zahnster

This post isn’t meant to be a bash on Safari. Safari is a great browser overall, it’s super-fast, lightweight, and very integrated into the Mac OS. However, it’s not perfect, and not, as Steve Jobs thinks, any replacement for the Firefox browser.

When Steve Jobs had his last Keynote presentation at the WWDC, he displayed a chilling vision of how he sees the future of the browser market share. Not only is his vision unrealistic, it’s also insulting (what’s also insulting is he didn’t try to chunk away at IE’s market share). By effectively removing Firefox (and the ‘other’ web browsers) from the pie chart, he is demonstrating to the world that he really doesn’t understand the advantages of Firefox over his Safari browser, and in turn, what makes Firefox a refreshing alternative to any other browser on the market.

When it comes right down to it, Safari is just another IE. It’s a consumer level web browser developed by the same people who make the (native) Operating System. It’s not open-source. It’s not extensible. All it really lets you do is surf the web. Sure, it follows the box-model far better than IE, and it manages (somehow) to pass the Acid2 test, but it’s not flawless. It has it’s own rendering bugs and issues.

As a web developer, Firefox is an essential tool for my everyday life. Looking back, I don’t know how I managed to be an effective developer without Firefox extensions like Firebug and the Web Developer Toolbar. Additionally, even as a consumer I’ve made much use of Firefox extensions, they’ve helped me organize my life and be a more efficient web user.

It’s a shame that Mr. Jobs fails to realize this, and I can only hope that he’ll one day understand that what makes Firefox special (and very much necessary in the market) isn’t the fact that it’s “not IE”, but rather that it’s an open-source, customizable productivity powerhouse for web professionals.