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The Internet Businesses Apple

OmniWeb 4.1 Beta Available 80

Posted by pudge from the i-thought-microsoft-won-the-browser-wars dept.
AnamanFan writes "A new version of OmniWeb 4.1 Public beta 7 has been released by The Omni Group. It is available for download for English only (3.3MB) and Internationalized (6.5MB) versions; read the release notes for more information. This is one of the popular web browsers for Mac OS X, and one of the few that are not direct ports from other systems. The must be doing something right for getting two Apple Design Awards for 2001!"
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OmniWeb 4.1 Beta Available More

OmniWeb 4.1 Beta Available

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  • I use OmniWeb for all my web browsing and it is great. It blocks the ads in /. and others. It even blocks pop-up javascript windows.
    The only problem I have with 4.1 is that there is no way to use a proxy.
    If the javascript does not work, I use IE to see if it is OmniWeb that is causing the problem.

    Java can crash OmniWeb but I always send the backtrace in with a description of what I was doing, mainly http://games.yahoo.com.
  • If OmniWeb would only support CSS correctly, it would be my primary browser.


    I think the majority of people who are using OmniWeb are using it for one of these two reasons:

    • Pretty anti-aliased text
    • It's not microsoft made.

    The first reason will disappear as soon as the next version of Mac OS X comes out - it will allow Carbon Apps to use the pretty quartz text - meaning IE will probably be as slick.


    I know I keep pushing it, but once Chimera [mozdev.org] hits primetime it will be the best browser around.

    • "I think the majority of people who are using OmniWeb are using it for one of these two reasons:"

      Or possibly because it lacks the HUGE security holes IE is famous for, or because the OmniWeb UI is fantastic.

      I do agree that they need to improve CSS support though...

    • Re:CSS (Score:2, Interesting)

      by cuyler ( 444961 )
      My favourite feature of Omniweb is the "Open Link Behind this Window". When I go to slashdot or any other news page I click the open link behind this window for everything that I wish to read then I go through the windows one by one. For Moz or IE I have to click open in new window hen click back to my original window then repeat. Not much more of a hassle it's just one little thing that I appreciate about Omniweb.
      • I don't really like the tabs, they take up too much screen space. I like OmniWeb because is it has a very minimal interface. I want to see the page I reading, not crap all over the place from the browser. I just use the dock to manage multiple windows, which works great, and effectively does the same thing.
      • In MSIE 5.1.x, command-shift-click does exactly the same thing. Unfortunately I don't think there's a way to make that the default behavior.

        In the Mozilla family, I find tabbed browsing thoroughly superior to multiple windows.

        If Chimera continues to progress, it should surpass Omniweb in all respects some time this year. I'll probably switch from Mozilla to Chimera around 0.6
        • In the Mozilla family, I find tabbed browsing thoroughly superior to multiple windows.
          I have to say that on a Mac, I really don't get very much utility from tabbed browsing since it is so easy to cycle through windows in OS X -- command `. In fact, I never understood the hoopla over tabbed browsing until I was forced to use a Win2000 machine at work. Then it hit me, since Windows does not group windows by application, there is no way (that I know) to efficiently cycle through browser windows and tabbed browsing goes a long way towards fixing that problem. But IMHO tabbed browsing is a Windows hack that doesn't add very much to the Mac experience.

          Don't get me wrong, I use Chimera and Omniweb each about 50% of the time, but Chimera's appeal is due to the fact that it runs faster than Omniweb on my G4 400 than to any feature advantage. I have to say that once I get my hands on Jaguar and/or faster hardware, Omniweb may be hard to put down.
    • The first reason is can go away if Microsoft would use ATUI instead of the old quickdraw drawing before the next version of Mac OS X comes out.
      I know of many Carbon apps which can use quartz text.

    • Re:CSS (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Alex Thorpe ( 575736 )
      Don't forget OmniWeb's use of MacOS X's spell checker. Very useful in forums like /., Fark.com, the MacGamer.com forums.

