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OmniWeb Announces WebCore-Based Browser 65

Posted by pudge from the one-engine-to-rule-them-all dept.
mwelty writes "OmniWeb 4.5sp1 (sneaky peek one) was announced today, and as far as I know this is the first major browser application for Mac OS X that is embedding Apple's Open Source WebCore and JavaScriptCore. As many /. readers might recall, Apple released Safari in January at MWSF, which it based on the KHTML codebase, and has since been releasing their WebCore and JavaScriptCore to developers regularly."
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OmniWeb Announces WebCore-Based Browser More

OmniWeb Announces WebCore-Based Browser

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  • Since I don't have a licensed copy of OmniWeb, can somebody list what features have been removed from the previous versions?

    For example, I really like the Error Log so I can see what the server and browser are sending back and forth (Yes, I know about the recent /. article on using Mozilla to debug [slashdot.org], but OmniWeb is just easier for me to use).

    • I am now using SP2 and I have seen nothing "removed" from 4.2.

      There are a few things that are not working 100%, but that is why it is a SP.

      BZ

  • Unmistakeably good news (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CodeBitch ( 622041 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @10:43PM (#5698792) Homepage
    I'll be publishing an analysis of how well they've done, and updating the MacEdition guide to CSS2 support in Mac-only browsers [macedition.com] in the next few days.

    Suffice to say for now that this is unmistakeably good news

    --CodeBitch

  • Try it for yourself (Score:5, Informative)

    by stere0 ( 526823 ) <.ul.oerets. .ta. .liamtodhsals.> on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @11:16PM (#5698909) Homepage
    The .dmg is here [omnigroup.com]. This [omnigroup.com] is their disclaimer/readme.

  • what's MS gonna do? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BortQ ( 468164 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @11:40PM (#5699001) Homepage Journal
    The way I see it Microsoft has three options:
    1. Ditch the mac IE
    2. Put out a cocoa IE using WebCore.
    3. Put out a cocoa IE using their own kick ass renderer
    If they go with 1 it would be a real shame, as IE for macintosh was actually a fine browser (it blows away all competition in classic-land). For some reason I just can't see them going with option 2, it isn't the MS way. So I vote for option 3. This would really rev up the browser war, with three separate rendering engines and a multitude of GUIs around them.

    I'm doubtful that MS can out-render Apple on their own turf though...

    • IE for macintosh was actually a fine browser (it blows away all competition in classic-land).

      I think you're confused. IE 5 for Mac OS 9 was a great browser that blew away all competition everywhere, at the time. It was the most standards-compliant browser available when it debuted, and it was rock-solid stable to boot.

      But IE 5 for Mac OS X is just crap. It's unbelievably slow, and unbelievably buggy. It fails to load pages for apparently no reason at what seems to be random. It goes catatonic when faced
      • I think you're confused. IE 5 for Mac OS 9 was a great browser [...] But IE 5 for Mac OS X is just crap.

        Actually, he did say that he was in classic land, which I'm guessing means OS9 since you'd have to be mad to run a browser in classic when there are so many good native ones. Then again, maybe he is nuts and my pedanticism is pointless today.

      • IE 5 for Mac OS 9 was a great browser that blew away all competition everywhere, at the time.
        But then again, IE only had one great version for Classic. Remember, IE 4.5 for Classic was crap also. But that was back when me and ALL my friends used Netscape.
      • I agree, IE for OSX sucks hard. But you have to remember that Microsoft put it out back in the 10.0 days. It was just a quick carbonization of the classic version.

        Since then there really haven't been any updates to it, while the OS has changed considerably. So what has MS been doing all this time? Either sitting on their asses, or fixing up IE so it's as good as it was in classic.

      • IE isn't just slow on OS X. On an 8500/180, Mozilla 1.3 is easily twice as fast as IE 5.
    • Well, competition inspires innovation. I don't think Microsoft is a company to easily give up. Not sure if future versions of IE will be cocoa based, but I'm sure they will be working their butts off to have something to compete against Safari.

