Firefox and the Web Developer Extension

After months of occasional experimentation, I finally made Firefox my default browser a few weeks ago.

Encouraging a Mac user to stop using Safari is a harder sell than encouraging a Windows user to stop using Explorer; Mac users already have tabbed browsing, and aren’t plagued by spyware, security craters, or broken CSS support. And Safari has a cleaner interface, so Firefox isn’t going to win over Mac users on looks alone. But FF does have luscious chocolatey goodness where it counts: More powerful bookmark management, plugin sidebars, better resource management (or so it seems), embedded page searching and search string highlighting (this feature alone is worth switching for), even faster page rendering than Safari… the list goes on.

Also experimenting a bit with Firefox extensions, and am blown away by Chris Pederick’s Web Developer Extension, which can analyze any web page (especially ones you’re working on) any which way to Sunday. Rather than list its features, just scan this page and imagine being able to do everything listed there from a single browser toolbar. Phenomenal.

Now if only Thunderbird could make similar advances on the state-of-the-art mail client technology — do for email what Firefox has done for browsers… But judging from the relative amount of press the two are receiving, the Thunderbird project doesn’t seem to have nearly the same momentum as Firefox.

Music: Patricia Barber :: Pieces

5 Replies to “Firefox and the Web Developer Extension”

  1. I know what you mean.
    Firefox has been my default on my pc since it was phoenix, but I’m still using safari on the mac.

    my favorite feature on the web developer toolbar is the “live” css editor. (That Rocks!)

    I like the new background BTW. The old one hurt my eyes.. lol

  2. The reason thunderbird doesn’t have as much steam is beacuse we’ve all switched over to gmail :)

  3. Firefox may get me back into web design, but Safari will always be my “Real World” browser.

    BTW, Kevin, then why is your link to your Hotmail Address. ;P

  4. I have also been fiddling around with Firefox for a while. Digging into it’s Chrome and such…

    But to be honest, I think Firefox (for Mac) really sucks. And I’ve tried hard to convince myself otherwise. There’s just too many bugs, a lot of UI-issues, and little things which makes browsing with Firefox almost a nightmare (for me). It just annoys me.

    No, give me Safari anytime. Sleek, slender, slick and ample fast. And Safari’s rendering engine at least has a “quirks mode” built-in. Firefox is simply too strict (for these transitional times).

    But I have to admit, that Web Developer Toolbar is awesome.

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