Browser Wars Episode VI: Return of the Mac

brad@bradbice.com (Brad Bice) — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve switched over almost completely to Google Chrome after being a Firefox loyalist since it was first called Firebird. I even contributed to the Firefox 1.0 project and got my name in the New York Times.

But after a while Firefox’s memory leaks and constant slowness got to me and sometime around the beginning of last year I changed over completely to Google Chrome. What sold me on it was definitely not the UI (aka the “chrome”) but rather Google Sync, which allowed me to have my bookmarks sync across any computer I was signed into (home, work and phone.) Also, Chrome uses Webkit so they were usually leading the charge in supporting new web standards.

I’ve been looking for quality alternatives to pretty much any Google product lately, so I’ve been browser shopping. Lately I tried a complete switchover to Safari, seeing as how I’m pretty much married to Apple products (our household has 2 iPhones, 2 iPads, a Mac Mini, a Macbook Air, and an Apple TV… all marvelously synced in the Apple-ecosphere. Oh, and yes we have home owners insurance.) However, Safari turned out to be very slow, a pretty significant UI changeover from Chrome, and had a few other minor annoyances that I just could not get past.

I went crawling back to Chrome for a couple of weeks, but I’m trying Safari again. I’m not entirely sure why but maybe the minimalistic nature of it appeals to me. Some of the small unique quirks of Safari are growing on me, but there a few things I would like to see either changed or made optional:

Resizable tabs - If I have 4 tabs open, don’t stretch them to fill the full width of the window. Or at least make this a setting.
Right-click, Open in New Tab - Allow me to put this option above Open in New Window in the right-click menu
Sync settings - iCloud syncs bookmarks and tabs, well how about browser settings? I don’t want to have to remember settings for each of my computers
Allow me to move the refresh button - I’m not sure why they would bury it in the address bar ala Internet Explorer.