GIS Consultant | Mac Consultant | | résumé
Mac OS X Tiger (version 10.4) is the fifth major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Mac computers. Tiger was released to the public on April 29, 2005 for US$129.95 as the successor to Mac OS X 10.3 Panther.Some of the new features included a fast searching system called Spotlight, a new version of the Safari web browser, Dashboard, a new 'Unified' theme,. Download the latest version of Opera Beta for Mac - Opera browser with latest features and refinements (was Opera Next) (beta). MacBook Air 2014 / OS 10.10.4 (0.
If you need technical support for issues after reading this FAQ, please visit my Tech Support page, where I offer fee based support.Note: this page was formerly on the Mac OS X speed FAQThis page was started as a one stop resource for many Apple compatible web browsers. In an effort to make it easier to find out why certain websites won't work on your Mac.
It is divided into these sections:
References for coding websites
Many websites may not be totally compatible with any of those web browsers, but that's because their webmasters (the commonly used term for the programmer of a webpage) neglect to follow WWW Consortium Standards. You should write the webmaster of any website that doesn't follow those standards and let them know that the web is more than just for Windows users, and that following those standards will help their web pages be more accessible. First off, those who can't afford another operating system, can now see their website as viewed from nearly every browser on the planet at Browsershots.org.
A great page on helping webmasters become more crossbrowser compatible is Anybrowser.org. Others include Webstandards.org, and Webmonkey.
Mac users may be interested in Pure-Mac's Editors - Software for Macintosh for a variety of webpage editors for the Mac
Meanwhile if the webmaster doesn't respond, here are links to all the major web browsers for the Mac and tools to make them work more efficiently. In addition to requesting webmasters to make websites more compatible, let the authors of the web browsers know when a website doesn't work. Below the table below are Java updates.
The contact link to the various web browser authors is in the table below next to each web browser:
| Browser name with download link | PowerPC and/or Mac OS 9 version | Contact/feedback link |
Safari 12.0 is available for Mac OS 10.12.6, 10.13.6, and 10.14. Safari 11.1.2 is available for 10.11.6. Wikipedia lists the latest Safari version, and which operating system can use it Safari 11.1 is in 10.13.4. Safari 9.1.2 is on 10.11.6's last security update that came out simultaneously with 10.13.4. Safari 9.0 ships with Mac OS X 10.11, and version 9.1 is available for 10.9, 10.10, and 10.11 through Software updates for the operating systems combined with the the security update, and the Safari update through the App Store. 10.10.4 for instance can't get Safari 9.1, but Mac OS X 10.9.5 and 10.10.5 can, and it must be installed separately from the security update unless you install all the updates for the operating system together including remote desktop and other updates which may not be needed by you. Other browsers such as Chrome and Firefox are not as sensitive to the operating system. Safari 8.0.8 ships with Mac OS X 10.10.5 Safari 8.0.7 ships with Mac OS X 10.10.4 Safari 7.0.5 ships with Mac OS X 10.9.4. Safari 7 ships with Mac OS X 10.9. Safari 6.0.5 is part of Mac OS X 10.8.5. Safari 6.0 ships with Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. Safari Safari 6 for Mac OS X 10.7, and Safari 5 for Mac OS X 10.6 are being kept up to date. Safari 5.1.6 came out with 10.7.4. In 10.7.3 and 10.6.8 it is 5.1.5. Safari 5.1.2 is available in Mac OS X 10.7.2, and 10.6.8 from Apple for 10.6.8 only. Version 5.0.4 is included with 10.6.7. Safari 5.0 is included with 10.6.4, however requires 10.5.8, and 10.6.2 or later on Apple's website. Note, version 5.0.2 has reportedly had issues with some computers slowing downloads of updates. 