791 Reader RB writes:

Bug 40873 is where to go to vote for the page saving "bug". How Mozilla classifies a missing feature a "bug" and then wants to vote on it defies reason, but that is what they do. Moz/Fox/Camino all suffer from the lack of this feature.

The development team seems to lack focus and direction in the establishment of objectives for the development of this and the other Mozilla.org projects.

IE, and more recently, but less efficiently, iCab are the only browsers which save web pages in a single file and preserve the URL so that you can easily go to the saved page to see if there is anything new.

Firefox does boast some *very* impressive download speeds. It is presently my "dedicated download browser" for any larger downloads.

The wonderful *volunteers* who steadfastly maintain the development of Camino will dispute this, but I believe that both Camino and Firefox suffer because of the dilution of effort between the two browsers. Still, I greatly admire and respect the Camino developers commitment to creating a browser "in their image" even when that image differs from what I believe is the better path.

On the other hand, isn't it great to have a choice of browsers?

It sure is, and the choice is a lot deeper and broader than most folks realize. Darrel Knutson, who has posted whay must be the most comprehensive Macintosh Web Browsers site on the Web says:

"Welcome to yet another list on the Internet that once again proves that some people have too much free time.

"This list contains only browsers that work on Apple Macintosh hardware running any version of any Macintosh operating system."

There are 60 (!!) Mac OS browsers listed.

Some of the more recent entries:

Pepper Computer Pepper Keeper 1.2.1, 1.2.2 (OSX)
http://www.pepper.com/content/view/33/57/

Mozilla Mozilla Firefox (Firebird) 0.6, 0.6.1, 0.7, 0.7.1, 0.80, 0.9rc, 0.9 (OSX)
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/

CodeForce Echo 0.1, 0.2, 0.2.1 (OSX)
http://penguinn.com/Â?`blackdog/

Mozilla.org Mozilla 1.0 , 1.1, 1.0.1, 1.2b, 1.2, 1.2.1, 1.3a, 1.0.2, 1.3b, 1.3, 1.3.1 (PPC/OSX), 1.4a, 1.4b, 1.4fc1, 1.4rc2, 1.4rc3, 1.4, 1.5a, 1.5b, 1.5rc1, 1.5rc2, 1.4.1, 1.5, 1.6a, 1.5.1, 1.6b, 1.6, 1.7a, 17.b, 1.7rc1, 1.4.2, 1.7rc2, 1.8a1, 1.7rc3 (OSX)
http://www.mozilla.org/

ArtiszZ iBrowser 1.0 (OSX 10.3.3), 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6b1, 1.6b2 (OSX 10.3)
http://www.frontiernet.net/%7eartistz/

Apple Safari 1.0pbv48 [0.80], 1.0pbv51 [0.8.1], 1.0pb60 [0.8.2], 1.0b2 [v73, 0.9.0], 1.0b2 [v74, 0.9.0], 1.0 [v85] (OSX), 1.1 (OSX 10.3), 1.1.1 (OSX 10.3), 1.0.1 [v85.6] (OSX 10.2), 1.2 (OSX 10.3), 1.0.2 [v85.7] (OSX 10.2), 1.2.1 [v125.1], 1.2.2 [v125.7], 1.2.1 [v125.8] (OSX 10.3.4)
http://www.apple.com/safari/

The Omni Group OmniWeb 4.1.1, 4.2b1, 4.2b2, 4.2, 4.2.1, 4.5b1, 4.5b2, 4.5b3, 4.5rc1, 4.5, 5.0b1, 5.0b2, 5.0b3, 5.0b4, 5.0b5, 5.0b6, 5.0b6.1, 5.0b7 (OSX)
http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omniweb/download/

HMDT Shiira Project Shiira 0.9.1.1, 0.9.2, 0.9.2.1, 0.9.2.2 (OSX 10.3)
http://hmdt-web.net/shiira/index-e.html

Opera Software A/S Opera 5.0tp1, 5.0tp2, 5.0tp3, 5.0b1, 5.0b2 (PPC), 5.0tp1.315 (OSX), 5.0b1 (OSX), 5.0b2 (OSX), 5.0b3 (PPC), 5.0b4 (PPC), 5.0b5 (PPC), 5.0b3 (OSX), 5.0 (PPC), 5.0b4 (OSX), 6.0b1 (OSX), 6.0b2 (OSX/PPC), 6.0b3 (PPC/OSX), 6.0 (PPC/OSX), 6.02 (PPC/OSX), 6.0.3 (PPC/OSX), 7.50p3, 7.50 Preview 4, 7.50b1, 7.50, 7.51 (OSX 10.3)
http://www.opera.com/download/mac.html
http://snapshot.opera.com/mac/m750p4.html

adnX Software KidsBrowser 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.5, 1.5.1 (OSX 10.3)
kidsbrowser.gif http://www.adnx.com/kidsbrowser.html

