Holy Sweet Bejeezus!
In my recent browser review, I gave the latest Firefox release (which has since gone to 1.5b2) the praise it deserves. It's really gotten quite nice. It's speedy, it looks great, and -- it's main selling point -- it does everything you could ever want a browser to do. My one real complaint was the key-commands, particularly for switching between tabs. It seemed to have reverted to an earlier version -- "control-page up" -- which is both a clumsy two-handed key-command, and which requires a whole different set of keystrokes on a Powerbook, and so is quite worthless as a key-command, which is supposed to be easy to use and to remember.
After the review, a reader, pablo7, suggested I investigate extensions for Firefox, particularly one called keyconfig, which is meant to allow user control over key-commands. Well, I appreciate the tip, and I finally got around to looking at keyconfig, and, unfortunately, it would not install because of a "download error." Still, this spurred me on to investigate the matter further, and I ended up checking the "Firefox Help" pages from the application's Help menu (which, by the way, look great, and are actually, as we'll see, quite helpful indeed). Lo and behold, not only are there additional key-commands for tab switching, there's actually a quite sensible one: "command-option-arrow." Same as Camino.
(click for larger view)
I'm actually almost positive I tried this combo before writing my review (though maybe I didn't), so it may be new to version 1.5b2. But it may also ultimately be the straw that breaks the camel's back in this case. I've been increasingly fed up with Safari, and increasingly pleased with Firefox . And this beta's been rock-solid in my tests, and much more useful when logging on to web-based accounts. I even keep finding other great features: arrange-able tabs, the ability to bookmark tab groups, very configurable popup blocking, and it will even import Safari's bookmarks, cookies, history and preferences. Oh, baby! That's what I like.
So, I'll say again: Holy Sweet Bajeezus! I may be switching to Firefox. Like, soon.
Safari, this is your last warning.
UPDATE 1:
Here's the best Safari-like theme I've seen for Firefox, and it works in the latest beta.
Also, a decent read on some of the cool things you can do with Firefox. Though it pertains to the non-beta version (and redundantly mentions tabs first off, as if other browsers lack this feature, or like any Mac user is still using IE), much of this will work in the beta, or will work when v.1.5 comes out of beta. And really, it's just an overview. This is the most freely configurable browser out there.