For Mac using Internet marketers there is one browser that I recommend: Firefox. A free and open source web browser from Mozilla Corporation. Using the gecko layout engine, it is the second most widely used browser among both Mac and PC users.

Firefox sports most of the expected features in a web browser, including private browsing, anti-phishing and anti-malware safeguards, a Session Restore feature in which the browser automatically reopens all the Windows that you had open during the previous session, and tabbed browsing (although I dislike the default behavior of new tabs opening from right to left instead of from left to right like in Safari).

But the biggest appeal of Firefox for Mac Internet marketers is its extensibility. There are literally thousands of add-ons that can make the browser sing, dance and, most importantly for us Mac marketers, spy on our competitors! Some of the extensions add incredibly useful capabilities to the browser for SEO purposes, keyword research and other uses.

Now, there are some Mac purists who will claim that Safari is the only browser you will ever need. They argue that the Firefox extensions are often broken when a new update is released for Firefox (which is true). They also argue that the extensions can cause instability and add no features that you can’t find for free just by visiting the appropriate website (which is only partially true).

Such Mac purists are, however, misguided. The advantage of Firefox extensions is as a timesaver. They put useful tools right there within your current window. The easy accessibility of these tools makes it far more likely that you will actually use them, and isn’t actually using the Internet tools that we have available one key to achieving results?

Another reason to use Firefox is that some websites and services simply don’t work properly on Safari. While Safari has improved considerably in recent years, it is still not compatible with certain websites frequently used by Internet marketers, the popular mailing list service AWeber being a notable example.

Admittedly, Firefox is far from perfect. Besides the tab issue, copy and paste from Firefox (for example, when you wish to save the crucial text from a webpage but not the pictures) is unsatisfying. The copy operation preserves none of the page's formatting, so you lose all color, font sizes, boldface, italicization, etc., when you paste the text into your word processor. Firefox uses its own proprietary password scheme that ignores the Apple keychain, so any logins you save within Firefox will be inaccessible from other browsers.

Ah, but there are those plug-ins! The plug-ins are wonderful because, like JavaScript and other web applications, they put Mac users on an equal footing with PC users. Most of the plug-ins that work on the Windows version of Firefox also work on the Mac version. This means that if you learn about a great plug-in for SEO or Web marketing purposes, you can be 99% certain that it will work on the Mac.

With the plug-ins, you can turn Firefox into a veritable Internet marketing toolbox. Most plugins are free, although upgrade versions are available for some of them and donations are accepted for others.

So what are some of the most useful plug-ins for marketers available for Firefox?

Keyword Spy puts useful statistics relating to competing websites on every page of Google search results performed within Firefox.

Web of Trust gives you instant access to the reliability ratings that users have made for individual websites (you'd be surprised at the rating some sites get!).

WordTracker SEO Blogger plug-in adds a useful keyword research sidebar so that you can find relevant keywords while you're creating your blog post—without leaving your blog page to do so.

The Alexa Toolbar lets you spy on your competitors by putting the Alexa rank at the top of every page you visit.

The Sharaholic plug-in lets you bookmark your webpage or recent blog entry on several bookmarking sites with one click.

True, some of these plug-ins will run on Safari, but no other browser supports the number of useful plug-ins that you can find for Firefox. For more useful plugins for Web marketing, check out the SEO Tools page for Firefox.

What I usually do is have both Safari and Firefox running at the same time. I use Safari for general web browsing and Firefox for search engine optimization and web marketing research.