Using a beta edition web browser is something most people don’t want to do, especially when it comes to Firefox. Why? Because there’s a risk it may break one or more of the add-ons you have installed in the browser. And it’s a pain to do all that install/uninstall crap because it’s not just for the browser but all your add-ons as well. This can prove to be irritating in short order.

Is there a way to use the new Firefox without actually installing it on your hard drive? Of course there is. You can install it to your USB stick where it will stay self-contained.

Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 does have a PortableApps version, and said honestly this is the absolute best way to try out the browser without messing with your existing 3.0.10 that’s on your hard drive now. Not only can you use it but also test your add-ons to see which will work or bust.

For those that haven’t used PortableApps before, here’s how to use it:

First, find a USB stick you’ve got lying around somewhere. Even if it’s an ancient 128MB stick, that’s fine. Erase/format the stick to free up the space.

Second, after installation, make note of the drive letter assigned to the stick. For most people this is drive E or F.

Third, download PortableApps and install it. When it asks where to install to, use the drive letter assigned to the USB stick.

Note: I suggest downloading the "Platform Only" version of PortableApps, especially if you have a stick with a minimal amount of space on it.

Fourth, download FF 3.5 beta 4 from here. Run the installer (the installation directory should point to the PortableApps directory on your USB stick).

Run the browser from PortableApps afterward, and that’s all there is to it.

Looks like this when finished:

On launch:

Confirmation it is 3.5 beta 4:

To those wondering, no, you cannot run FF 3.0.10 and 3.5 at the same time. That was the first thing I tried. Regardless of that, it was cool I can run this browser without having to actually install it to the hard drive.

Once launched it’s quite speedy even though it’s running off USB.

If you want to try out add-ons, go right ahead; they will be installed to the stick directly.

To those with slower PCs and/or (gasp) USB 1.1, there is the option to not store session information when you first run FF. Otherwise if you’ve got USB 2.0 and a relatively decent PC speed-wise, you can have it store sessions and it runs just fine.

Being that I hadn’t used Apple’s Safari browser for some time I decided to check it out again. It’s now at version 4 beta. This is the exact version I have:

The install completed easily, however on attempt to load www.google.com (yes, that Google), this happened:

Not good.

Everything with my internet connection was fine as my other browsers worked with no issue. Eventually Safari started working properly. Must be a beta bug thing (it is a beta browser, after all).

When you first start Safari you are presented with “Top Sites”, which is a paneled/skewed thumbnail collection of the sites you visit the most.

The panels are clickable, obviously. And yes, Apple thought enough to put an “Edit” button at the bottom left to edit out sites you don’t want to appear here.

If you’re saying to yourself, “I’ve seen this feature somewhere else..”, you’re right. The Opera browser has had this for a while. Safari’s Top Sites is just a fancy version of Opera’s Speed Dial, with the difference being Safari fills in the panels automatically whereas Opera doesn’t (and if I’m wrong there, feel free to comment and correct me).

Tabs in Safari are placed on the very top of the browser. You will either love or hate this. Users of Safari on OS X give mixed reviews on the above-bar tab placement, so you’ll have to decide for yourself whether you like it or not.

The Flash plugin works fine and I didn’t have to install/reinstall anything from Adobe. Browsing YouTube or any other Flash video-enabled site won’t be a problem.

The menu bar, like in Internet Explorer, is hidden by default and is accessed by pressing ALT. However you will probably never need to do this since everything important is accessed via the sprocket-looking icon.

From that menu is all the necessary stuff, like preferences, Private Browsing and so on.

Speaking of which, Safari’s Private Browsing is nice to have but the problem is that there is absolutely no confirmation to let you know it’s enabled after the OK, other than going back to the menu and looking for the checkmark next to the phrase.

By comparison, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 8 make it very obvious you are have private-mode enabled.

If you used Safari on Windows before, you’ll immediately notice the browser now uses Windows font smoothing (OpenType/ClearType) by default and not the thicker Apple-style font rendering. Is there a way to enable this, which was arguably its best feature? Yes. Go to Preferences and then Appearance and you’ll find it there:

Compared to previous versions there are now several different types of smoothing to choose from. Windows Standard is the default choice, but if you want the fatter/thicker style, use Medium or Strong. Light (at least to my eyes) tends to be too “fuzzy” looking.

If you have bad eyes, you will really like Safari set on Strong. Here’s an example:

“Windows Standard”

“Strong”

It does looks a bit “smudgy”, but for those with bad eyes this may really make a big difference when reading web pages.

If you use “Strong” in combination with increasing the size of a web page (CTRL and plus-key to enlarge, CTRL and minus key to reduce), the larger the font, the better it looks.

Will this browser switch anyone off of what they normally use?

Save for Mac people who want a Mac look in Windows and people who want a browser that renders thicker fonts, not really.

Safari is a decent browser but is trounced by other offerings. It’s not as extensible as Firefox (FF is king of the add-ons, no question). It doesn’t have as much support as IE 7 (and soon to be 8 once more market share is gained). It doesn’t have any super-whiz-bang features no other browser has like Opera does (such as voice  recognition).

Simply put, Safari is at the back of the pack. But as said above, it is decent. Version 4 brings good new stuff to the table.

Try it out, you may like it.

And by the way, the claim of “world’s fastest web browser” isn’t exactly true. That honor belongs to Lynx. A GUI-based browser cannot outrun a text-based one, period.

ComputerWorld reports that MobileMe users (Apple’s replacement to .Mac) were quite upset due to the fact the e-mail service had a four-day outage. In the world of e-mail, days can seem like years and this is especially true for mobile users who send tons of e-mail.

To the best of my knowledge I have never known any e-mail service to be down for 4 days in a row; this is absolutely unheard of.

And it’s even more rare that paid e-mail service (which MobileMe is) has this kind of outage. Ouch. If you’re e-mail is free then it might take the sting away a bit… but when you pay for it? That’s just bad all around.

It would seem that Apple users are better off using free Gmail.