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Web Browsing (Internet Explorer vs. Safari)
Web Browsing
Mac OS X comes with Apple's Safari 2 while Windows XP includes Internet Explorer 7 for browsing the Internet. Both offer bookmark management, tabbed browsing, and viewing RSS feeds.
Internet Explorer 7 (click image to see larger version)
Safari 2 (click image to see larger version)
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Bookmark Management
Mac OS X:
Users can access their bookmarks in Safari by going to Bookmarks > Show All Bookmarks or clicking the 
icon located on the left side of the toolbar.
Managing bookmarks in Safari (click image to see larger version)
Safari's bookmark window uses a layout similar to other library-centric applications on OS X such as Address Book, Font Book, and even iTunes.
The left side displays collections of bookmarks the user has created to organize their bookmarks by. "History" (previous web pages visited) and "RSS Feed" (feeds the users is subscribed to) are special collections that are created by default and can't be deleted. New collections can be created by clicking the "+" button at the bottom of the collections area.
Selecting a collection on the left displays its bookmarks on the right. Both the bookmark's title and URL are displayed. Clicking the "+" button at the bottom of the bookmarks area on the right will create folders within collections to organize bookmarks even further.
A search box is located at the bottom of the window to let users search their bookmarks. Users can specify whether to search through their entire bookmarks library or just the selected collection.
Search your bookmarks in Safari
Any bookmarks stored in the "Bookmarks Bar" collection will appear on Safari's toolbar (if enabled from the View menu). Dragging URLs from the address bar directly on to the toolbar will add them as well. Folders in the "Bookmarks Bar" collection act as drop down menus in the toolbar when clicked displaying the bookmarks inside.
Folder of bookmarks in Safari's toolbar
Windows XP:
Internet Explorer users access their bookmarks or "favorites" through the favorites center by clicking the 
icon in the toolbar. Internet Explorer's favorites center
Internet Explorer's Favorites Center
Internet Explorer actually saves a user's favorites as individual files in the user's favorites folder located in the file system. This means that favorites are subject to the same A user's favorites are subject to same file naming restrictions as other files are. Forbidden characters in a bookmark's title will be converted before being saved
The favorites center has three collections the user can choose from: Favorites (web pages bookmarked by the user), Feeds (RSS feeds the user is subscribed to), and History (previous web pages the user has visited).
User's can create folders in the "Favorites" and "RSS feeds" collections within favorites center through the following methods:
- Right-click on an existing bookmark or folder and select "Create new folder" from the popup menu. Right-clicking on empty space didn't display a popup ment.
- Click the
button and select "Organize Favorites" from its drop down menu. Click the "New Folder" button in the dialog that appears. - Using Explorer, create a new folder in the favorites folder itself since Internet Explorer mirrors the contents of this folder.
Currently there is no way for a user to search through their favorites in Internet Explorer. However, they can use Windows XP's built-in search since their favorites are actually individual files saved within the file system.
Internet Explorer supports displaying a user's favorites on its toolbar. Any favorites saved in the "Links" folder under the "Favorites" collection within the favorites center, will appear on Internet Explorer's toolbar. Any folders of favorites in the "Links" folder will be treated as a drop down menu when clicked. The drop down menu lacks the option to open all web pages in the folder as tabs.
Tabs, Tabs, and More Tabs
Both Internet Explorer and Safari support tabbed browsing where multiple web pages can be opened in the same window. Each web page is displayed as its own individual tab. Tabs reduce screen space being wasted by merging multiple windows into one and making it easy to switch between them.
Mac OS X:
There are multiple ways to open a web page in a new tab in Safari:
Tabs in Safari
- Hold down the
key while clicking a link. To open a bookmark this way, you will have to double-click it. - Right-click a link and choose "Open Link in New Tab" from the popup menu.
- Drag a link to the tab bar.
- Create an empty new tab (+T) and type the URL address of the web page.
- Right-click on folder of bookmarks in Safari's bookmark window and choose "Open in tabs" from the popup menu. All the bookmarks in this folder will open at the same time in seperate tabs. This also works on folders containing bookmarks displayed on Safari's toolbar.
Each open tab displays an "X" on its left edge. Click the "X" to close the web page and remove its tab from the toolbar.
Windows XP:
There are multiple ways to open a web page in a new tab in Internet Explorer:
Tabs in Internet Explorer
- Hold down the CTRL key while clicking a link or bookmark.
- Right-click a link and choose "Open Link in New Tab" from the popup menu.
- Create an empty new tab (CTRL+T or the new tab button) and type the URL address of the web page.
- Hover over a folder in the favorites center and an arrow will appear to its right. Clicking the arrow opens all the favorites in the folder at the same time in seperate tabs.
