<p>I personally think that mac is generally a bad choice for home users.<br /> i used to have a mac many years ago but ditched it when OSX came out(hate it).<br /> I now exclusively use PC's (windows & Linux dual boot), i am a software developer and work in both environments.<br /> mac has some niche market for video and graphics(less nowadays) but is the wrong choice for serious development due to its incompatability with other systems.<br /> same for home users, its like being left out.<br /> sure windows and linux arent perfect but you will do a lot better than the restrictive macintosh.<br /> apple users should stick to hand held devices.<br /> ipod and iphone are great by the way.<br /> mac computers however are a definate no no.</p>

Posted by: gj 23 Apr 2008

<p>I've been using Camino. I needed a small, fast, and customizable browser. It has the bookmark (iTunish) feature of Safari in many aspects, and since it uses the same engine as Firefox, the preferences in your user.js file can be altered in many ways.</p> <p>Safari fails to excite? No. I've just been using Camino since before Safari was released back in its early beta stages.</p> <p><br /> One difference. Mac users like to check out alternatives, unlike Windows users who stick to IE blindly.</p>

Posted by: Mike 15 Feb 2006

<p>I work at a public library, where macs are our dominant pc of choice. We have to use a variety of browsers, because no one browser is sufficient for everyone's needs. Unfortunately, there used to be one browser to rule them all on the mac...and it was IE.</p> <p>The printing functionality would be the first gripe we have, just yesterday a librarian was attempting to print an amazon comments thread and the way Safari was spooling it kept choking our printers. Used IE, worked fine.</p> <p>Firefox is nice, but slow, and there is the occasional incompatiblity. I think it's the browser of choice of most of our users, public and staff, I use Safari to keep abreast of the current state of the browser (aka taking one for the team, heh).</p> <p>My own gripes are minor but numerous. From odd context menus (I use a pc at home and I'm used to better context menus..and it's such an easy functionality) to drop-down box handling to word selection (a couple iterations ago Apple boneheadedly made Safari triple-click functionality select a paragraph-like selection instead of the current line. Lots of minor things that add up to a less than stellar view.</p> <p>But the main gripe around here is that we need three browsers on the Mac, when both Firefox and IE perform well enough on the pcs.</p>

Posted by: Komoto 22 Dec 2005

<p>I'm using safari right now and have done since it came out.</p> <p>I love the simple yet powerful tab and download behaviour but don't really need the advanced features found in say firefox. </p> <p>I do also have fiefox, IE and navigator installed in case I need to use a site where the admin is an ignorant IE muppet but always try telling safari's IE cloak as this often let's everthing work.</p>

Posted by: Limeybloke 21 Dec 2005

<p>Looks like this site has been Macsurfered! (see macsurfer.com)</p> <p>Don't be so harsh on this guy, he's a victim of all the FUD and lies that are spread all over the net about the Mac and Apple products!</p> <p>Seriously this guy was blinded trying to be unbiased. He saw the %2.78 stat, and said to himself "Since I'm not biased, I will report this negative number and show those Mac fanboys that Apple can do wrong things too". </p> <p>With this premise, he completely ignored the possibility that maybe this number was skewed by many factors, instead focusing on finding ways to blame Apple for this small number.</p> <p>His train of thought made him avoid obvious reasons like the fact that there is still a good percentage of Mac users running on OS 9, which doesn't run Safari. Other factors like people changing Safari's browser identity were also not even mentioned in this article.</p> <p>I would be curious to know what percentage of people currently buying a new Mac will stay with Safari as their main default browser. This number would probably sound much more encouraging...</p> <p>If we discovered that %90 of people that bought a Mac with Safari pre-installed didn't switch to another browser, it wouldn't surprise me. Some people would accuse Apple of having used MS like practices to eliminate the competition. Apple is forcing itself to include a browser on their own machines? Oh how unfair! The irony is that before Safari, the main competition on the Mac was IE, the browser that MS imposed on the world.</p> <p>A little note, you might be interested to know that Safari is completely open-source. <a href="http://webkit.opendarwin.org/"><a href="http://webkit.opendarwin.org/">http://webkit.opendarwin.org/</a></a></p>

Posted by: Bong 21 Dec 2005

<p>"...Safari however only claimed a 2.78 per cent share of the browser market..."</p> <p>The Browser Market? What is this "Browser Market" you write of? The percentage of sales of each browser in a given month? Sales by whom? Or maybe you meant the percentage of browsers being used to access a given site (or sites). Which sites?</p> <p>There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. Tip: web-news won't be journalism until you start researching your stories first. Sadly, this sort of "reporting" is dragging real journalism down with it.</p>

Posted by: anon 21 Dec 2005

<p>You are totally clueless. The title is totally misleading. Interstingly, you don't even put your name on this web site. (I can't blame you, I wouldn't want my name associated with such crap, either). </p> <p>The right numbers to compare are: Percentage of MAC users using IE before Safari started vs. percentage of MAC users using IE AFTER Safari came out. Apple's market share has NOTHING to do with this. </p> <p>And how the heck did you determine that Safari "fails to excite users"? They didn't get an orgasm???</p>

