Submitted by The Shiira Project has announced the release of latest version of their Mac OS X Web browser, Shiira 2.0. Shiira is a web browser based on Web Kit and written in Cocoa. The goal of the Shiira Project is to create a browser that is better and more useful than Safari. All source code used in this software is publicly available. One of the features of Shiira is Tab Expose. Tab Expose shows all open tabs the same way that Expose shows all open windows (similar to IE7). Shiira 2.0 requires Mac OS X 10.4.
Shiira is a nice browser actually. Sort of like what you want Safari to be if it were just more stable. However, I don’t think you can develop a following without some sort of good ad blocker like adblock+ for firefox. I have yet to meet another ad blocker that even comes close.
I don’t like firefox (on the mac), but I can’t use other browsers because the adblocking is terrible.
Please! Ad-block!
I understand the desire to block the more intrusive adverts such as popups, but surely many websites rely on adverts for their income. It just doesn’t seem quite fair to simply block out any adverts.
That’s the thing though. I don’t mind adverts. I mind things that move on webpages. If you have an add that moves, I have a hard time reading your content.
Ad-block+ is so nice because I can block just those moving ones as they show up on a page. That way I don’t have to set some generic rule to block everything and hope it doesn’t block the good stuff.
In fact, I’d say the most popular way to block stuff in safari is to use someone’ generic style sheet that just blocks all sorts of stuff and the user has no idea what. I’d say that probably does more of what you’re talking about than just using adblock to spontaneously block espns stupid “motion” crap that starts when I visit their page. Or their scrolling score board. Or their every changing “highlight” stories. You see the pattern here.
Just to be clear, I am not for blocking all ads. Just ones that keep me from being able to read.
Actually, if web site owners used just a little discretion of which ads they allow, this wouldn’t even be an issue.
Edited 2007-04-23 16:07 UTC
I block any animated ad. If websites can’t survive without them then let them die, and that includes OSNews.
I’m trying Shiira again now (I left last time for safari adblock), if I like this tab expose enough I might just live with the ads.
Course, when I no longer have a university pipe to download through I might hate ads a bit more!
Pith Helmet
http://www.culater.net/software/PithHelmet/PithHelmet.php
is a pretty decent ad blocker for safari.. amongst other features
Am i missing something ? First time i saw a version of ‘tab expose’ in Opera 8 (acidentally pressed F6), and FF 1.0.x had extentions like that long time before IE7 was released.
Sentence about tabExpose seems to mi like desinformation ..
The FF one is kind of wonky. The IE7 one is okay but I don’t use it much. This ones seems okay, but I still think IE7 has done a better job of it. I’m a FF user though so I don’t get to mess around with it all that much.
“Similar to” does not equate “stolen from”, nor does it imply it. It’s merely an example with, based on market share, is accessible to more users seeing IE7s usage on the internet.
I may be wrong but so far I remember Shiira had TabExpose from the beginning. I can recall I used it in 1.x versions too. That’s a long time before IE7 released.
Perhaps the wrong forum but it’s worth a shot.
Is the “Page transition effect” disabled/removed in the 2.x versions or am I just stupid? Otherwise I would say it’s a pretty good browser, adds some of the features you would like in safari. But I’ve experienced a few problems loading plug-ins (PDF, MOV etc.).
I’m looking forward to a future more feature complete release.
I mean, I applaud experimentation. But is there really that much wrong with Firefox that people can’t use it on the Mac? Why wouldn’t I simply use Firefox rather than Shiira?
Shiira, especially 2.0, has some very interesting UI ideas. It’s fast (noticeably faster than firefox and safari for me).
Unfortunately, right now, it crashes every five minutes.
Different people like different things, and writing and using applications isn’t about maximum efficiency. There’s definitely an element of finding a program that fits you and your needs as well.
I wouldn’t worry too much about wasted time. They’re not developing a new html engine, it’s just the surrounding UI.
Firefox doesn’t integrate very well on Mac OS X.
…why is the version 2.0 when in reality this is a late alpha, early beta product? Many of the preferences are disabled, the bookmark shelf does not work at all… what good is a browser if you cannot manage your bookmarks?
It is fast, LOOKS great and I like the icons vs. tabs idea (I am an omniweb user, that explains that) and I am sure SOMEday it will be a great browser, but right now it offers nothing.
Yes, Shiira jumped from beta 2 (almost nothing working) to Golden Master without having much working. I understand that the developer is busy with school but that’s not the greatest reason to mark something early in its development as final.
Version 1.2.2 still seems better overall but it’s lacking the glitz of version 2.0.
It looks like a chance to download the source code of both and do a lot of repair to get it going properly. It will be a lot better than Safari, once it’s been finished.
Nothing is wrong with firefox, except its not “native” (at least not the UI). Shiira is cocoa.
Many things are wrong with FF on Mac. I can’t use it because it takes a huge amount of memory and cpu. I can’t use anything else along with it. I don’t have much memory to handle FF on my iMac G5 while it’s enough for Safari or even Camino (based on same Gecko). FF is really heavy on Mac.
I tend to use Safari, Firefox and Camino, Camino is great, but it’s still got a few issues with sites, although the beta is currently better than the stable release.
Firefox always seems slow and sluggish to me, but it works like it should.
Safari, I use it for nearly everything, nearly because as soon as you start working on site development and coding, that caching will seriously, DRIVE YOU INSANE.
It’s caching is pathetic, I’ve been able to hit the back button and have something come up from last week. The amount of times I’ve changed code, to refresh, thinking it didn’t work when it did, but you don’t find out until another 10 changes down the track.
I know you can turn the caching off, but that then has problem with some uploading scripts etc.
Safari really is a nice browser, so long as they fix this caching problem in leopard, I’ll be happy.
Downloading this Shiira, give it a bit of a road test.
I so wish this browser was developed to be cross platform, so that it can be run on the Windows desktop as well (apart for the Mac).
I user firefox, but feel the need to have a second browser for some side surfing… (I hate IE and am not too happy with Opera).
> I so wish this browser was developed to be cross platform, so that it
> can be run on the Windows desktop as well (apart for the Mac).
That will remain a dream as long as Cocoa itself is not cross-platform…
How does this compare with Camino on the Mac?
http://www.caminobrowser.org/
The bookmarks are contained in a simple SQLite db. I went in and mucked around with it and set up some of my bookmarks. Time for a quick Python program to add the rest.
Camino is an excellent browser. Not glitzy, not “full” of features, but it gets the job done well. I used it exclusively for years while OmniGroup was reworking OmniWeb through versions 4 and 5. I am back to OmniWeb now (based on a version of WebKit that they have modified) pretty much exclusively. It has one ANNOYING bug tho’… and it has to do with OSNews. My posts never end up threaded!
Sorry to annoy people with my out-of-order posts.
“It looks like a chance to download the source code of both and do a lot of repair to get it going properly. It will be a lot better than Safari, once it’s been finished.”
True… I don’t know objective-c, cocoa or the mac os x libraries, but I know a little of just about everything else… I could give it a shot.