      • Re:what's MS gonna do? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by TwP ( 149780 )
        Hmmm . . . does it make sense to expend resources for less than 1% of the market? Of all the personal computers out there only 3% - 5% are Macs. If there are already several other browsers for the platform - Safari, Camino, OmniWeb, Mozilla - how much market share is Microsoft really going to get? And to what advantage?

        Yes, there are some websites out there that will only render under IE5 [sarcasm] let's hear it for standards on the web [/sarcasm], but does Microsoft really care about the million or s
        • does it make sense to expend resources for less than 1% of the market?

          A lot of successful companies started out doing just that. In fact, it only takes a few small moves for the 1% to become 75%. Besides, even the 1% is a good amount of people and $$$.
    • I don't think theu'll support the OSX version of IE for very long anymore. MSN might hold out a little while longer, but even MSH will die withing a few years IMHO.

      And that's not a good thing. We all know that MS would really like to abandon the mac platform : even though the mac office suite still makes money for MS, they know that due to slipping mac marketshare plus slipping office marketshare on mac will slowly make the MBU a loss-only division.

      With Apple bringing out more and more software that dir
      • selderr wrote:

        > With Apple bringing out more and more software that
        > directly competes with MS, i fear that MS will leave the
        > mac path entirely.

        Gee, I hope so. This G4 iMac is Microsoft free (has been for about a year), and I am really happy about it.

        > b) subjective perception of no MS Office on mac will turn
        > down potential corporate buyers.

        Objective perception of no Licensing 6 on Mac will attract corporate buyers, along with ease of use, Windows and Linux compatibility, and solid supp
    • Honest question: why would any update to IE they might make have to be Cocoa? It's possible to embed WebCore without using Cocoa, after all.
      • The real truth of the matter is that for an application to really fit in with OS X it has to be cocoa. Just by using cocoa you get a whole wackload of stuff for free. Since all the other cocoa apps get this stuff as well it acts the same across different applications.

        With carbon applications either you stick out like a sore thumb, or you try and recreate all the cocoa stuff (and that isn't always possible).

        Apple is trying as hard as possible to get everyone to ditch carbon and move to cocoa. That's wher

        • Actually, that's not fully true!
          IE on OS X sucked predominantly because it was POORLY carbonized and because it still relied on the slow Open Transport because of OS9-Compatibility!

          Please don't forget that Camino's Gecko-Renderer, which is generally regarded as a close second best to Safari in Speed is actually Carbon! They didn't rewrite this huge Rendering-Engine from C++ to Cocoa's ObjC just for Camino!
          It was called Chimera once, and as we all know a chimera is a beast with the body of one animal and th
    • What about...

      4. Put some amount of energy into improving the Carbon based MSIE, and keep it tracking the features of the Windows MSIE.

      Microsoft probably doesn't even notice the "browser wars" on Mac OS X. Given the relative size of the market, it's more like a bar fight than a riot even, much less a war.

      Apple, on the other hand, was almost certainly suffering on the sales front. Several different browser projects on the platform failed to produce a single competative browser, as compared to those
  • Guess it does..

    US $29.95 [omnigroup.com] to be exact..

    Does it have enough unique features to compete with any of the freeware browsers?

    (other than for those who can't/won't download, and would buy a boxed browser)

    I'm reading more [omnigroup.com] about it now, and might try the trial version. [omnigroup.com]

  • First impressions (Score:5, Informative)

    by stere0 ( 526823 ) <.ul.oerets. .ta. .liamtodhsals.> on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @11:53PM (#5699075) Homepage

    I am posting this with OmniWeb 4.5sp1.

    As a matter of fact, the WebCore engine doesn't seem to make it very fast. Is there any way I can make automated, scientific testing? On a dual 1.2 Ghz G4, The Onion [theonion.com] takes about 11 seconds to display with Omniweb, which isn't faster than Safari v60. Mozilla 1.4a with http pipelining enabled takes about 8.

