the iOS Safari.
It's still slow. But you can do all the stuff you can with the other browsers. I use it for developing mobile stuff, the ability to switch user agents is built in and it's at least slightly similar the iOS Safari.
>Google takes this even further: all of their UI decisions are made statistically.
I like how the author scoffs at this as if it is self-evidently preposterous, yet Google is one company whose UI design elegance is consistently competitive with Apple's.
I can't think of a single UI design choice in Safari that I prefer over how Chrome does it.
I like how the author scoffs at this as if it is self-evidently preposterous, yet Google is one company whose UI design elegance is consistently competitive with Apple's.
I can't think of a single UI design choice in Safari that I prefer over how Chrome does it.
I like how the author scoffs at this as if it is self-evidently preposterous,
Have you used gmail lately? The new UI is a mess.
Have you used gmail lately? The new UI is a mess.
Android 4, too. I think their shift to using only icons everywhere (in Android and their websites) was terrible. I have no idea what most of the icons are supposed to do until I tap them, which is a terrible way of navigating an interface.
>I have no idea what most of the icons are supposed to do until I tap them, which is a terrible way of navigating an interface.
Is that such a terrible way for things to be though? To me, a well designed interface is one that invites you to play with it and learn its ins and outs, while making the experience memorable so that you'll find your way more easily in the future. It's best for the interface to be informative while doing this, but if you spray text all over everything, it does impede exploration.
Is that such a terrible way for things to be though? To me, a well designed interface is one that invites you to play with it and learn its ins and outs, while making the experience memorable so that you'll find your way more easily in the future. It's best for the interface to be informative while doing this, but if you spray text all over everything, it does impede exploration.
They added a preference to get text in the buttons instead of the cryptic icons, which is a huge usability improvement.
I still don't like it as much as the old gmail.
I still don't like it as much as the old gmail.
They added a preference to get text in the buttons
I hadn't realized - thanks. It makes a difference.
I still want the old look back.
I hadn't realized - thanks. It makes a difference.
I still want the old look back.
In addition, I think they completely failed with the HD themes, too. Some of them have such a contrast difference that you cannot even read label captions anymore, i.e., the complete left part below the Inbox becomes essentially useless...
I'd argue that it's less of a mess than Mail.app in Lion.
Well, it's just like jwz's rant on FF vs Safari. Mail.app is not as good, no doubt about it. It lacks almost everything a mail client should be able to do. But it works, does it's job quickly and easily and then is out of my way. I wish Thunderbird was the same way, but it just isnt.
Dunno - I'm still using 10.6.
I don't have anything _against_ Lion, just that I hate upgrading unless I really need to.
I don't have anything _against_ Lion, just that I hate upgrading unless I really need to.
Google's UI is competitive with Apple's in elegance? That's an interesting perspective; obviously, I don't agree.
I think it's kind of silly to argue Google v. Apple on elegance, yeah. But to my eye, Chrome really is a lot more elegant than Safari. There are a billion things Chrome does to make browsing quicker for me, not just because of raw browser speed but because things are just so graceful, simple, and direct. Just being able to search within a URL by starting to type the URL and then hitting 'Tab' is golden to me, and saves me a huge amount of time every single day.
Yeah, it's subjective, and of course the way one works doesn't exist in the world of Platonic forms but is a function of the tools one uses.
EDIT: So, therefore, it's very difficult to make claims across toolsets. I am an Apple/Emacs guy from back in the Stone Age, so what I think of as "elegant" is going to be very different than someone who has a different history. YMW truly V.
EDIT: So, therefore, it's very difficult to make claims across toolsets. I am an Apple/Emacs guy from back in the Stone Age, so what I think of as "elegant" is going to be very different than someone who has a different history. YMW truly V.
Well I should qualify that by saying that I mean the Apple of today vs. the Google of today. Apple's design has slipped considerably – just look at Lion, iTunes, more recent versions of Safari, or the latest UI for the Apple TV. But if we were talking about Apple ca. 2009, Apple would easily win in any contest of UI design.
Ah, I obviously took the good juju with me when I left.
If we all told the author that he was an utterly fascinating contrarian, would that help him not feel so angry?
I don't know whether it's my Mountain Lion install, particular version of Chrome/Opera/Firefox - but there is one reason why I use Safari - its butter-smooth scrolling.
Seriously, I was pretty huge Opera fanboy - but then I switched over to Safari to check out some page that was just broken in Opera and I was blown away. If you don't have Mac with multi-touch trackpad, it might not be that big of a deal, but boy, does it make difference.
I hate almost everything else in Safari (no ability to pin tabs, that ridiculous "yeah, we won't resize tabs so we can show you more, just hide them in this stupid little >> menu" thing, I could go on and on...), but the way it scrolls outweighs anything else for me.
