Mac Browser Review

First, let's start with this reviewer's own pride and prejudice. I value small (low MB) and fast for ordinary browsing, but additional capabilities sweeten the deal. I like to search and grab videos and music with a minimum of hassle, if only as a temporary muse.
My test computer is a 400MHz G3 with 1GB memory, running OSX 10.4.11 Tiger.

Some of the technical jargon that you might encounter are:
Megabyte - One million bytes. MB
Kilobyte - 1024 bytes. KB
Byte - According to the Oxford American Dictionary: "a group of binary digits or bits (usually eight) operated on as a unit." In other words, a digital thingamabob.

Intel or PowerPC | The new G6 Mac breed uses an Intel processor, the older machines like my G3 are PPC. They aren't on speaking terms.

Universal Binary | A bundle of recent versions of a program, including both Intel and PPC. It's usually overweight and slower to download, but you're sure to get a usable application. There are programs that strip away versions that you don't need.

Plug-ins or add-ons | A small program designed to run within a browser.

User Agent Name | Some sites load different content depending on your browser. For example, a number of US government websites, like the Employment Office, require Internet Explorer. Rather than put that little worm in your Apple, you can change a preference setting on another browser to mimic IE.

Engines like Webkit, Gecko, Chimera - The cake on which browsers are built. Auxiliary features are added or removed but the engine gives tech geeks like me a feel for how a browser will work.

One media trick that I've learned is to right click (or control+click) and copy a download link of a browser that can grab and download streaming movies is slower than one that can't do it on its own.

Opera 54.4MB | Reputed to be the fastest browser available. Opera has a widget system similar to Firefox's add-ons but lacks a media download option, like DownloadHelper. It's very quick in the beginning but caches (memory) like a starving squirrel, so it tends to lag after a while. In fact, I just had to give it the three fingered salute when it froze solid on me (four pages-- two were Opera's homepage, only one loading). I can only stare at the spinning rainbow bunghole of doom for so long.
One strength is that Opera can restart downloads from where they were dropped (rather than having to restart), but in my experience, Opera also drops downloads more often than other browsers. When first used, a media band takes up the left eighth of the window, but can be pushed back to a minimum. Opera 11 beta is Intel only, but Opera 10 can be found at http://mac.oldapps.com/opera.php

Safari 77.2MB | Apple's native browser, based on Webkit. A meat-and-potatoes-- check your email, peruse the news, upload-download and watch online videos-- browser. 4.1.2 is the first version that I've found remotely useful but for something that weighs in at 77.2MB, you'd think it would have more add-ons and features.
To save streaming videos with Safari, go to Window>Activities (Apple+Option+A) and find the item that says Google Static Cache or Yahoo.com/videoplayback, which will probably be the only item measured in MB rather than KB. The file will show up as a blank icon on your desktop with a name like "videoplayback", so you'll have to rename it .flv or .avi before opening it.

Firefox 53MB Mozilla's best-known product, Firefox has become a cult phenomenon. Based on the now-ubiquitous Gecko engine, it's the Swiss-Army knife of browsing. The core of Firefox is a time-tested browser but part of the success is due to a massive number of add-ons, which can be found on their website. Add-ons, also known as Plug-ins, are small pieces of code that weigh in at a few hundred Kb to add features and abilities that some users may value more than others. Rather than downloading something huge, you can pick and choose what you want.
The Firefox "Add-ons" feature (found in the "Tools" dropdown menu) will show you what's available for your machine, and if you're not impressed by something that you've downloaded, you can simply click "Extensions">"uninstall" or "disable" in the same window to be rid of it.
To give you a taste of what's available, browse this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

If you want to download streaming videos from sites like Youtube or Hulu, I would suggest DownloadHelper. DownloadHelper not only grabs videos, it can pick up music and some photos; it can also switch between Flash videos (.flv) and MP4, which work with Quicktime and iTunes. In Firefox or Flock, DLH will put an icon and arrow just to the left of your URL/navigation bar, in Seamonkey, it's in the bottom right corner of the page. When it senses media that it can download it will turn from gray to a swirling-tricolor-balloon-thingy (technical term), click the arrow to get to to the download menu. After you read the home page, DLH will send you to Mozilla's DLH add-on page, here.
I suspect that the negative comments are from viral marketers, since they use the same speech patterns. I've never had a problem with it.