5.0.3 appears to have fixed the problem for some, as well as issues with the download speed of . Version 4.0.5 could also run on 10.6.2. Version 4.0.4 shipped with Mac OS X 10.6.2. Version 4.0.3 came with 10.6 and 10.6.1. Version 4.0.2 was included with 10.5.8. Safari 3.2.3 is also available for 10.5.7, 10.4.11 (no longer available as English download), Windows XP and Vista (version no longer stored at Apple). Version 3.2.1 was available for 10.5.5. Version 3.0.4 was included with 10.4.11, and 10.5, 10.5.1, and 10.5.2. Version 3.1 and later include a 'Develop menu' in the Safari menu -> Preferences -> Advanced that allows Safari to spoof a website into thinking it is a different web browser. Prior versions (3.0.4 and earlier), read about enabling the Debug menu. If you want to explore the command line via Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal, you can enable the Debug menu that the previously available software Safari Enhancer does offer you a User Agent menuitem to cloak itself as a different web browser (I'm not sure which versions this works on since I haven't tested it on all): defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1 Nagarabrowser (original source no longer exists) gives Safari a kiosk mode. With the 10.3.9 update it has been reported that several third party addons such as Saft and Acid Search will need updates. The March 2005 security update fixes Java issues on Safari, and if you applied the 10.3.9 delta update, applying the 10.3.9 combined update will often fix issues. See my Upgrade FAQ for more on how to apply updates without running into issues such as these. | Version 1.1.1 and later are only available as part of Apple's Mac OS X 10.3. Older versions of Safari are only available in non-English varieties from Apple: Version 1.3.2 is available for 10.3.9. Version 2.0 is current as of Mac OS X 10.4, and 2.0.1 is available for 10.4.2)*, and 2.0.4 is available when you upgrade Mac OS X 10.4 to 10.4.7 through 10.4.10. Safari is also available for 10.5.7, 10.4.11, Windows XP and Vista. Version 3.2.1 was available for 10.5.5. Version 3.0.4 was included with 10.4.11, and 10.5, 10.5.1, and 10.5.2. | Go to Safari menu and select 'Report Bugs to Apple' |
| Download Netscape 9 for Mac OS X, | Netscape 7.0.2 Mac PowerPC and other versions listed as Mac PowerPC are available for Mac OS 9 | AOL Developer page |
| Microsoft Internet Explorer is no longer available for download from Microsoft. A WINE version for Intel Macs offers some I.E. 7 compatibility. | The Mac OS X version 5.2.3 is available from Majorgeeks. There are several stores which carry old Apple operating system disks which also included Internet Explorer for Mac OS X. If installing older operating system disks, be sure to observe the System Specific installation notes. The Mac OS X version of Internet Explorer was last preloaded on Mac OS X 10.3's Install Disk 2 as version 5.2.3. The included Internet Explorer for Mac OS 9 on restore disks and Mac OS 9 installer disks is version 5.0. Remember if installing Mac OS X, only an Archive and Install and Upgrade and Install will let you preserve applications from previous versions of Mac OS X on the hard disk. Otherwise, you'll need to either use the Install Additional Applications from the restore disks, or Charlessoft's Pacifist to extract the files from the installer packages to reretrieve Internet Explorer (if it wasn't backed up elsewhere). Macintosh Repository has the only known copies of version 5.1.7 for Mac OS 9. | Microsoft product feedback page |
| Omnigroup's Omniweb for 10.4.8 to 10.9.5 | E-mail Omniweb support | |
| Opera | Opera for Mac OS 7 through 9 | Opera's Contact page |
| iCab - one of the few browsers that still has downloads going back to System 7.5 (you read that right, from 1995) | Download page lists both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X versions | E-mail iCab support |
| Mozilla can immitate other browsers with User-agent switcher | Classila and Wamcom Mozilla for Mac OS 9 | Mozilla Bugzilla feedback page |
| Google Chrome | Google Chrome Discussions | |
| Camino (formerly known as Navigator) | Camino Bugzilla feedback page | |
| Firefox (formerly known as Firebird) can immitate other browsers with User-agent switcher. Its version 45.9 works well with Yahoo on 10.6.8 | PowerPC version | Firefox Bugzilla feedback page |
| Waterfox - Mac OS X 10.7.5 compatible Firefox, This tip was written on Apple Support Communities: 'It's October 2017 now, and I run the current version of Waterfox (55.2.2) on OS X 10.7.5. It's derived from Firefox, but is is less tardy than Firefox. I like that the Reader mode has speech output tied to OS X's voices and that it automatically chooses the correct language as well - if only it wouldn't crash sometimes for some reason... Important for Youtube: If Youtube videos don't play in Waterfox (giving you a playback error message) you will have to deactivate the Multiple Process feature in Waterfox's preference settings.' | Contact info | |
| Bumpercar - kids web browser | Bumpercar contact addresses | |
| WannaBe | Contact info |
You can run PC web browsers on the Mac if you use one of these Intel operating systems on the Mac solutions. Note however, any website which requires you use Internet Explorer for Windows is unlikely to be a very secure website, given the number of times such websites have been hacked.
