So, what’s in the new Camino beta?
The answer is, some long-awaited stuff. Several of the features now appearing in this beta are ones that I am very pleased to see and will get a lot of use from.
Among them:
- spellchecking in text fields
- better RSS handling
- access Bookmark Bar bookmarks using Command+1, Command+2, etc
- force links that would normally open in new windows to open in new tabs (aka Single Window Mode)
That last one alone will be very handy for using Gmail. The spellcheck is something I’ll probably use every day as well.
Be warned, it’s not finished yet. Bugs, crashes, general weirdness. I’m not going to switch over to it completely just yet; but the finished product is not far away and I’m looking forward to it.
While we’re on the subject of browsers, I tried out the latest Shiira beta release yesterday, which has some interesting new features and UI changes.
Notice the part-downloaded Flickr page in the PageDock
Shiira’s bookmarks and history are now in iPhoto-style HUDs. The tab bar has been relocated to the bottom of the window, and now sports OmniWeb-ish thumbnails. There’s also a new Shelf feature, replacing the old drawer and giving you more detailed access to bookmarks, history, downloads and search engine settings.
One nice little touch I noticed while playing was how the PageDock displays download progress; pages still on their way through the pipe are shown there with a blue tinge which fades away when the download is complete. Makes a change from progress bars and cog wheels.
I do try alternative browsers from time-to-time, but I most often use Safari. I'm not a great believer in extra features and find I like its simplicity and uncluttered UI.
I did just download Opera 9 only recently. If one is looking for doo-dads to play with, that's got a few nice ones but is around *half* the size of Firefox on disk. (People sometimes say Mozilla's engine is too bloated,and perhaps that's true). But I'll probably stay with Safari. It really is a very good program. I'd say it's certainly the best default browser on any current OS, and while some may wish to avoid it *because* it is the default, thinking that downloading something else, and also having extra doo-dads to play with, makes you a power-user (whatever that is supposed to mean), it's debatable whether anything else offers anything compelling that Safari doesn't.
I cant be the only one who believes the OSX browser market is much stronger than the Windows browser market.
OmniWeb and now Shiira are really pushing the boundaries more often than Windows browsers do.
The Mozilla-based browsers are still considerably slower than the WebKit-based offerings; this is mainly what keeps me on Safari.
Chris - funny you should say that WebKit is faster as some people say it's the other way round. From following the WebKit blog it seems it may have much to do with the way the sites you access are designed, as each engine makes different compromises.
Guys, download RC3 of Firefox 2. At least on the Macs I've tried it on it feels faster all around than Safari. I used to think Safari was faster but not compared to RC3. It's largely a matter of subjective perceptions though and I've obviously not done any measurements. And I work with both Macs and PCs (Windows and Linux) so I want something that is cross-platform. And with Foxmarks my Firefox bookmarks sync across all computers and platforms. Since I do some web developing there are some extensions (now add-ons) to Firefox that just makes like easier when it comes to CSS, JS and other stuff.
Here is the speed comparison (pay special attention to CSS and script speed):
http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html#macspeed
Here is the Acid2 standards compliance test (try it with various browsers; only WebKit browsers and Opera pass):
http://www.webstandards.org/files/acid2/test.html