[This site](http://software4free.org/macearth.html) laments the fact that [Google](http://www.google.com) stuff isn’t available for Mac.

The only application where I don’t think there’s any Mac alternative is [Google Earth](http://earth.google.com/). Mac users shouldn’t care that there’s no [Picasa](http://picasa.google.com/index.html). It’s an awesome application, but any Mac user who has [iPhoto](http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/) isn’t missing it that much. Personally, I’m now using [Adobe Photoshop Elements](http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/main.html) to organize and do quick fixes on photos on my PC.

On this, I disagree:

>Google Desktop and Google Toolbar: no, they are PC-only. Even though Macintosh users have access to Spotlight desktop search and the Safari Google search box, there have been many requests and even an [online petition](http://www.petitiononline.com/cgi-bin/mlk?http://www.gopple.org) for a Mac Google Toolbar.

Huh? I have Google Toolbar on my Mac. [Here it is](http://toolbar.google.com/firefox/index.html). It’s great. Oh, they’re talking about a version of Google Toolbar for [Safari](http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/safari/). That’s not the same thing. If something doesn’t work with a particular browser, do you complain to the developer of the application or the browser? In this case, shouldn’t the petition be directed to Apple? It’s not like Apple supports a lot of (any?) plug-ins. This is a big reason why I use [Firefox](http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/) as my default on both platforms. I can customize Firefox exactly to my liking so for most sites, it doesn’t matter whether I’m on the Mac or PC. Safari’s is take it the way it is or leave it. There’s only so much you can do to configure it and many more sites don’t work with it as compared to Firefox.

So you prefer Safari over Firefox? Fine. But don’t complain about lack of Mac OS X support for a plug-in or feature because it doesn’t work in Safari when it works perfectly fine in the Mac version of Firefox. Many sites/plug-ins/features don’t work in Internet Explorer 6, but you don’t hear people complaining that they don’t work on Windows XP because of lack of support for the operating system’s default browser. If it matters enough to you, you’ll switch your default browser. If Safari gets a big enough market share and if Apple makes plug-in development into an industry the way Mozilla has, then you’ll see things like a Google Toolbar that works in Safari.

Tags: Apple, Firefox, Mac OS X, Safari, webapps, Google