I have been using a Mac for almost two years now, but it was not until today that Safari become my primary browser. There are plenty of reasons to use Firefox. It has been my browser of choice for as long as I can remember and I will still use it for certain things, but there are three reasons I want to replace it with Safari. First, it seems a little more nimble than Firefox these days. Second, WebKit is just cool. The Firefox team says they will not touch it, and I am afraid that might be a mistake. Finally, Safari is a Mac product and that means something to people who know what that means…if you know what I mean!
So why am I finally switching to Safari? It is simple enough–there are finally enough extensions available for Safari to provide most of the behavior I use on a daily basis in Firefox. Obviously 1Password and Xmarks have worked with Safari for some time, but there are a few other things I need if I am going to use a browser every day. For instance, I also need RSS to play well with Google Reader. I can make that happen now by using Google Reader Tools by Andy Allcorn. In addition I need session management. This is provided (and very nicely) by Sessions written by David Yoo. I also added a reload button using an app of the same name by John Siracusa, and a duplicate tab button in the same manner written by Thiemo Gamma.
These might seem like small things, but keep in mind this is not an exhaustive list. However, it is a good start and enough to make it time to switch. Of course now that Apple’s extension page is active new extensions are being added regularly and I am confident it will not be long before I a reach browsing utopia. Now will someone please write an extension for tab management!