Caught cheating

As a loyal ex-Netscape employee and enthusiast of well-designed products, I've diligently used Netscape-based technologies -- most notably its browser and mail client-- whenever I could. These days, that means using Firefox and Thunderbird.

But I've also been a fan of Apple products: I use iTunes and own an iPod. I'm anticipating that my next PC refresh will be a Mac.

Yesterday, on a whim, I also downloaded Safari, Apple's browser which now runs on Windows. I felt almost like I was cheating on Firefox to do it.

But having done it, I have to say "wow". It won't be my only Web browser, but it just might become my default browser. Why? 

• It's very, very fast -- noticeably so. For some reason, Firefox seems to take a long time to load certain Web pages. Safari is eye-poppingly fast. You wouldn't think a few seconds makes that much of a difference, but a does. In general, Safari opens all pages in 1-3 seconds, compared to 3-10 seconds on Firefox.  
• It looks great. Typical Apple attention to UI details make the visual appeal enormous. Even unadorned Web pages look better due to font smoothing and other tweaks. (Two exceptions: the booksmarks toolbar doesn't show icons and the contrast between the brushed metal background and the text isn't quite high enough.)
• It has powerful RSS tools built right in, great for browsing blogs.

Why can't it be the only browser?

• No Firefox-like extensibility. It has plugins, but those are just to render content types, not extend functionality. 
• Website incompatibilities. I've only run into one so far (with the Peninsula Library System's Website), but I bet there will be more.
• Missing features, like Firefox's awesome keyword shortcut for search.
• Incompatibility with Roboform, my password-remember-er.

Still, it's very impressive and actually a pretty savvy marketing tool for Apple. My Safari experience has made it more likely that I'll actually switch when it's time to upgrade my Windows machine.