Following months of beta testing, the Omni Group today announced the availability of OmniWeb 5.0, a major update to its Mac OS X Web browser.
OmniWeb 5.0 now available
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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now that’s something useful. When you gotta reboot and don’t wanna have to bookmark every site your at, very handy. I wonder if it saves everything including the back and forward history?
BTW, when visiting either OSNews, NMCx.com or GnomeFiles.org you will see a small “newspaper” icon on the low right end of the OmniWeb window. Click it and you will be able to subscribe to the newsfeed from within OmniWeb (the headlines will show as bookmark submenus).
OmniWeb does not show the little icon for all sites that have feeds, only for the sites that have a REL=”alternate” tag specified.
how is omniweb better than safari or opera or the mozilla one
“how is omniweb better than safari or opera or the mozilla one”
I really suggest you try it and see for yourself. It uses Safari’s rendering engine with it’s own features and interface. Think of it as Safari Pro.
> It uses Safari’s rendering engine
Unfortunately, it is an older version of the Safari engine though.. Especially the CSS support is visibly different in the way table css border colors are rendering etc.
Unfortunately, it is an older version of the Safari engine though.. Especially the CSS support is visibly different in the way table css border colors are rendering etc.
Not very useful… <_<
Safari engine? you mean Konqueror’s HTML engine? Because Safari is based off of KDE’s Konqueror’s HTML engine.
Yes, we know, thank you.
Went and downloaded it. Pretty schrifty-nice. Only thing I miss from Safari is the Safari-style tabs, and turning on/off popup windows from the menu w/o having to go through preferences. Also, I would like to be able to en/disable plugins on the fly, and not have to restart the browser. Example: I would like to not have to look at flash advertisements, but when I need it, I could enable flash to look at stupid flash movies, etc. Oh, I want a pony, too. (some may not get this)
Unfortunately, it is an older version of the Safari engine though.. Especially the CSS support is visibly different in the way table css border colors are rendering etc.
I’m wondering why it isn’t using whatever version of the Safari engine is installed on the machine – sure Omni isn’t silly enough to distribute their *own* copy of the Safari engine and *ignore* the one bundled into the OS ?
It is better to use their own engine and not the stock one. For example, they might have special requirements and require different settings/patches for their code. I am not even sure that the version installed on OSX is remotely usable in that way. Also, there are users with different versions of OSX, it is impossible to have a “shell” that supports all these versions, therefore it is much more trouble-free to use their own version of the engine.
Regarding WHY they use an older version of Safari’s engine, is because each engine goes under heavy testing of many months, and so Omniweb will always be 4-5 months behind Safari’s engine version no matter what.
I actually like OmniWeb’s “tabs” more than Safari’s (or the standard tab interface in general). It takes a little bit of getting used to, granted, but if you make OW5 your default browser for a couple weeks so you can really test it out, the Safari way will start to be the one that feels alien.
As for popup windows, Safari’s Cmd-K is quicker — but it’s also just a simple toggle. OW5 lets you configure different web sites to allow or disallow popups. (It even lets you configure the browser ID string for different sites, so if there’s one that insists that you pretend you’re using IE for Windows, you can do that.)
The earlier version of WebCore that they’re using is the only real problem for me. In practice I don’t notice too many differences (the last couple of weeks I’ve been delving into CSS pretty deeply with a web site design, and have used OW5 as my test browser a lot of the time, although a lot of times it’s also been Safari), but every so often there’ll be something odd. One of the ones that’s tripped me a couple times is that BODY tag backgrounds specified in CSS aren’t always handled correctly. In practice, though, actually OmniWeb’s version is still pretty useful. I hope OmniGroup devotes all of their effort right now into updating their WebCore to the current release, though!
see subject
It is better to use their own engine and not the stock one.
No, it’s bad software engineering and mostly invalidates any reason for switching from the Omni HTML core to the Safari one.
This is the sort of thing that leads to dependency hell – when every developer uses “their” version of a shared component.
For example, they might have special requirements and require different settings/patches for their code.
Then they should fix their code.
I am not even sure that the version installed on OSX is remotely usable in that way.
It would appear that WebCore is “yet to be finalised”, so I’m probably being a bit harsh on Omni. But I certainly hope that once WebCore does have a stable API they move away from having “their” version of it.