Seamonkey 66.4MB The largest of the Gecko-based open source browsers from Mozilla, Seamonkey began as a more streamlined sibling to Firefox. It's the exception to the rule, sometimes running at the speed of a smaller program, it now supports Firefox add-ons. Seamonkey uses more features of any given site but it doesn't have RSS news, blog and Twitter feeds to tell you what Timmy said about what Sheri did to Diane in realtime.

Flock 60.9MB Flock is Mozilla's real time social media giant, a Gecko-based cousin of Firefox. The interface sports a people sidebar, media bar, feeds bar, webmail button, blog editor, photo uploader etc. in the tool bar alone. When you first start out, two pages load: Flock - Getting Started and My World. I would suggest, however, that you shut off any standard options that you don't need (changed in Preferences) before logging on because the sheer number of streaming feeds will render this smooth, well-crafted interface sluggish beyond belief.
The media bar comes standard with feeds from Bebo, Digg, Facebook, Flicker, Photobucket, Revver, Tinypic, Truveo and Youtube (including Youtube:HowToFlock). My personal favorite is Flicker: Interestingness, an open photo stream from around the world. If you want more abilities, Flock can use nearly any add-on that Firefox does. If you choose to download and use the photo uploader, any photos uploaded to Facebook will bear a Flock stamp in the comment box; easily remedied but annoying nonetheless. I haven't even scratched the surface of Flock's abilities. It's ridiculous overkill but manages to be smaller than Seamonkey.

Camino 46.6MB Originally heir to the Chimera legacy (it's a geek thing), but today they put the Camino name on the skinniest Gecko browser, the greyhound of the bunch. Although old Camino had a reputation for lags or incompatibility with streaming video and chat boxes, the new versions have caught up. I just downloaded 2.0.6 and the Flash 10.1 graphics engine; they are wicked fast. Aesthetics are bare bones: off-white with sparse buttons on a light grey background but it loads and runs everything.

Omniweb 27.9 If you liked OmniOutliner, OmniGraffle or other, newer projects from the Omni group, you may find this browser interesting. It's free, as in free beer; lawyer-speak for demo. There's a timer waiting to greet you with cutesy nagware. Omniweb is based on Webkit, like Safari and Shiira. It has an attractive, ergonomic interface and average feature set but seems deathly allergic to the internet. Images don't load, videos stream badly, it's apt to freeze up and everything lags. Even Google ends up jumbled, with frames running into one another. It does show aesthetic promise. Omniweb has... a lot of potential for future improvement.

Shiira 26.9MB Is a baby compared to the others. It runs on Webkit, the same engine that Safari uses but it's sooo much faster. In my opinion, it's the most aesthetically pleasing browser. The download window is semi-translucent; an optional tab dock sits at the bottom of the page to show you an image of each tab as they're loading; you can choose regular or gallery view and it has one of the most useful preference menus yet. This is what Omniweb and Safari should have been. Shiira is very straightforward, runs every media that every other browser mentioned above runs (except multi-streaming a la Flock), with a simple grey window and zero add-ons to speak of. The site ( http://shiira.jp/blog/ ) is in Japanese, but the browser is in English. http://jaist.dl.sourceforge.jp/shiira/43075/Shiira2.3.dmg

iCab 27.4 I don't think iCab's sparse interface has changed since the first version was released. What has? Stability. The first iCab had the distinction of crashing three times in a row while trying to load its own homepage. Now it's solid as a rock and as surfable as Safari, Opera and Camino combined but takes up half the space. Click on the Preferences menu and iCab comes alive. It's possibly one of the most adaptable small-footprint browsers available. The only options outside of the common Back, Forward. Stop/Start and Bookmarks are a Print button and Font Size adjust ment, which show a lot of ergonomic thought.
There's one little quirk that threatens to ruin iCab though, the inability to shut off the autocomplete feature. If you visit apps.facebook.com after the main page, you'll forever go to apps.facebook.com if you type "facebook.com" in the nav bar, unless you clear the history first. Version 4.2 of iCab Mobile is out as of December 2010. It's also available in Spanish and Dutch.

For Fun-------- Browsers that aren't at the top of the game, but may be of interest.