    On a sidenote, there are some nice new features. Those I've noticed so far are a new download manager and a manual pop-up "Form Editor" that can be used for typing text in a -- you have to try it for yourself. These may already have been implemented in 4.2, which I haven't tried.

    I haven't noticed any features missing from the previous versions. In another comment [slashdot.org], Gogo Dodo asked whether the Error Log was still here. It is, and it's quite verbose, as can be expected from a beta.

    I hope we will see some good features in the next Omniweb release. It's a very nice browser but not having tabs is a pain. Compared to something like Mozilla, it is often quite unpractical.

    • On a dual 1.2 Ghz G4, The Onion takes about 11 seconds to display with Omniweb, which isn't faster than Safari v60.

      I think there might be something wrong with your setup. I'm using a dual 1 GHz G4, and Safari v. 60, and "The Onion" takes about three seconds to render their main page once you get past that interstitial ad thing.

      To do a more scientific test, try it against a locally stored HTML file instead of against a web site. That way you'll separate the renderer from the network code, or at least as m
      • when the heck are you getting back from Ireland and assume your normal duties of "wordiest JE poster of the psuedo-Conservative faction" :-)
        • I assume he couldn't take being proven wrong publically, and fucked off for good. Of course, he would blame everyone else for this as he is a coward.

          Alternatively, if he truly was an astroturfer (*), his masters realized that he had been seen through, and so he was recalled.

          (*) The only real alternative, given the number of postings, is that he was on welfare. Which would certainly explain a lot. Or perhaps a law student - they have lots of spare time, given the less than challenging nature of their cours

    • Re:First impressions (Score:2, Informative)

      by bpbond ( 246836 )
      I think there's a big speedup with WebCore--no, it's not as fast (or rendering as correctly) as Safari, but a lot better than OW4.2. OmniWeb has always had a beautiful interface, great preferences, but been s-l-o-w.

      Side note: the "prevent JavaScript from opening new windows" preference appears to be broken in this beta, so be prepared for site ads to reappear.

  • only works if you've paid (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Enrico Pulatzo ( 536675 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @12:14AM (#5699175)
    in other words, you can't try it unless you've used their older versions. bummer

  • First of its kind (Score:3, Interesting)

    by absurdhero ( 614828 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @01:21AM (#5699431) Homepage
    To my knowledge, this is the first non-free(as in beer) commercial browser derived in any way from khtml. Omni must be pretty confident that webcore is a solid and advantagous choice for the future of omniweb. This says something about the maturity of khtml.

    • Re:First of its kind (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      > To my knowledge, this is the first non-free(as
      > in beer) commercial browser derived in any way
      > from khtml. Omni must be pretty confident that
      > webcore is a solid and advantagous choice for
      > the future of omniweb. This says something
      > about the maturity of khtml.

      I think it says more about the corner Omni had painted them in (writing a simple browser is fun; writing a fully compliant browser is lots of hard work). Omniweb was behind in CSS support, and not moving faster than the competit
  • Can anyone provide me with any reasons to download and maybe use Omniweb?

    Is there anything it does that Moz / MSIE / Safari doesn't do?

    What are its advantages?

    • Can anyone provide me with any reasons to download and maybe use Omniweb? Is there anything it does that Moz / MSIE / Safari doesn't do? What are its advantages?

      A minor advantage, but quite important for iBook/powerbook users: it's the only Mac browser REALLY designed with single-button mouse in mind. On Safari or Explorer, you have to press ctrl to get contextual menu. OmniWeb gets contextual after a "longer click", which is very easy to learn. Also, many things (manage bookmarks, download link, downl
      • A minor advantage, but quite important for iBook/powerbook users: it's the only Mac browser REALLY designed with single-button mouse in mind. On Safari or Explorer, you have to press ctrl to get contextual menu. OmniWeb gets contextual after a "longer click", which is very easy to learn.