      I've been testing on Mozilla RC3 lately, and it's a lot faster than OmniWeb, but there's no spell checking, no anti-aliased text, and a generally more cluttered interface. Also, it imported my bookmarks from IE, which I rarely use.
    • plus the fact that it's the ONLY web browser out of Netscape, Internet Explorer, Opera, Omniweb and iCab that doesn't crash within a minute of launch on my G4. Omniweb is simply THE best browser for OSX, bar none.
      • Honestly, you have problems with your system if Netscape, Internet Explorer, Opera, Omniweb and iCab crash within a minute of launch. I use Mozilla mostly, spend some time with the beta of OmniWeb and the alpha of Chimera, and toy with with Opera and iCab occasionally - all are plenty stable. Most folks at work use either iCab, Mozilla, or Explorer, and nobody sees stability problems. Some nightlies of Mozilla are a bit unstable, but the Netscape 6 is solid. You might want to trim out some plists, look into the possibility of a naughty kext, or something, because what you are seeing is not normal.
        • nope, Omniweb DOESN'T crash, that was my point. Bizarrely, Internet Explorer seems to work fine if I log in as a different user (fine-ish, anyway) and Opera doesn't ALWAYS crash. But Netscape 6 and iCab unexpectedly quit EVERY time. I also find it EXTREMELY annoying that OSX defaults to IE every time I upgrade my Omniweb version. Incidentally, I run a dual-CPU machine, which seems to have had "special" issues with OSX since the public preview. Omniweb works just great, though, so the problem isn't there.

  • OmniWeb vs. Chimera (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fraki ( 580166 ) <[moc.nacliam] [ta] [namzlooj]> on Saturday May 25, 2002 @10:48AM (#3584058) Homepage
    Chimera is a really great browser, and I'll most likely use it when a few more needed features are added. However, at the moment I find OmniWeb 4.1 to be just about as fast at rendering pages as Chimera, and generally nicer. Advantages I think OmniWeb has:
    - Nicer interface (although Chimera has Aqua interface widgets, the ones in OmniWeb are nicer).
    - Preferences are fully implemented (this will change, of course).
    - The window doesn't pop up in front of other applications when it's loaded a page - this is very annoying in Chimera, hopefully it will be fixed soon.
    - A bunch of other small things, most of which will probably be added to Chimera eventually: consistent window size / location, full URL bar takes up less space, etc.

    Chimera will really kick ass when it's done, though. It is faster, and tabbed browsing is quite nice, if sluggish. By the way, Omni Group wants you to pay for OmniWeb, and they give you little 'encouragements' to do so, but it's not crippleware - and much as I like OmniWeb, I don't think one should have to pay for a web browser.

    • More on Omniweb (Score:4, Informative)

      by melquiades ( 314628 ) on Saturday May 25, 2002 @01:44PM (#3584575) Homepage
      Omniweb also has a large number of quite substantive functional advantages over most browsers, e.g.:
      • It has the nicest cookie management functionality of any web browser anywhere (still).
      • It has a very slick mechanism for auto-checking for updates to selected bookmarks.
      • It has really good ad filtering and anti-popup capability. You can filter content by domain regexp and images by size. (Does Chimera do this as well? Can't remember.) And I saw the "Allow popups: Always / In response to a click / Never" option in Omniweb first.
      • It allows you to watch the progress of all the individual components of a downloading page, and even stop individual components so the overall page can proceed. For example, if a page is spinning forever because the stylesheet or an image is on some server that's down, you can skip that item and let the rest of the page load.
      • After a page has downloaded, you can selectively examine, reload, and even edit a page's components.
      • Unless you're looking for WYSIWIG, it's great for editing page sources.

      And its UI isn't just pretty -- they're paid meticulous attention to details, making their UI clean, minimal, gentle on screen real estate, easy on the eye, and slick slick slick. It's all in the details: the nice, compact download history window with draggable icons; the history drawer which groups global history by site, and has a search box; the spell checking in text areas like the one I'm typing in now (which you can disable, of course).

      Its support for CSS and DHTML isn't up to par. But they're improving that -- and for the 97.3% of the web for which those things don't matter, Omniweb is a really nice browser to work with. I recommend that OS X users give it a try.