Open a new tab in Internet Explorer in one click!
Click the arrow to open the folder of bookmarks in tabs
Tabs are not fixed in the order they open in like window tiles in the taskbar. They can be rearranged in any sequence the user wishes.
Besides the tab bar, Internet Explorer offers two other methods to access web pages open in tabs inside a window:
- View the titles of all open tabs from a drop down menu
- View all the web pages open in tabs as thumbnails.
To close an open tab, users will have to first select a tab to make it active, and then click the "X" button located on its right edge. This will close the web page in the tab and remove its tab from the toolbar. If you close a window that has multiple tabs open, Internet Explorer will display a warning message. Useful if a user accidentally clicked the close button.
Warning when closing a window will tabs still open
The warning dialog offers an additional option for those who did actually did intend to close the window. Internet Explorer can remember what web pages are currently open in tabs and open them the next time Internet Explorer is launched.
Viewing RSS Feeds
The number of websites offering RSS feeds is increasing rapidly with every year. RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" and makes it easy for website owners to announce updates or new content. Visitors subscribe to RSS feeds (like a channel) and view its content in an RSS feed reader.
Mac OS X:
When Safari detects an RSS feed on a website, it displays an "RSS" icon in the window's address bar.
Safari detects an RSS feed
Clicking the icon opens Safari's built-in RSS reader. To subscribe to an RSS feed, click the "Add Bookmarks" link at the bottom of the sidebar on the right.
Viewing RSS feeds in Safari
Users can sort entries in the feed by various criteria such as title, date, or unread status. The ability to filter entires by the date they were published (today, yesterday, this month, etc.). There's also an "Article Length" slider that controls how much content on an entry is displayed. Sliding the button all the way to left will only show the entry's title while sliding it all the way to the right will show its entire contents.
A search box in the right sidebar lets users filter entries further by specific keywords. There's even an option to save the search as a custom RSS feed that can will only display entires that match your the search criteria.
When an subscribed RSS feed has new content, Safari displays the number of unread entries in paranthesis next to bookmark. If the RSS feed is located within a folder with other bookmarks, the number of unread feed entries will also appear next to the folder's name.
Safari: I've got new feed content!
Users can configure in Safari's preferences when RSS feeds are checked for updates (every 5 minutes, hour, and day). These settings apply to all feeds. There's no way to configure custom settings for individual feeds.
Right-clicking on a folder with multiple feeds in Safari's bookmarks window will display the option "View All RSS Articles" in the popup menu. This option merges all entries from every feed stored in that folder. In Safari's RSS reader window, another set of filtering options will appear to show all entries or those from a particular source.
View multiple RSS feeds at once
Windows XP:
When Internet Explorer detects an RSS feed on a website, the feed icon in its command bar turns orange.
Internet Explorer detects an RSS feed
Clicking the icon opens Internet Explorer's built-in RSS reader. Internet Explorer lets the user know right upfront they aren't subscribed to a feed and instructions on how to do so.
Viewing RSS feeds in Internet Explorer
Users can sort entries in the feed by various criteria such as title, date, or author. There's no way to filter entries by date, but there are filtering options for unread status and category of entry (if information about entry is available in feed). Additionally, there's a search box in the right sidebar to filter entries by specific keywords.
When an subscribed RSS feed has new content, Internet Explorer will bold the feeds in Favorites center with new content. To know how many new unread posts are available, you have to hover over each one individually.
Internet Explorer: I've got new feed content!
Internet Explorer allow users to configure when their feeds are checked for updates (every day or hour for instance). Internet Explorer also lets users configure custom settings for each feed. Custom settings include update schedules and content archive limit (2,500 entries is the maximum).
Custom feed settings in Internet Explorer
Searching the Internet
Mac OS X:
Safari users can search the Internet directly from their toolbar. The search box is powered by Google's search engine. However, there's no way to customize this search box to use another search engine such as Yahoo! or Microsoft's own Live Search.
Searching the Internet in Safari
Windows XP:
Internet Explorer users can search the Internet from their toolbar. While Microsoft's Live search is the default search engine, users can change it to another search engine they have installed a plug-n for.
Searching the Internet in Internet Explorer
Microsoft offers a selection of search engine plug-ins available from the "Find More Providers" option in the above image. There's plug-ins available for search engines such as Google and even Wikipedia.
Search engine plug-ins for Internet Explorer
Downloading Files
Mac OS X:
All files being downloaded by a user appear in the downloads window rather than as individual windows. Downloads can be paused if the server the file exists on supports it. The download window keeps a history of completed downloads even after Safari has quit (unless the user changes this in the settings).