        AFAIK, most Mac browser do this. In fact, I just noticed that Safari doesn't, but Mozilla and IE both do.

    • When Apple released Safari, the Omni guys posted a comment somewhere that answered precisely that question. I am really sorry but I don't have a URL at hand.

      The essence of the statement was that OmniWeb's main bonus has always been its very nice GUI and pretty comfortable approach to things. The Omni folks said, their chance with WebCore would be that they would no longer have to put a huge amount of work into a rendering engine that has always been, well, worse than the others on the market. Rather they s

    • (posted over at MacNN first) (Score:5, Informative)

      by Bwanazulia ( 126541 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @08:50AM (#5701060) Homepage
      Here are some others (off the top of my head now that I sit in front of an NT workstation).

      Bookmarks:
      - Self updating (can check for changes ever X min/hour/day/week and highlights when changed)
      - Self fixing bookmarks (can redo its own pointer, if redirected on outdated bookmark)
      - Object oriented (a folder with an update time on it will update all of the bookmarks in the folder)
      - Filter on dead bookmarks (shows list of all dead bookmarks, great for cleanup)
      - Shows updated bookmarks in dock
      - Dock icon is clickable to updated bookmarks
      - Go to next new bookmark button
      - Can pick folder for new bookmarks to be added to

      Customizable
      - Toolbar (unlike Safari) can be customized like any other cocoa app
      - Can make it very small which is good for powerbooks with limited vertical space

      Download manager
      - Respects where to download to
      - Shows progress
      - Can stay in the background

      Other
      - Spell checking (works, always, first)
      - Very cool search on bookmark and history titles
      - Best ad blocking around (size and string based */ads/*)
      - Click link to open window behind
      - Tons of contextual features like "Save all links" and "Save all images")
      - Shortcuts that allow you to do quick things like "gg slash" and it will search for slash at google

      What I want to see in OW 5.0
      - Some sort of tabbed thingy (rumors are they are working on a new type of tabs)
      - Diplay favicons in toolbar and in bookmarks
      - More goodies...

      BZ
    • No, I won't provide any reasons to you.

      Download it and check it out yourself, you lazy bastard.

      --Richard
    • Besides the already mentioned features (by Bwanazuila), i personally consider these pretty handy:

      -FULL drag & drop support. And when i say full i mean full! Drag Text or Links into formfields, drag images onto Photoshop or any other App (Dock or elsewhere) or somewhere on your Harddrive if you prefer. Just great, i don't understand why there is NO other Browser that's able to do that, not even Apples own Safari!

      -Shortcuts were already mentioned, and they're really a boon, i have shortcuts for everythi
  • Neither OmniWeb nor Safari nor IE support tabbed browsing. OnmiGroup and Apple have plans to incorporate that into their browsers. Microsoft - who knows. The first KHTML-based tabbed browser will be my browser of choice.

    Here's the rundown so far:
    Safari - free, no tabs, KHTML
    OmniWeb - commercial, no tabs, KHTML
    IE - free, no tabs, MS rendering engine
    Camino - free, tabs, Gecko
    Opera - commercial, tabs, Opera rendering engine

  • Infact, it's so sneaky .... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Greedo ( 304385 ) on Thursday April 10, 2003 @10:03AM (#5701825) Homepage Journal
    ... they've already released 4.5sp2 [omnigroup.com]

    Changelog:
    4.5sp2 Thursday, April 10, 2003

    OmniWeb 4.5sp2 contains the following changes since 4.5sp1

    * Corrected a problem that could result in some windows not auto-sizing correctly (probably most noticeable when opening new windows)
    * We now cache font metrics rather than recalculating them each time we need them, This should help speed up rendering in some cases as well as resizing of windows.
    * We now save the "continuous spell checking enabled" setting to preferences when you leave a text area, and restore it from preferences when you enter one.
    * Speech Recognition has been completely disabled for now, the preference setting for this is not honored.

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