Camino Project Camino (formerly Chimera) 0.1, 0.11, 0.12, 0.13, 0.20, 0.21, 0.22, 0.23. 0.24, 0.25, 0.26, 0.27, 0.28, 0.30, 0.40, 0.50, 0.60, 0.60 [20-12], 0.70, 0.8b (OSX)
http://mozilla.org/products/camino/

iCab Company iCab 1.0p1, 1.0p2, 1.0p3, 1.0p4, 1.0p5, 1.0p6, 1.0p7, 1.0p8, 1.0p9, 1.0p9a, 2.0p1, 2.1p, 2.1ap, 2.2p, 2.3p, 2.4p, 2.5p, (68k/PPC) 2.5.1p, 2.5.2p, 2.5.3p, 2.0p6, 2.7p7, 2.8p, 2.8p1, 2.8.2, 2.9, 2.9.1, 2.9.5, 2.9.6, 2.9.7, 2.9.8 Preview (68k/PPC/OSX)
http://www.icab.de/download.html

WaMCom.org WaMCom Mozilla 1.3.1 [2003-03-10], 1.3.1 [2003-06-13], 1.3.1 [2003-06-24], 1.3.1 [2003-07-10], 1.3.1 [2003-07-21], 1.3.1 [2003-07-23] (PPC/OSX)
http://wamcom.org/
The most recent version is available at:
http://wamcom.org/latest-131/

Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0.1, 3.0, 3.0a, 3.0.1, 4.0p1, 4.0, 4.0a, 4.0.1 (last 68k), 4.5, 4.5.1, 5.0, 5.01 (PPC), 5.1b1, 5.1.1 (OSX), 5.1.2 (OSX), 5.1.3 (OSX), 5.1.3 (PPC), 5.1.4 (PPC), 5.1.4 (OSX), 5.1.5 (PPC), 5.2 (OSX), 5.2.1 (OSX), 5.1.6 (PPC), 5.2.2 (OSX), 5.2.3 (OSX), 5.1.7 (PPC)
http://www.microsoft.com/Mac/IE/

Wazilla Wazilla 1.3f (PPC)
http://wazilla.sourceforge.jp/index-en.html
Japanese project to produce a version of Mozilla 1.3.x for Mac OS 9. (also see Unofficial Mozilla for Mac OS 9)

Eharunaga Unofficial Mozilla for Mac OS 9 1.3.1 (PPC)
http://www.t3.rim.or.jp/%7Eharunaga/mozilla-macos9/

Netscape Navigator, Communicator 0.9b, 0.93b, 0.94b2, 0.96b, 1.12, 2.0, 2.02, 3.0, 3.01, 3.04, 4.01, 4.0.3, 4.03.1, 4.04, 4.04.1, 4.05, 4.06, 4.07, 4.08 (last 68k, PPC), 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.72, 4.73, 4.74, 4.75, 4.76, 4.77, 4.78, 4.79, 4.80, 6.0, 6.01, 6.1pr1 (PPC), 6.1, 6.2, 6.2.1, 6.2.2, 6.2.3, 7.0pr1, 7.0, 7.0.1, 7.0.2 (PPC/OSX), 7.1 (OSX)
http://home.netscape.com/download/index.html

Lynx Lynx 2.8.4-10.2, 2.8.5d16 (OSX)
http://www.osxgnu.org/software/Networking/lynx/
http://wsidecar.apple.com/cgi-bin/nph-reg3rdpty1.pl/
product=00621&platform=osx&method=sa/Lynx-2.8.5.d16-SSL-10.2.pkg.sit

David T. Pierson WannaBe 1.0b14 (68k, PPC)
http://mindstory.com/wb2/

For the full list and Darrel's capsule descriptions of each browser, visit:
http://darrel.knutson.com/mac/www/browsers.html

___

Someone Who Likes The Shiira Browser As Much As I Do

apple-x.net's Eoban says:

"Hmm. A browser that's only a month old, based on the same old WebCore, and likely to feature a bit of Engrish. Doesn't sound worth it.

"I was completely wrong.

"I gave it a shot and downloaded it.... Within five minutes, I had completely switched from Safari. Here's why:

"Shiira was only released, amazingly, one month ago. It is programmed entirely in Cocoa, with occasional contributions from other developers (it's open-source, remember). Its aim is to provide a browser that is more useful than Safari. In my opinion, it's already achieved this, by far."

For the full report, visit here.

I agree entirely. Shiira just rocks. It's fast, stable, small, and astonishingly polished for such a young project. In fact it puts most other Mac OS browsers to shame. There are still a few niceties lacking like a preference option to open new tabs or pages in the background, and incomplete drag & drop support for entering text in Web page fields (a deficiency shared by Camino), but generally Shiira is a real pleasure to use.


***



Charles W. Moore


Note: Letters to Moore's Mailbag may or may not be published at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.

Opinions expressed in postings to Moore's MailBag are those of the respective correspondents and not necessarily shared or endorsed by the Editor and/or Applelinks management.

If you would prefer that your message not appear in Moore's Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.

CM

Tags: OSX Odyssey ï

(0) Trackbacks ï

Login † or † Register † †