Also, there are users with different versions of OSX, it is impossible to have a “shell” that supports all these versions, therefore it is much more trouble-free to use their own version of the engine.
Microsoft and various third party developers have managed to do it with IE for the last ~7 years, one would hope Apple could enable the same thing.
So, it appears at this stage Omni are somewhat justified in bundling up their own version of Safari, but I certainly hope it isn’t something they plan to keep doing once WebCore is finalised (and I question the intelligence of basing a “final” product on what appears to still be work-in-progress code).
although it probably could
I thought they would use the latest webcore when they release OmniWeb 5.1. It’s better to keep your library versions stable during development, and upgrade them during the next development cycle. It makes it easier to hunt a bug.
Some very nice features there, things like the thumbnail tabs look quite useful.
It’s implementation of workspaces looks particularly good, Opera had that feature first, but Omniweb enhances it.
For UI features it’s starting to look like the best browser on Mac OS.
So is there anything in this browser that would make a person want to buy it?
“I’m wondering why it isn’t using whatever version of the Safari engine is installed on the machine – sure Omni isn’t silly enough to distribute their *own* copy of the Safari engine and *ignore* the one bundled into the OS ?”
RE: Why not use Safari’s current engine. Good question. Especially after I was looking at reviews for multiple Mac word processors and found that more than half of them use the Text Edit engine as a base. Each time you update to a new version of Mac OS X which has updates to Text Edit the word processors automatically gain whatever new features Text Edit has. Very interesting.
In this case, they have very good reasons for using their own version of webcore.
The primary reason is that webcore v85 is the most recent one available for mac os x 10.2, yet omniweb wishes for 10.2 users to benefit from all of their features. So, when they merge in the latest changes from apple, they will do so in such a way that 10.2 users can use it too.
Other than that, they do a much more thorough job than just embedding it. They don’t actually use apple’s api per se, they have just taken the html/etc renderer and moved it into their display engine. This allows them to have functionality that would otherwise be very difficult to implement around apple’s existing webkit.
Further, if there ends up being any problems with apple’s implementation, they don’t want to be tied to it. Maintaining their own implentation means that they can keep on top of things.
Just about everything discussed here has been discussed before. Have a look at this: http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?s=c997f6ab2a65523cec25107828…
If I need to reboot or something and I’ve got some tabs open, I just drag ‘n’ drop the URLs onto the desktop. When I want to open them up again, I just select them all, left click and choose open. Tada! I’ve just saved nearly $30!
Really, is there any need to fork out on a browser that’s basically Safari with a different UI and a few extra features that you’re not gonna use that much anyway?
@dr_gonzo
can you save the before and after in your history by doing a drag and drop?
nope!
Browser wars ended a while ago: when Opera came.
I personally can’t stand Opera. It comes with zillions of features, 99.99999% of which I will never use. The UI is manky looking, too much crap all over the place.
I like Safari and, on PCs, Mozilla Firebird and Konqueror. I really don’t see the point at all in forking out for a web browser of all things.
“doesn’t run on GNUstep although it probably could”
If I remember correctly OmniWeb started on NeXTStep.
“Really, is there any need to fork out on a browser that’s basically Safari with a different UI and a few extra features that you’re not gonna use that much anyway?”
Not if you don’t use the features, but that would all depend on how you browse.
“I personally can’t stand Opera.”
Same here. It feels out of place on OS X.
Hi,
I upgraded my OmniWeb 4.x+ to version 5.0 for $9.95. Its a nice web browser. I bought it since I don’t have to purchase a new OS every so often to get an updated browser.
I have MacOS X 10.3 on my iBook 600mhz G3. I have yet to purchase 10.4 and I will purchase it someday or wait for 10.5.
Performance and speed-wise OmniWeb v5 is quick. It beats Camino on my laptop.
ArcWave- “I have yet to purchase 10.4 and I will purchase it someday or wait for 10.5.”
Well, considering the newest release of Mac OS X is 10.3.5 and all updates for 10.3 are free once you buy 10.3 …?
ok, I have MacOS X 10.2.8. I was at work when I wrote that, oops.
Replace 10.4 w/ 10.2 and 10.5 w/ 10.3