Well, on my desktop anyway.

As I’ve been re-Mac-ing myself (clever, eh?), I’ve been trying to find best of breed components to go along with my digital makeover. I’ve asked Mac users at work to give me a list of the five best things they have or use (hardware or software) with their Macs. Browser conversations inevitably come up.

I’ve been a big fan and supporter of Firefox since before it GA’d. On Windows, that was an easy choice, as IE has more holes than a big ol’ block of Swiss cheese. On the Mac, that choice doesn’t seem quite so cut and dried. Safari is the native browser, and it seems to do a good job. Firefox is also out for the Mac, and seems to do a good job. So who wins? For me, the jury is still out.

Well, one of the Macfolk I talked to indicated that his decision to let Safari wither on the vine was the inability to examine security certificates within the browser. That’s a big one, although I have to admit that I rarely look at those unless the browser barks about there being some discrepancy.

I guess that sorta flies alongside Apple’s apparent paradigm with their environment. It’s almost an arrogance that dictates that Apple knows what’s best, and will let us know if there’s an issue. It really reinforces the Mac as an appliance, a means to an end, rather than something to constantly be working on. Kinda like a chef having a toaster that he can focus on making toast with, rather than constantly focusing on rewiring the heating coils. Nothing wrong with any of that, but it is really a mindset change for me.

However, I’m ready to hang up my sysadmin gloves at the house. I do enough of that kind of work at the office, and it’s time to focus on my digital lifestyle (to borrow a phrase from Apple), and not so much on how to get there.