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July 14, 2005

I have to use Safari on Mac OS X

Although Firefox has a lot of advantages, and I miss Googlebar, ADBlock, Switchproxy very much, I have to use Safari on Mac OS X, because it's the only browser that browser simplified Chinese sites without problems.

Missing characters and bad fonts limit Firefox spreading in Chinese Mac OS X community.

Let's take google.com in simplified Chinese as an example.
Here's the screenshot of Safari.
Safari-Google
Here's the screenshot of Firefox, you can see the fonts are not identical, some characters are using Song, some are using Hei.
Firefox-Google
Things are even worth in "Advanced Search" page, lots of characters are missing in widgets.
Here's the screenshot.
Firefox-Google-Adv
Compare to Safari.
Safari-Google-Adv

The problem is Firefox is using QuickDraw for font rendering on Mac OS X, it's behind the times and deprecated. e.g. QuickDraw doesn't support Unicode directly.

What about OmniWeb or Opera? OmniWeb is rendering with very good font, even better than Safari, but it missed some characters in "Google Preference" page. Opera didn't miss any characters, but the font is worst.

Anyway, the situation is not worst with simplified Chinese. Google in Nepal is not readable with Firefox and Opera.

Here's the screenshot matrix.

Technorati Tags: , ,

URL \ BrowserSafariFirefoxOmniWebOpera
google.comSafari-GoogleFirefox-GoogleOmniweb-GoogleOpera-Google
google.com/advanced_searchSafari-Google-AdvFirefox-Google-AdvOmniweb-Google-AdvOpera-Google-Adv
google.com/preferencesSafari-Google-PrefFirefox-Google-PrefOmniweb-Google-PrefOpera-Google-Pref
google.com.npSafari-Google-NpFirefox-Google-NpOmniweb-Google-NpOpera-Google-Np

Posted by ginn at July 14, 2005 5:02 PM

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Comments

Have you tried Shiira? It uses the same engine as Safari and OmniWeb do, so maybe it's an alternative.

Posted by: Sören Kuklau at July 20, 2005 12:04 AM

I just tried it. It works as same as Safari while PithHelmet has a little problem with it.
Thanks.
But I'd like to hack Firefox. :)

Posted by: Ginn at July 20, 2005 1:50 PM

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