# Best browser for Mac!



## AppMan (Sep 29, 2002)

After trying all the crappy OSX browsers the following two are my top choices.

1 - Netscape 4.79 in classic enviornment

2 - Internet Explorer 6 in VPC 5 with Win2k


Netscape 7 - What a bloated monster, too slow.
Chimera 0.5 - has potential but not fully functional
Opera - S l o w
iCab - renders horribly
Mozilla 1.2 - eh... better then Netscape 7 but ehh
IE 5.22 - okay but I hate MS and wish they die!
OmniWeb - slow, and has rendering issues

damn, OS X browsers are pathetic! Maybe Apple should bring back Cyberdog!!!!


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## stephan (Sep 29, 2002)

I use Netscape 7.
Reasons:
- *Tabbed browsing*. Can't live without it!
- Netscapes password manager totally kicks ass!
- Mozilla might be faster, but Netscape is used by a larger percent of the users, and therefore webdesigners builds their sites for netscape rather than mozilla. *Netscape works with more sites than Mozilla*.
- I really like the user interface of Chimera, but *Chimera is to stripped down*. Has potential though...
- *Netscape 4 renders page really ugly sometimes*. And hasn't got support for new cool features. Have worked as a webdesigner, and Netscape 4 was always an issue. *And i hate classic.*

Those are the browsers i have installed. Have tried iCab, Opera and OmniWeb. But not the latest versions, so I can't review them.

If Explorer had tabbed browsing, netscapes password manager, could block pop-ups and used the same "certificate-handling" as IE 6 for PC*, that should be my only browser on my harddrive. *hoping for IE 5.5 or 6*

* My bank only supports NS 4 on mac 
And if certificates where handled the same way on mac and pc, I think it would be no problem for them to support IE on mac too. NS 4 is the only reason I installed classic when i upgraded to OS X 10.2 (erase and install).


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## cclear (Sep 29, 2002)

I use Chimera .5  
love how fast it loads pages..and honestly, I rarely come across a page it doesn't load correctly.( then I just switch to IE 5.2 for those pages...) 
I also like that it Chimera stripped down.. nice, simple - elegant.. 
the only things Chimera needs is a History option, better hotkey setup- and just a little more stability. 

I agree with everything else here though...

Netscape 7 - What a bloated monster, too slow.
Opera - S l o w
iCab - renders horribly
Mozilla 1.2 - eh... better then Netscape 7 but ehh
IE 5.22 - okay browser, little slower than chimera
OmniWeb - slow, and has rendering issues

( and I also don't care for OS9 or running programs in classic)


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## AppMan (Sep 29, 2002)

Yeah tabbed browsing is cool, I miss that. Im sticking with Netscape 4.79 until I can honestly say: "Wow this OS X browser kicks ass!"


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## toast (Sep 29, 2002)

Chimera is great.

It has tabbed browsing.
It remembers passwords, I don't need more.
It's a W3C browser, so most sites are compliant with it.

Well, I browse as a normal human being, so Chimera is enough I guess .


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## PowermacG4_450 (Sep 30, 2002)

> _Originally posted by AppMan _
> *Since I turned 25 I have purchased the following:
> - Bengay
> - Preperation H
> *




wait til ya turn 38!! 

LOL. 


I actually like IE 5.2.2, Mac. 

Not bad.... better than the other browsers imho. 

I stopped liking netscape long ago..... too bloated!


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## modelamac (Sep 30, 2002)

I can't get Chimera's tabbed browsing to work without keystrokes.  NS 7  will do it with mouse only.  Am I doing something wrong or missing something?


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## pianophile (Sep 30, 2002)

While I agree that it has layout issues, I find that OmniWeb is not at all slow in comparison to IE. I use OW all the time, and when I occasionally have to step back  to IE (usually to use some ecommerce site that OW can't grok) I find IE to be significantly slower and more cumbersome. (Using dual 1Ghz, 10.2.1)


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## evildan (Sep 30, 2002)

Moderator's Note:

This thread has been moved from Mac OSX System & Software forum to Opinion: Review & Open Letters Forum.

If you have any questions why this thread was moved, feel free to contact a moderator. (including me  )


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## Rhino_G3 (Sep 30, 2002)

> _Originally posted by AppMan _
> *After trying all the crappy OSX browsers the following two are my top choices.
> 
> 2 - Internet Explorer 6 in VPC 5 with Win2k
> ...



 so you hate MS...  but instead of running one of their programs, which you've deemed ok, you're running an MS App in an MS environment?


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## AppMan (Oct 1, 2002)

yeah, scares me too.


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## Greystroke (Oct 1, 2002)

As of right now Chimera 0.5 is the browser for me. It is still quite young but I find it extremely promising. And I'm hesitant to use IE 5.2.2 after that issue with speed-download in 5.1 and 5.2


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## evildan (Oct 18, 2002)

Netscape 4.79, get's hung up on nested tables. I'm not too happy with it's speed. Honestly, I use IE 5.2.2, but I'm liking the new Netscape (v. 6 v.7), as they seem to be closer to IE's speed and style.

At work I debugg pages and I most often start with Netscape, becuase if there is an error on the page (like a colspan that extends the number of columns in the table) Netscape will find it... and very often break the page in doing so. 

As browsers go, it's stable, but slooooooooow... too slow for me... People on dial-up must go out for coffee while a page loads.


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## strobe (Oct 21, 2002)

Netscape 4.x sucks. It doesn't even use the system MIME<->HFS bindings which all other Mac apps use.

I read that Mozilla fixes this problem but I still hate its interface.

Explorer still has the best interface and supports drag+drop properly. All the other OS X browsers do not thus far. I have a feeling Explorer would run a lot better if the Event Manager code was ripped out and replaced with Carbon events.


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## strobe (Oct 21, 2002)

Also, why the hell does Chimera use Mozilla's asstacular interface? Toolbars suck, just give me an address bar which implements substring search.


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