      I also recommend that browser developers on all platforms, especially Mozilla developers, give it a hard look and take a lesson from its elegance.
      • OmniWeb renders web pages' text in best quality. Especialy in Japanese, the OmniWeb's rendering is remarkablely beautiful. Although, OmniWeb can less understand HTMLs and CSSs, Gecko is the best engine about this.
      • I also recommend that browser developers on all platforms, especially Mozilla developers, give it a hard look and take a lesson from its elegance.
        Agreed, but PLEASE don't take a lesson from their [lack of] standards compliance.
        Previous [and possibly current?] versions were riddled with Javascript bugs...
        Some HTML is still parsed incorrectly...
        and I think I've already beaten the CSS issue into the ground enough for one day...
        and for the 97.3% of the web for which those things don't matter, Omniweb is a really nice browser to work with
        I severely doubt that only 2.7% of websites use either HTML, Javascript, or CSS, but I do agree that everyone should try out OmniWeb for themselves.
        The OmniGroup should be congratulated for all the work they've put into this pretty awesome browser, but I can't ignore some obvious flaws it has.
        • I severely doubt that only 2.7% of websites use either HTML, Javascript, or CSS

          No, but only 2.7% of websites use Javascript, CSS, or HTML that doesn't work in Omniweb. Its support for these things is not complete, but quite good and constantly improving.
    • - Nicer interface (although Chimera has Aqua interface widgets, the ones in OmniWeb are nicer).
      I don't care how nice the interface is if it doesn't render pages correctly! Get the rendering right, then make it pretty. I am still eagerly awaiting CSS support... This is one of the reasons why Chimera [mozdev.org] is bound to beat out OmniWeb eventually - they're using an already standard rendering engine, so they don't have to worry about half the stuff that the OmniWeb developers have to.
      By the way, Omni Group wants you to pay for OmniWeb, and they give you little 'encouragements' to do so, but it's not crippleware
      No, you're right, it's not crippleware, but if you leave a window alone for long enough, it gets a HUGE "unlicensed" watermark. Imagine how embarrassing that would be in an important presentation... so, I guess that's one of the encouragements.
    • "The window doesn't pop up in front of other applications when it's loaded a page - this is very annoying in Chimera, hopefully it will be fixed soon."

      This has got to be the most ANNOYING UI error in OS X. If the user wanted to interact with an application, they would click on the dock. Having apps auto unhide, auto force to top of the screen, auto come out of the dock is annoying. Regardless of usefulness. Maybe the icon of the browser should instead have a number for each fully loaded uninteracted web pages....less intrusive and certainly just as informative.
    • Well, someone had to say it. OW has Emacs key bindings wherever you edit text, a la Mail and TextEdit and a handful of others. I don't even realize how much I rely on them until I spend a little CSS quality time in Chimera.

      I don't really have a problem with paying a little for the nicest browser I've ever touched,
      rjrjr
    • >I don't think one should have to pay for a web browser

      Surely, though, I have a right to choose to pay OmniWeb for what I think is a superior product? What exactly is so magical about a browser as to exempt the entire category from for-profit development? For that matter, why aren't word processors just as essential? This argument seems specious and self-serving.

      But I absolutely agree, OmniWeb is great. I need to keep IE around for some particularly sites, but it now feels ugly and clunky to use. An update to IE is probably coming, though...

  • So did Apple, evidently (Score:4, Informative)

    by rjamestaylor ( 117847 ) <rjamestaylor@gmail.com> on Saturday May 25, 2002 @10:58AM (#3584074) Journal
    • from the i-thought-microsoft-won-the-browser-wars dept.
    Well, MS with Netscape as a distant second, anyway. When using OmniWeb to visit Apple's iTools site (which is critical lately if you are using a @mac.com address as the service isn't playing nicely with Mail.app) you are met with the "Sorry, we don't support your browser" and are given links to download either Internet Explorer or (an old version) of Netscape.

    However, like Konqueror, Omniweb let's you pretend to be any browser you wish. So, I'm using iTools to get my email via OmniWeb.

    Did I mention that OmniWeb is much, much faster than Mozilla? Wow.

    • Actually, I've been testing Mozilla RC3 this weekend, and it's faster than OmniWeb, or any other browser I've seen. I'm still using OmniWeb, partly because that's where my cookies are, but OmniWeb has the advantage of using MacOS X features like the anti-aliased text and more importantly, the on the fly spell checking: very useful in forums like this. Similarly, Mozilla's mail client was easy to set up, but compared to Mail, it doesn't spell check or look that great.