Seriously, I was pretty huge Opera fanboy - but then I switched over to Safari to check out some page that was just broken in Opera and I was blown away. If you don't have Mac with multi-touch trackpad, it might not be that big of a deal, but boy, does it make difference.
I hate almost everything else in Safari (no ability to pin tabs, that ridiculous "yeah, we won't resize tabs so we can show you more, just hide them in this stupid little >> menu" thing, I could go on and on...), but the way it scrolls outweighs anything else for me.
Huh... "this guy", "the author" (2x).
Do people really not know who jwz is or why it might be notable that he doesn't use Firefox? Generally when a personal rant like this is upvoted, the reason isn't the content alone.
Do people really not know who jwz is or why it might be notable that he doesn't use Firefox? Generally when a personal rant like this is upvoted, the reason isn't the content alone.
Since people still don't seem to be getting it:
jwz was one of the principle programmers of Netscape Navigator. He coined the term mozilla. He spearheaded the effort to get it open sourced. If you learned to program in the 90s the only hacker that was even comparable was Carmack.
... and further more all of you youngsters need to get the hell off of my lawn.
jwz was one of the principle programmers of Netscape Navigator. He coined the term mozilla. He spearheaded the effort to get it open sourced. If you learned to program in the 90s the only hacker that was even comparable was Carmack.
... and further more all of you youngsters need to get the hell off of my lawn.
His wikipedia page redirects from his initials: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jwz
The irony of his essay really hit home after watching the first few minutes the Alex Faaborg video he linked to. Alex uses an interview with jwz to introduce the philosophical foundation that Mozilla is built one. Times sure have changed.
I thought Jamie's essay was pretty reasonable. It highlights the open vs. closed debate that's been going on for decades. I doubt that open systems will ever be able to provide the end-to-end consistency and integration that an Apple-style walled garden can provide (if done right). You have to decide what's more important to you.
I thought Jamie's essay was pretty reasonable. It highlights the open vs. closed debate that's been going on for decades. I doubt that open systems will ever be able to provide the end-to-end consistency and integration that an Apple-style walled garden can provide (if done right). You have to decide what's more important to you.
> You have to decide what's more important to you.
Unless the walls get too high. And of course there's the argument that the walled gardens are built on land fertilized by open systems; they can't survive alone.
Unless the walls get too high. And of course there's the argument that the walled gardens are built on land fertilized by open systems; they can't survive alone.
Agreed. I greatly admire Apple in many ways, but I prefer to be part of a more open community - even if that means some rough edges.
I feel jwz is trying to find a rational to his feelings.
When one starts using the "it just works" phrase or its variants, I know no further reasoning would be necessary.
>> "I'm certainly willing to inconvenience myself for my political beliefs. I've done it before and I'll do it again.
But in this case, the inconvenience is too great. Apple's approach is resulting in a product that is just so much more usable than Mozilla's (and especially Google's) product that using it all day, every day would be just too much of a pain in the ass."
This seems to be a wee contradiction, you don't mind inconvenience when it's for political conviction, however, the inconvenience stops at tabs in your browser and your browser's UI. Luckily there are the many, many, many political beliefs that do not touch on the unsurmountable problem posed by UX/UI for which one could live with a bit of inconvience.
I don't mind some inconvenience to take to the street and partake in a demonstration, but my sofa's user experience is just so much better. I'm certainly willing to inconvenience myself for my political beliefs, though.
But in this case, the inconvenience is too great. Apple's approach is resulting in a product that is just so much more usable than Mozilla's (and especially Google's) product that using it all day, every day would be just too much of a pain in the ass."
This seems to be a wee contradiction, you don't mind inconvenience when it's for political conviction, however, the inconvenience stops at tabs in your browser and your browser's UI. Luckily there are the many, many, many political beliefs that do not touch on the unsurmountable problem posed by UX/UI for which one could live with a bit of inconvience.
I don't mind some inconvenience to take to the street and partake in a demonstration, but my sofa's user experience is just so much better. I'm certainly willing to inconvenience myself for my political beliefs, though.
He's explaining it correctly: some amount of inconvenience is worth some amount of adherence to principle. Different people put that bar in different places -- jwz is willing to compromise in places where rms isn't. And neither is about to light themselves on fire or blow up a building for free software.
Now, you can argue with his metrics if you like (I happen to like Chrome a lot, though not so much Firefox or Safari these days). But that's just an opinion, it doesn't make what he says a contradiction.
Now, you can argue with his metrics if you like (I happen to like Chrome a lot, though not so much Firefox or Safari these days). But that's just an opinion, it doesn't make what he says a contradiction.
I just seemed off to me considering how he (probably rightly so) preempts most critique throughout in a somewhat hyperbolic yet lacks the the same tone in his closing statements.
"Anyone who truly understands UI design realizes that every preference option is an admission of defeat: it's there because you couldn't just get it right the first time."
Yet Safari offers tabs and gives you an option to turn them back off. Seems to directly contradict his issue with Firefox not giving him that option.