Posted by: someone 21 Dec 2005

<p>what a bullsh*t article. headlines like these are guaranted to draw in a audience, n0thing more. He has no backup for the title of the article. As many stated, many on the mac side compute in general safety so they, like i, will try out multiple browsers, as well as other applications to see whioch best fits our personal tastes. i use at least 3 browsers at any given time- i trust safari's security but i love firefox's speed and page endering performance- just frickin gawsome at vers. 1.5.<br /> So next time put soem meat into your article before you post it, or it will be classified as the junk journalism(not even) that it is.</p> <p>sorry, but you need to do your homework.</p> <p>-ash</p>

Posted by: Angelkrusher 21 Dec 2005

<p>Something is wrong with your numbers. But hey you got a bunch of people to look at you website so bonus for you.</p>

Posted by: Anonymous 21 Dec 2005

<p>I can't for the life of me understand why ANYONE would use IE. I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole. Safari loads faster, looks better and has some features which I find indispensable. I agree with the others though. I still run OS 9.6 on my desktop and only use Safari because of my iBook. OS 9 only has IE. There is no choice there. But I speak for many Mac addicts when I say "If a website doesn't support Safari, I don't support that website". And who are the people who aren't excited about Safari. It's nobody I know.</p>

Posted by: Empress 20 Dec 2005

<p>1. Browser usage stats represent the installed base (every Mac still in use for web surfing, not just ones bought this quarter). So you're making an error by comparing current market share numbers on one side with installed base numbers on the other side.</p> <p>2. The bulk of non-Safari-using Mac users are probably either still using IE because they're Regular Joes who never upgrade, or they're using the Mozilla/Gecko-based web browser built into the Mac AOL client (again, because they're Regular Joes and not geeks).</p> <p>3. Another distinct possibility is that a lot of Regular Joes run whatever browser their non-AOL ISP pre-installs or prefers. I don't know if the Earthlink, Comcast, Juno(?), NetZero(?), etc. installer packages on the Mac install a browser by default (I'll be the Netscape ISP one does, if such a thing exists for the Mac), but if they do, it's not gonna be Safari, and lots of users will just use whatever got installed because they don't know better.</p>

Posted by: Spiff 20 Dec 2005

<p>I don't doubt that some people have issues with Safari, but in general, I don't. So I haven't tried Firefox or whatever yet. My wife, on the other hand, won't switch from Netscape until it fails to run on her machine. (Switching to Mac OS X for her was contingent upon having a reasonably recent Netscape build for it.) The only reason I keep IE around on my machine is that the software on my router pretty much insists upon it if I want to change some operating params or upgrade the firmware. Other than that, I stick with Safari. I haven't yet tried the Safari "extension" that lets it look like IE to websites. I'm with SoftwareJanitor; if the site doesn't support my browser, then I don't go there. I've noticed that some Apple-centric sites give IE fits on my Dull at work, too. (But I didn't have any input to that decision-making process.)</p>

Posted by: Kevin J. Weise 20 Dec 2005

<p>I'd prefer Safari over Firefox but I got fed up of the spinning beachball slowing things down. That's the only reason I use firefox - oh and some bank internet software wont work on Safari.</p>

Posted by: Ronan Donohoe 20 Dec 2005

<p>The main reason people aren't switching to safari is that Mac users don't upgrade their machines very often. There are lots of people using machines that didn't come with Safari, so they continue to use whatever web browser the machine came with. Macs have a much longer lifespan than PCs. You'd see something somewhat similar if Microsoft had changed the name of internet explorer that came with XP to "Expedition" or something. You'd see that only a certain % of users were using "Expedition" and the others still used "Internet Explorer." It wouldn't be because people didn't like the new browser.</p>

Posted by: Matthew 20 Dec 2005

<p>Well I use Firefox basically because it's about 33% faster than Safari and 3x faster when opening a group of tabs. The only thing that annoys me is that it still doesn't have keychain integration.</p>

Posted by: Anonymous 20 Dec 2005

<p>I use all three, (Safari, Firefox and Camino) but I have set Camino for my default browser. Why? It has a better Mac GUI interface than Firefox, it sometimes loads faster than Safari, and it is part of the Moz development. I have also started playing around with Opera, now that it is usable, so I can vouch for Mac users wanting to have options.</p>

Posted by: Wil 20 Dec 2005

<p>I prefer Netscape- but I have been using Safari for downloads. OSX is not compatible with certain programs on downloads, and it helps if you work it with Safari-or so I have discovered. <br /> I still appreciate Netscape- moves quicker less stalls. Strangely, Safari stalls.</p>