Safari's download manager
Safari offers a basic level of protection against downloading malicious software. If an applcation is detected inside the dowload, Safari will prompt the user with a warning. Safari detects not only applications for Mac OS X, but also Windows executables (.exe).
Did you intend to download an application?
Windows XP:
If a web page tries to download files to the user's computer, Internet Explorer's privacy bar will appear and block the download. This prevents files being downloaded without the user knowing. To continue downloading the file, users will have to click the bar and choose the "Download File" option.
Internet Explorer stops a download
Downloads in Internet Explorer appear in their own individual windows. There's no ability to pause/resume a download at a later time. When a download is complete, it's window will remain open until you close it. Other than this, there's basically no history of completed downloads once an Internet Explorer download window is closed.
Internet Explorer download window
Odds and Ends...
Mac OS X:
- Safari sports a feature called "snapback". A web page is marked for snapback when loaded in a new window, its URL is manually entered into the address bar, and loaded from the user's bookmarks/history. Users can return at any time to a web page marked for snapback at any time by clicking the
icon in the address bar. Web pages can manually be marked for snapback by going to History > Mark Page for Snapbackor with the keyboard shortcut SHIFT--K. - Users can natively open and view PDF files directly within Safari without the need to install any additional plug-ins.
- Safari spell checks as a user types text into text boxes on a web page.
- Safari's address bar double's a progress bar.
- -clicking the web page title from Safari's title bar works the same as it does with proxy icons in the title bar of open files in other applications. It will show a menu that traces the file (the web page in this case) back to its main source (its root domain). Useful if you entered the website in the middle and want to see where this page is located in relation to the rest of the site.
- Safari includes an effective popup blocker (Select
Safari > Block Popup Windowsto toggle it on/off). Generally, it will block popups that attempt to open as soon as you visit a web page (since they are most likely to be ads), but will allow popups that are invoked by clicking a link on a page (since it then assumes that the popup is one that you want to see). However, the feature is not very flexible as you can only have it "on" or "off". There is no ability to customize its settings to always allow popups from certain sites. - Choosing the "Reset Safari" command from the Safari menu purges all personal browsing data. The command clears the browser cache, history downloads window, cookies, and auto-fill text (ncluding previous Google searches).
You can also choose to enable Private Browsing from the Safari menu, which will temporarily not cache any sites visted, passwords entered, etc. — good for computers used in public places, such as a library.
Windows XP:
- Internet Explorer's zoom feature does more than just increase the size of text on a web page. Images and other HTML elements zoom to stay in proportion.
- The Print Preview window for Internet Explorer offers total control over how a web page should be printed. Users can customize margins, size of page, and even how many pages are displayed on a sheet at one time.
- Users can setup home page sets. When opening a new browser window, each home page will load under a different tab.
- Internet Explorer doesn't display a menu bar with menus such as "File" or "Edit" by default. The majority of the commands in these menus have been relocated to the command bar and grouped into categories based on their function: home, feeds, print, page, tools, and help. While the majority of the commands can be accessed from the command bar, some can only be found in the traditional menu bar. The traditional menu bar can be displayed temporarily by pressing the ALT key or permanently by right-clicking on the toolbar and selecting "Menu bar" from the bars that can be displayed.
Mac OS X
- No naming restrictions on bookmarks
- Can search bookmarks
- Creating new folders in Safari's bookmarks manager is made simple via the "+" button at the bottom of the right frame where bookmarks in a collecton are displayed.
- Can create custom collections of bookmarks
- Download manager groups all downloads into one window. Other features include being able to pause a download and show a history of completed downloads.
- Subscribed RSS feeds display the number of unread items next to name
- Can't rearrange open tabs
- Lack of options for viewing open tabs
- Doesn't warn user when closing a window with multiple tabs open
- While Safari can resize text on a web page for easy reading, images are left at their original size
Windows XP
- Can rearrange open tabs
- Multple viewing options for open tabs (drop down list and thumbnail view)
- Warns user when closing a window with multiple tabs open
- Internet Explorer's zoom option increases not only text on the screen, but images as well.
- Creating new folders in Internet Explorer's favorites center is not straight forward. Users must actually right click on an existing bookmark or folder to display the shortcut menu with the "Create New Folder" option. Other options include launching a seperate dialog just for organizing a user's favorites or using Explorer to create folders within the user's favorites folder located in the file system.
- Limited to three collections in favorites center: favorites, feeds, and history. No option to create custom collections.
- Can't search favorites inside Internet Explorer
- Download manager lacks the ability to pause downloads and display download history. Each download is its own window increasing screen clutter.
- Names of bookmarks cannot contain the following characters:
\ / : * ? " < > |
Mac OS X: 8
Windows XP: 8
Note: this comparison is incomplete. Other sections such as searching the Internet and web browser safety coming soon!
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