browser wars - was Re: [plug] Getting galeon running on Sarge

[Gavin Chester]

A superficial read of what I say below my sound your "zealot" warning
bells, but read on dear reader, I hope to present a balanced view
because I use both browsers and find annoyances and strengths in
each ;-) Once upon time, no other browser could touch galeon for
features and speed, but firefox's extensions have closed the gap between
the two:

On Sat, 2005-06-11 at 15:45 +0800, Peter F Bradshaw wrote:
> Hi;
> 
> On Sat, 11 Jun 2005, Richard Meyer wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, 2005-06-11 at 11:23 +0800, Chris Caston wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > So are there any advantages to Galeon over firefox?
> >
> > Two important ones are the tabbing and "persistence".
> >
> > By that I mean, that on the tabs , each tab has it's own delete button,
> > unlike FF, where you mouse to the side to click the delete button, which
> > can become a pain rather quickly, if you have many tabs open.

Was once true, but an extension has taken care of that issue in firefox.

> > The "persistence" one is that if you decide to reboot/sign out while you
> > have a galleon window open, it will reopen and reload the site, when you
> > login again.

Was once true, but an extension has taken care of that issue in firefox.
Umm, didn't I just say that? ;-)

> > I wish it was more popular and had the FF addons.

I echo that sentiment.  Galeon is not so easily available from reliable
repos with apt or yum whereas you'd have to live on Mars not to get
firefox easily.  There has also been some removal of features in recent
versions of galeon that puzzles everyone on their mailing list.

> In addition I'm unable to force FF to open new Javascript() windows in
> tabs - which I can do in Galeon.

Ditto me.  That's a good feature in favour of galeon.
 
>  And I find that Galeon is easier to
> configure and has more options.

I would dispute that with new versions of galeon.  Several "advanced"
features now require use of gconf editor to setup galeon instead of
doing it in the actual browser.  But then we're told that's a gnome
bonobo thing and required for consistency with all gnome apps.

>  FF is faster though.

Not so.  Don't have hard numbers myself to dispute you, do you have
numbers?  Galeon devotees point to the speed as one big advantage of
galeon over firefox because it is said to be a more native app.  This
shows up particularly when dragging and dropping tabs and such.

Summary: Firefox is good and has exploded in popularity across many
platforms.  It had a lot of features missing at first compared with
galeon, but that has been made good by numerous extensions. And, firefox
is easier to get and upgrade.  On the other hand, galeon pioneered the
best UI of any browser (IMO) and set a standard that firefox has only
just caught up with via extensions.  IMO, and that of devotees, galeon
is faster than firefox.  And, I can have my tabs down the side in galeon
and send one or more tabs between windows as I choose - both of which
are not yet possible in firefox and add up to a lot for my browser use.

FWIW, my suggestions is use both browsers, but I think you'll find that
galeon still has an edge over firefox that makes it worth installing
both when you've tapped into its potential.

Gavin.