Browser Discovery of the Day

Yesterday I saw one of my sisters-in-law, who recently purchased an iMac computer as her new desktop model.  We had a little discussion about browsers (she was very confused, as it turns out; she didn't realize that Google was not a browser, for example).  Anyway, Safari was mentioned, and that got me thinking about how much I do not know about various browsers, most especially their differences -- what makes them unique, i.e.  Today I read an interesting blogpost about Safari, which is quoted below.

The "Reader" function in Safari 5

By Dave Winer on Saturday, June 12, 2010 at 6:02 PM.

I'm trying out the new Reader function in Safari 5.0. 

Here's how it works. Safari determines if you're viewing a "webpage that contains a text-based article." 

If so, a gray button that says "Reader" appears at the right end of the address bar.  

Here's what the Yahoo news page looks like. Very busy. 

Now, put aside for a moment the business issue for Yahoo, and why Apple would be the one pushing this particular envelope. See how pleasing the Reader version of this page is.  

But you have to try it out yourself to appreciate how nice it is. The scrollbar is the right user interface for reading. It shows how much better the web can be. 

Apple wants to lead publishers into the iPad environment, but I'm compelled to try to lead them to the environment suggested by Reader. And it gets even more interesting, because Reader is actually Readability.  

The developer of Readability, Richard Ziade, will be our guest on Rebooting The News podcast on Monday. Should be a very interesting discussion.  

Safari 5, Readability, iPad and Scripting2 are swirling around the same idea, how can we improve the reading experience on the net. I think we're poised to make a lot of progress, very quickly. 

 

This really resonated with me because I already use Readability on my own home computer: I have it as a button on my Firefox browser toolbar, and I have set it up so that when I click on that button, whatever text I am reading is converted to a larger type in an easy-to-read column width (settings I myself decided upon).  So wonderful for aging eyes!  Many times at work, I have wished for my Readability button; now, I know I can use Safari as my browser and have my Readability option right there at the ready!