Demeter 11.7MB Based on Webkit, Demeter is otherwise known as "Super Shiira" by a few hardcore fans. It's a small-time build that hasn't been updated recently. Unlike Shiira, it crashes if you load too many large pages at once. It's a roadster, quick but doesn't carry much.

http://www.ping.be/~ping0172/products/ICEBrowserForMac/ICEBrowserForMac.sit.hqx
ICE Browser for Mac 132KB Just to give you a taste of how far the internet has come, here's the Java-hased, Classic-Mac Great Granpappy from Norway and Belgiam. From a day when Balloon Help had to be explained. ICE's navigation (address) bar opens in a separate window. It's amazing where ICE can still take you while using less space than some Firefox Add-ons. If you're a (nerd, geek, dork, dweeb) techie like me, you might like a look at what ICE can do. The link is to a download address (http://www.ping.be/~ping0172/products/ICEBrowserForMac/ICEBrowserForMac.sit.hqx), since the homepage doesn't exist anymore.

NCSA Mosaic 828KB - Copyright 1994 by the University of Illinois. One of the first image browsers. Once the cross-platform champ, Mosaic requires Classic and makes ICE look like a whiz-bang machine. Frankly, it doesn't load modern web pages well. I'm just adding it to the list so you can see the contrast between corporation-powered machines and .org power-to-the-people software.

Mozilla 40.2 - The grandfather of the modern internet browser still lives. Sure, he can't remember to wear pants and occasionally makes catfood sandwiches but it's MOZILLA! The original Mosaic™-killa. Just take the ol' Model T out for a spin and see what it can and can't do. The graphics look as sharp as any other browser. I can't speak for Intel but Mozilla works on OS 10.4.11 PPC beautifully. I used Mozilla to download Mosaic, ironically.

Mozilla Firebird 27MB - The missing link between the original Mozilla browser and Firefox, abandoned because of legal issues with the name. I just discovered and downloaded it (I collect strange things) 12-21-10. Firebird had a rocky start, like throwing up error messages when I tried to log out of Facebook, but after a few hours, they simply went away. Healed. Curious. Now it's just another Gecko browser, but it's the smallest (Camino is 46.6MB) and has a thinner task bar at the top of the page, so you can see slightly more internet. If that's what you want to do with a browser. It's not quite Zynga or streaming vid friendly, but still practical.

http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/macwarriors/projects/trailblazer/
http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/macwarriors/projects/trailblazer/TrailBlazer_0.52.dmg
Trailblazer 1.2MB | It goes like this: Back, Forward, Reload, History, Bookmarks, [Address bar ] (Search Bar)
The rest is a blank page. There are no tabs, tweaks, feeds, bars or add-ons, but the history links are shown graphically, unlike most browsers, which show a list. Preferences entail "Appearance," "Security" and "History," including the ability to view and erase cookies. More than four pages being loaded at a time tends to crash it, especially if one is Zynga and the others are photo galleries. The TrailBlazer introduction video is 16.3MB, but the compressed TrailBlazer_0.52.dmg program weighs in at 520Kb. I can't believe the little bugger functions so well. It's almost as notable as...

Lightbrowser 760KB | I was glad to see that even though the developer's site isn't up anymore, Lighbrowser works with the new Flash 10.1 plugin. It loads Myspace (better than most), it loads Facebook and Zynga games. I used it to download Trailblazer. What it doesn't do is tab, or remember bookmarks or history. Even Mozilla tabs.

Netscape Navigator 50.1MB A throwback to 1998, built for Netscape on the Gecko engine. My brother swears by it. Maybe it's just my perception but I think that ICE is faster.

Internet Explorer 19.9MB If you absolutely, positively must put this little worm in your Apple, you'll have to settle for an older version, since IE is Microsoft and therefore, no longer supports Mac. IE is based on NCSA Mosaic™ and the WASTE text engine. No kidding. Use at your own risk.

Short version---
Flock: Pet lion. There's an unmistakable cool factor, but if you're not paying attention, it will eat you.
Firefox: Hot Rod/tuner. A customizable, people's browser.
Camino: Quick. No frills.
Omniweb: Shamwow. The demo hasn't convinced me that it's worth the money.

If you want to skip Universal Binary bloat-ware, you can go to http://www.rpm-mozilla.org.uk/, where the blessed saint of simplicity has pared Mozilla versions into individual downloads. You'll have to jump through hoops with their host, though. As with any Mozilla product, try typing "about:mozilla" or "about:robots" into the URL bar to find a nice goose egg. Every release has a different "about:mozilla" goose egg.

Unfortunately, there's no single browser for everyone. I haven't even mentioned all of the browsers in my dock. I collect them and use them as needed.