Java Updates
Note: Java versioning may confuse some people when someone refers to Java 7, they really mean Java 1.7.x. Versions on Apple download site usually refer to the 1.x versioning.Java version 7 has had a security flaw which is documented on my tip user tip on Apple's Support Communities. Apple explains the latest Java available for Mac OS X 10.4, and 10.5, at Article TS3489.
The latest Java exists for Mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.3 and addresses some of the Flashback trojan issue. For the 10.6.8 download go to DL1516.
Java for 10.7.3 and later is supported by http://www.java.com/
The latest Java for 10.5.8 is http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1359
And for 10.7 go to Oracle's Java page. Apple has a guide to the latest Java updates on their Technote Database. Not all Javas are Mac compatible without Emulation or Virtualization as ActiveX was only developed for Windows, and is not a true Java. Any site that uses ActiveX should be criticized for not using an open standard of Java. Java support may be improved 10.2.3 combo or 10.2.4 through 10.2.6 combo updates, Java update for Mac OS X 10.3 to Java 1.4.1, Java update for 10.3.4 to 1.4.2, Java Update for 10.3.9, Java 2 Platform Standard Edition (J2SE) 5.0 release 1 for Tiger, Software Update search for latest Java updates
The Carbon Java Plugin, and Java Embedding Plugin are both different plugins which can be used to make certain Java sites more accessible in some Mac OS X web browsers. I would be careful not to run both at the same time.
Similarly with Flash, its security has come into question, and my user tip on Apple's Support Communities discusses how and why. .This discussion on Apple Support Communities explains how to install Flash 11.5 on older browsers.
Numerous animations, including some Youtube animations require Flash. Older browsers may be compatible with newer versions of Flash, but possibly not the newest version. Adobe has aPast versions of Flash download page. Also ClicktoFlash allows you to have control over which websites you allow to load Flash.
A similar problem to that which exists for web browsers, is that most e-mail programs don't have complete support for web browser standards. As a result, getting HTML e-mail can be problematic at best. There is an excellent site that discusses the issues of HTML e-mail at Birdhouse.org. Among them there are security, accessibility, and design elements which simply don't render the same way on all e-mails. If you receive HTML e-mails and have no option to receive text, I recommend contacting the company that sends such e-mails and ask for a link to the webpage which has those documents. Attachments are also problematic as my Mac OS X page reference discusses. It is better for any document being transmitted via e-mail that can't be represented by ASCII text to be saved to a website and referred to by a link in an e-mail, than attempts to render information in e-mail which can't be universally read.
As a user of older Macs, especially G3s, lightweight apps make your day-to-day usage a lot easier, and this extends to web browsers.
I recently tested as many browsers as I could find, but the test machine was my iMac Core Duo running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. After looking carefully at my results and some of the comments I received, I have retested some of the more lightweight browsers on my Pismo PowerBook G3.
It is a 400 MHz with 1 GB of RAM, a new 5400 rpm 40 GB hard drive with AirPort Card and running Mac OS X 10.4.11 Tiger with all the latest updates installed.
There are a lot of browsers for Tiger, but some of them I wouldn’t put in the lightweight category and therefore didn’t include in my testing. Some of them, like Flock, while they will work on a G3, require a G4 for decent performance.
Editor’s note: For those using older versions of OS X, we sometimes include system requirements for versions earlier than the one reviewed. Of the nine browser versions reviewed here, only four can run on Mac OS X 10.3.9 Panther – but that includes some of the best ones. Anyone still using Mac OS X 10.2 can’t run current versions of any of these browsers.
These are the browsers I choose:
Mozilla Browsers
WebKit Browsers
So let’s get started.
Opera 9.52
Opera has come a long way in the past year, but it is still way behind its competitors. The app was slow to load, pages loaded slowly, and it was the only browser to not render my website home page properly, dropping the navigation pane to under the rest of the page.
It is also has one of the ugliest user interfaces I have seen in a long time; it looks very dated.
Opera 7 requires Mac OS X 10.1 or later; 8 requires 10.2 or later; 9 requires 10.3 or later.
