Mozilla, Internet Explorer and the Web Browsing Experience

Well, after reading Tony's post about the text bugs having been fixed, I downloaded a new nightly Mozilla build. I installed it in ~/moz-install - you know, so it wouldn't mess with my good, working install of 0.9.6 (RPM's of 0.9.7 and 0.9.8 had both installed binaries that segfaulted for me). Well, lo and behold, after installing it, my 0.9.6 binary <b>did not work</b>. Just wouldn't fire up. Reinstallations of the binary did nothing for me. It's probably a problem in my ~/.mozilla directory, which I think I'm going to axe tonight and try 0.9.8. In the mean time...

I've been using the nightly for regular browsing. It's alright, I guess. I had to re-do my bookmarks (it somehow managed to wipe those too - uh, okay), but other than that, it's fine. There's still a host of annoying little bugs in Mozilla. It's getting there, I guess. I just have to wonder when it will be done. By done, I mean "polished". I want it to just <b>work</b>. That will be spectacular. Really spectacular. Anyway, a nice example of one of the little quirks - the text in the location bar is now up too high. I'm not sure if this is exclusive to my nightly build or an across-the-board kinda deal. And since it's a nightly, I can't really complain. But it's little shit like that. It makes me want to use...

Internet Explorer for Macintosh is the most standards-compliant browser, according to W3C. Many people would find this curious, but it seems to be true - I've not come across a page I couldn't view with that browser. It also happens to render pages <b>beautifully</b>. Using that web browser, where the entire display is a PDF (basically), is like stroking velvet. It just looks amazing. It's also fast (though my machine is no slouch) and pretty stable - in other words, it rarely crashes. When it does, it's usually the Flash plugin that brings it down. Everything else works great.

I mention it because I'm considering just using my PowerMac to web browse. This is decidedly less convenient than using my regular workhorse box, as I can't really copy and paste between the two. But the web browsing experience is so much better! Internet Explorer for Macintosh is the best browser I've ever used. Sorry to say it, but it's true.

For the time being, I think I'll do most of my browsing on the Macintosh, but obviously I'll still use Mozilla on <b>tier</b> when someone sends me a link or whatever. But I anxiously await a 1.0 release of Mozilla... maybe one day it will catch up.