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I have been using this build of iCab for about a week, and is unsurprisingly the best iCab yet. There are no radical changes, but the process of incremental refinement continues. For example, I can now drag and drop text into any field of the Applelinks news posting CGI engine with iCab; on previous builds, some of the fields would not accept dragged text. iCab almost never hangs or unexpectedly quits, and is definitely the most stable browser I've ever used by a substantial margin, although Mozilla is now pretty good too. Another big advantage of iCab is that it is lean and mean -- smaller and with lower RAM requirements than any other Mac browser, and it is available in a 68k version as well as PPC and OS X. Some of the improvements in iCab 2.5.3 include: € iCab now supports mouse scroll wheel under Mac OS X
On the downside, Javascript implementation is still not complete, which means that iCab users need to keep another browser around for accessing sites that iCab can't handle yet. I use Mozilla for this, although Opera or Netscape (or if you must , Internet Explorer) will work as well. iCab is a LOT faster to boot up than Mozilla, and it opens windows, etc. faster as well. Mozilla may have the edge in loading *some* pages faster, but there isn't much in it, and while Mozilla/Netscape 6.x is more standards compliant than iCab, the little German browser handles some pages I visit frequently a lot more gracefully and smoothly than the big browser does. My son uses the OS X version of iCab, and prefers it for most surfing. Ten iCab Advantages: 1. Blocking advertising (this is not necessarily an advantage from the perspective of a Web writer whose paycheck depends partly on Web advertising CM) iCab can block certain images (Browser/Filter settings), it can also prevent that popup-windows containing advertising will be automatically opened (using InScript filters). It is very easy to define such filters. Just control-click on the image (or in the popup-window) that should be blocked. The contextual menu will open where you can choose "Image/Filter Image" (or "Page/InScript Filter). 2. Kiosk mode While in Kiosk mode iCab will cover the whole screen and all other applications are blocked. The Kiosk mode is the ideal environment when the computer should be used in a public place (like fairs, exhibitions, hotels etc.) where people should be able to get informations but nobody is allowed to access the system. Additionally, the access can be restricted to certain pages. 3. Error protocol (Smiley) iCab records all HTML errors of Web pages. A smiley will show if the HTML code is OK, the smiley will be green and smiling. Errors make the smiley red and sad. By clicking the smileys iCab will open a window where all the found errors are listed with a small description. At http://validator.w3.org/ you can also test web pages using the official validator of the W3C. 4. Portable web archives HTML pages can be stored in a compact ZIP-file, including all images of the page. The advantage of the ZIP format is that you can use it under DOS/Windows, Unix/Linux and nearly all other operating systems as well. The ZIP archive uses compression to save hards disk space. 5. Download manager HTML pages can be downloaded including all the linked pages (the depth can be configured), so that one can later access these contents off-line without having to go online again. 6. Link manager A split window opens with all links on the left side. Pick one of it and the respective site appears on the right side of the window. Using the link manager you can comfortably search through long lists of links (for example the result of a search engine) without the need to open new windows. 7. Source code manager The source code of a page can be displayed in an editor. iCab is able to automatically reload and re-display the page whenever the HTML code is saved in the editor. 8. No system extensions (this is a biggie, IMHO, viz, Internet Explorer) iCab doesn't install any system extensions and it doesn't modify any of the system settings. 9. Open web page in new window A link can be opened in a new window with Command-Click. With Shift-Command-Click, this window is opened in the background so that the main page remains on top and can be read first. When you are finished with the main page you can switch to the other pages. 10. Highly configurable You can configure which Cookies should be accepted and which should be rejected. You can select which menu items are displayed in the contextual menu, web pages can be read aloud and much more. iCab does also help to remove many annoying things from web pages, like scrolling text message in the status-line which makes the status-line useless, windows that alter their size or position automatically, web pages that switch off all the navigation tollbars etc. All this can be done without completely disabling the technology that is used for these things, like this is the case in all other browsers. System Requirements:
The following components are also recommended:
After the first final release, iCab will offer "iCab Pro" for $29. You will still also be able to download a version for free. For more information, visit:
Appendix Bugfixes in iCab Preview 2.5.3:
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Cool Mac Gear• iPod 1G-2G • iPod 3G • iPod 4G • iPod Mini • PowerBook-iBook • Keyboard Skins • Garageband
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