Rating: 1.5/4
Mozilla Browsers
Camino 1.6.4
Download Opera For Mac 10.4 11
Camino is a great browser. It is a Mac OS X exclusive browser from the Mozilla team. I have used Camino on a number of systems, and the later versions (currently in beta stages) have been fabulous.
Camino is a neat and tidy browser, and with most older Macs not supporting the higher resolutions of more modern Macs, screen space is more of an issue – and this slim and trim browser helps maximise the browser window.
A rock solid browser, which is incredibly fast even on my PowerBook with the usual features that are standard in browsers these days like tabs and password remembering.
Camino requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later.
Rating: 4/4
Firefox 3.0.2
Opera Mac 10.4 11
Okay, so Firefox isn’t exactly lightweight, but as it is the biggest Mac browser, I thought I would throw it in. I use it a lot, even on my Pismo.
As you would imagine, it is a lot slower to load than the others, and pages take a little while to load, but it renders them fine. The added bonus of having hundred of plugins for everything you could think of, makes this a highly customisable browser.
Firefox 2 requires Mac OS X 10.2 or later; version 3 requires 10.4 or later.
Rating: 3.5/4
WebKit Browsers
iCab 4.2.0
iCab has been around for a long time. Its maker is one of the last software developers still making OS 9 software. This is the OS X version.
This was extremely fast – even on this aging G3 – and it rendered pages perfectly. Pages loaded very quickly, even those that I hadn’t been to before.
iCab 4 requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later.
Rating: 3.5/4
Shiira 2.2
I have never been a fan of Shiira, even on higher spec’d systems. It is very unstable, and while it has gotten better with each new revision, it still has a long way to go.
The app took a few more bounces on the Dock to load than most other browsers, but once open, pages loaded quite quickly and were rendered properly.
Shiira 1.2.2 requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later; 2.2 requires 10.4 or later.
Rating: 2/4
Demeter 1.5 Beta 2
I was pointed to the Demeter browser by a fellow G3 enthusiast and was looking forward to trying it. It is supposed to be a “slimline Shiira”, and Shiira in turn is a revamped Safari. Is fast speed on old machines was touted as one of its best features.
Unfortunately I couldn’t get the browser to work. The app opened fine and was very quick, but halfway through rendering pages, it kept quitting.
Demeter 1.0.8 (stable) and 1.5 (beta) require Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
Rating: 1/4
Radon 1.0
Radon started off as a good browser, it was quite fast and rendered pages properly. However version 1.0 is the last version being developed for Tiger. Newer versions are Leopard-only, which considering you need a beast of a machine to run Leopard, you wouldn’t be too worried about a lightweight browser.
Radon 1.0 requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
Rating: 2/4
Sunrise 1.7.4
Sunrise was another browser pointed out by fellow user of older Macs, and I was very impressed with it. I had never heard of it before this test, and I was very surprised by it. The app loaded blindingly quick (within 2 Dock bounces), and the pages loaded extremely fast.
There was one annoyance: When you type a web address in the address bar, it searches Google for it instead of taking you directly there.
Sunrise requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later.
Rating: 3.5/4
Safari 3.1.2
Apple would have you believe this is the best browser for the Mac, and it has some very good points – but being the best isn’t one of them.
Safari 3.1 loads fast, and pages load fast, although not as fast as Camino and Sunrise. Pages are rendered fine, but the lack of support for WYSIWYG editing in eBay, and the random page drops makes it an unreliable browser. Hopefully Apple will resolve these niggles and put Safari where it should be.
Safari 1.3.2 requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later; 3.0 requires 10.4.9 or later.
Rating: 3/4
Conclusion
I have thrown a bunch of browsers at you, with most of them similar in specs but missing a few vital points.
The best all rounder is Camino, as it is immensely fast, but for maximum compatibility and a whole bunch of plugins, Firefox is still good, although a little slow if you have an older G3. High-end 600 MHz with lots of RAM should cope with it fine. My wife had a G3 iBook 800 MHz with 640 MB of RAM, and Firefox 3 breezed on it, as fast as my Intel iMac running Leopard.
Don’t dismiss Sunrise, as it looks very promising, and I will be using a whole lot more. For very old G3s, look at Camino and Sunrise,; for faster G3s and low-end G4s, look at Camino and Firefox.
G3’s and low-end G4’s still have a long life left in them, but software developers and advances in web languages are forcing slower machines out of the picture. Fortunately there are still some developers writing with older machines in mind, and for this we are thankful.
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