Safari 3 is an awesome browser on the Mac, but if you fancy something different, there are some great free alternatives out there for Mac users. Let's take a look at the main contenders.
Firefox
Content Management System
Mozilla Firefox is the second most popular browser used today (behind Microsoft's Internet Explorer on Windows). It's easy to use and reasonably fast. One of Firefox's major advantages is the wide range of add-ons available. This allows you to heavily customize your browser, with add-ons such as Forecastfox (weather reports right in your browser status bar) and iMacros (for automating browsing tasks).
Firefox's popularity and excellent standards support mean you'll have no trouble browsing the majority of websites. You'll also find that Firefox is great for sites that use in-page WYSIWYG editors, such as blog software and content management systems; traditionally Safari has struggled with such editors, though support has improved in Safari 3.
Firefox also has a superb, reliable pop-up blocker, and one of the nicest Find functions in the business, with a small Find bar at the bottom of the browser window rather than the clumsy pop-up dialog used by many other browsers. (Safari now has a similar feature in version 3.)
The main disadvantage of Firefox is that it eats up memory; if you're accustomed to having a lot of tabs open at once then it can really grind to a halt. It also doesn't integrate into Mac OS X as nicely as Safari. Firefox's bookmark handling is also clumsy; an issue if you have a lot of bookmarks.
Opera
Originally a commercial product, these days Opera is completely free to download and use. It's a full-featured browser, even incorporating mail and chat clients. Despite this, the browser is very fast at loading pages, and memory usage usually isn't an issue. The user interface is a little strange for a Mac app - some would say "dated" - but it works well enough once you're used to it.
Some nice features of Opera include a quick Wand feature for auto-filling forms; a handy Speed Dial page to quickly access your nine favourite pages; a built-in BitTorrent client; and a nice Sessions feature that lets you save the state of your opened tabs, so when you restart Opera you can carry on where you left off.
If you're after a browser with a lot of nice, useful features that's still fast and slick to use - and you don't mind a bit of time learning its interface - then Opera could be the perfect match for you.
Camino
In many ways, Camino is a cross between Firefox and Safari and, arguably, it gives you the best of both worlds. On the one hand, it's based on the same engine as Firefox, which means websites look great and the browser has good standards support. On the other, it features the same tight integration with Mac OS X as Safari. Managing bookmarks with Camino is also a much nicer experience than with Firefox.
On the downside, Camino lacks Firefox's and Safari's nifty in-page Find feature and, although Camino does support add-ons, it doesn't have the huge range that Firefox does. Still, if you're after a lean browser that looks great and integrates well with Mac OS, look no further.
Flock
The last browser of the bunch, Flock, is a bit different to the rest. It's based on the same engine as Firefox and Camino, but it includes a lot of unique features that integrate with social networking sites like Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Blogger, and Twitter.
The browser looks nice and is reasonably easy to use, but the current version - v1.1.1 - does have some stability issues, at least on the Mac platform. If you're heavily into social networking then you'll appreciate the extra features that Flock offers. If not then you're probably better off with one of the other Mac browsers.
Choosing a browser is largely a matter of personal taste, so why not download the above four and give them a test-drive. Maybe you'll find that Safari is still your favourite!
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