      Oh, and neither browser will let me view movies in Javascript windows on ifilm.com. I HAVE to use IE and WMP, which is why I hardly ever go there.
      • I'm using Mozilla 1.0 RC3 on a TiG4 550. Loading iTools.com, for example, takes a measurable 1/2 minute for all the pictures (even on subsequent visits) while when using IE 5.1.4 or OmniWeb's latest beta the page instantaneously loads with full formatting and graphics.
        • You're right, Mozilla is terribly slow on Apple's iTools pages. I don't know why. It's snappy enough on the QuickTime trailer pages, more so than OmniWeb. I'm on an iMac DV/400 with 1.2 megabit DSL, and the initial iTools sign-in page took 70 seconds to load in Mozilla. Something to do with WebObjects, perhaps?
  • I do Mozilla with watchful eye on Chimera.

    Paid my thirty bucks last fall for OmniWeb. Renders text and graphics in gorgeous Quartz technicolor or whatever. No CSS. Launch it once or twice a week.

    What's the reason for promo on Slashdot? All the Mac software sites had this yesterday or day before. This a little plug by the NeXTies in the crowd or what?

    Maybe next year. BTW, check out all the other OmniStuff. Some of it is pretty neat. Some is even free. (Dictionary?) And it seems to me that OmniGraffle was the big trophy winner, not OmniWeb at WWDC. Maybe writer speaks of times past? Hey, MacPaint was once a killer app.

    Pretty is as pretty does. OmniWeb doesn't. Sad. Maybe some day.
    • Yes, 2001 is definitly a time that have passed.
    • >Pretty is as pretty does. OmniWeb doesn't. Sad. Maybe some day.

      A nice pithy sentence, Twain-esque without the wit, but unfair. CSS is definitely a weak point with OW, but it's not completely absent. Depends on what sites you frequent, I guess, but I see no problems at 98% of the ones I visit, including /. Javascript support is a bigger problem in my experience.
  • I finally download 4.0, and they come out with 4.1 Beta!

  • Not a port? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by baruz ( 211342 )
    This is one of the popular web browsers for Mac OS X, and one of the few that are not direct ports from other systems.
    I thought it was a NeXT port.

    Yes, I’m a paying customer!


    • The term Port is correct in the sense the original OmniWeb was a port of the old NXApp ->NSApp NeXTSTEP to Openstep API porting.


      After Openstep 4.0 came out they still maintained the ability to run within NeXTSTEP 3.x for a long time. Then eventually when they redefined the Openstep APIs, at first, to a modified Yellow Box Foundation API they adapted but did not "port" it.


      Finally, after Steve was offered the helm and the Foundation/AppKit APIs, etc morphed into Cocoa, the guys at OmniWeb adapted their NS class based code to be Cocoaified. They have always added their own Network Socket code and multithreaded the application helping discover many bugs that NeXT and Apple Engineering might never have discovered.



      No I never worked for Omni, just NeXT and Apple.



      Another Gentleman, and friend, who first ported and then rewrote his fleet of Apps, not because they needed to, but because with all the added support within Cocoa he didn't need to reinvent the wheel is Andrew Stone, of Stone Design.


      Caffeine Software as well, but they both work in Apple Engineering with one doing a bang up job of co-developing Quartz with a few other fellows.

  • Omni also won 2 Apple Design Awards at WWDC 2002 -- for OmniGraffle. They are one of the coolest software companies out there -- probably due to the fact that they had a running start with their apps, being that they were a NeXT/OpenSTEP development house.
  • Unlike the PC world, no Mac browser rules. I'm forced to use 3 or 4 different browsers every day.

    IE 5.1 for my banking and similar stuff. Omniweb doesn't work. Mozilla doesn't work. Chimera doesn't either. But IE 5.1 is just shit for normal browsing. I hate that bug with the blank parts of pages.

    Mozilla for general browsing. I love the tabbed browsing feature.

    Chimera when I want Mozilla to be pretty, with the nice Quartz rendering. It doesn't do anything else right, though, including java or flash, or even just normal forms.

    Omniweb can be a general browser too, but a lot of the sites I visit just don't render so well in Omniweb. But I love the quartz text.

    • I had trouble using OmniWeb for my online banking as well. The funny thing is, all I did was go to the "Compatability" preference panel and and change the browser identification to "IE 5.1 for MacOS X" and my online bank site worked perfectly.

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