Posted by: o 20 Dec 2005

<p>Number of reasons why some folks still use IE on the Mac. IE (until recently, with MacOS X 10.4 and the new Safari) was required to access some IE sites, especially ones requiring authentication. For example, Microsoft-based intranet servers. There are still quite a few MacOS 9 users out there, and Safari isn't an option for them. Also, a small percentage of Mac users are using AOL and AOL's built-in browser. I prefer Safari and Firefox. And I think many people, Mac and PC, like Firefox because you can customize it.</p>

Posted by: Paul 20 Dec 2005

<p>Installed User Base != Marketshare</p>

Posted by: Anonymous 20 Dec 2005

<p>You should also note that Safari features an extension that presents itself as IE (Mac or PC) so thart certain sites will let you access it. By that mere fact that all you have to do is cahnge that one line and the website "works" means that some webmasters are either dumb, in the pockets of MS or lazy. That's the real crime going on here. It's one thing if MS won't let you into their pages with another browser but UPS? That's just dumb.</p>

Posted by: jbelkin 20 Dec 2005

<p>In a virtual world dominated by web sites written to work best with IE, I wonder if some people get frustrated when those web sites don't work with Safari because of its strict adherence to the official HTML standard. My personal experience is that if a site does not work for Safari, then I don't visit the site. Just like in the brick-and-mortar world of commerce, if I don't get the service I expect, I go somewhere else.</p>

Posted by: SoftwareJanitor 20 Dec 2005

<p>Alot of new MacOS X users don't even know Safari is a browser, but they've heard of IE so they use it even though it sucks. There are also still a reasonable number of OS 9 machines out there, and IE is probably still the best choice on OS 9. There are a few ideological choices of Firefox (which has a horribly unmac like UI), or Camino (a real Mac UI) but I think the Safari:Mozilla ratio on OS X users is pretty tilted in favor of Safari, based on the traffic of my mac-centric web site, anyway. The ratio of Safari:Mozilla is like 5:1 with opera and MSIE barely registering.</p>

Posted by: Marcos 20 Dec 2005

<p>I use Camino. It's more UNIX-friendly than Firefox (you can use Emacs-style editing keystrokes inside the URL box, unlike Firefox) and it's a little more Mac-friendly GUI-wise. And it's a lot faster than Safari is, for reasons beyond me. I have no reason to use Safari - I'd use Firefox first if Camino died on the vine.</p>

Posted by: Riot Nrrrd™ 20 Dec 2005

<p>A few other things to note. First, not all Mac users have upgraded to Mac OS X - those using Mac OS 9 or earlier will likely be using Internet Explorer, since it was the default browser on Mac OS since late 1997.</p> <p>The second is that Internet Explorer shipped pre-installed on Mac OS X until April of this year when Tiger was released. So users on Mac OS X who were already using IE may have been just doing what they've always done.</p> <p>It will be interesting to see how the numbers change with IE for Mac discontinued entirely.</p>

Posted by: OtherReasons 20 Dec 2005

<p>"Fails to excite" and "drives users away" are overly stated from what I read and what I hear in user groups. There maybe two explanations. We tend to go with what we have become familiar and Safari was new to the scene. In my case, that is why I don't leave Sarfari, it has so much of my experience in the bookmarks and autofill. I also believe that Mac users are much more independent and experimental—especially compared to that 86% bunch of sheep on IE and Windows.</p>

Posted by: Lepprd 20 Dec 2005

<p>I think Mac users are more inclined to try alternatives than Windows users.</p>

Posted by: Doxxic 20 Dec 2005

<p>Remember that a large share of the growing Mac market comes from linux, for whom platform independance is a major concern. Safari is good, but Firefox is pretty much the same on all platforms. Given that neither really overpowers and outclasses the other, that gives firefox the edge for folks who must use multiple platforms, particularly those who keep informed on the latest tech info.</p>

Posted by: MonkeyT 20 Dec 2005

<p>My Mac came with Opera and IE as well as Safari. As I was used to IE I carried on using that for a while, but I eventually switched over to Safari and stuck with it. IE doesn't look as attractive as Safari, and there are a couple of small features in Safari that I like.</p> <p>I agree with James, though - Mac users tend to play with the different options. I think that 2/3 of Mac users is pretty good for Safari anyway.</p>

Posted by: Peter Dunkley 20 Dec 2005

<p>My Mac came with Opera and IE as well as Safari. As I was used to IE I carried on using that for a while, but I eventually switched over to Safari and stuck with it. I agree with James, though - Mac users tend to play with the different options. I think that 2/3 of Mac users is pretty good for Safari anyway.</p>

Posted by: Peter Dunkley 20 Dec 2005

<p>Well there is no perfect browser,when I got my mac I started with firefox(because thats what I had on windows). Then I switched to Safari, and now I've switched back to firefox (1.5).</p> <p>Why you say? I dunno, on a whim I guess. Theres nothing wrong with Safari, my thoughts are mac users are just more experimental.</p> <p>When have you(as a mac user) ever installed something that messed up you machine?</p>

Posted by: James McCarthy 20 Dec 2005