7692 Radon 1.0 is a new minimalist Web browser based on the newest version of Apple's Open Source Webkit rendering engine that is used in the Apple Safari browser. It is intended to be a lightweight, fast, just the basics, browser solution that minimizes drain on processor power and other hardware resources.

Radon works reasonably well within its limitations, which are substantial, and it is quite speedy, but in light of what you have to give up. I'm puzzled as to exactly who it is intended for.

Actually, the idea of a lean, fast browser does appeal to me in theory. Stuck with a slow, dialup conduit to the Internet, I can use all the speed and efficiency I can get, and indeed what would really get me excited is the availability of a non-geeky, user-friendly pure text browser for OS X to take the place of the good, old WannaBe browser for the Classic Mac OS. If you want real speed on a slow connection, you've gotta dispense with all graphics content, Just turning off the images in a regular browser doesn't do it.

And it that context, Radon, notwithstanding its stripped-down feature set, is still a regular browser, and consequently not dramatically faster than full-features browsers like Safari and Firefox. Personally, I'm not in the least inclined to give up a Bookmarks menu, tabbed browsing, and a progress bar for a very modest improvement in page-loading speed and a lighter hardware overhead. It's just too inconvenient, and even whatever there is in terms of speed advantage is surely more than cancelled by the need to type or cut & paste URL addresses.

Radon does have a small footprint; the application itself is just 2 MB and the Radon Suite including the companion Krypton downloader application is 3.8 MB, whereas the smallest (I think) current full-fledged browser, iCab 4.0, is more than twice as large at • MB. However iCab will do exponentially more for you than Radon will.

To my eyes, Radon's button icons look amateurish, and its interface is even more boring than Firefox's. The lack of a built-in, link-clickable downloader is a substantial inconvenience, finding the syntax of download URLs is a pain, although Krypton does have a progress bar at least, and seems to work OK

Even the Radon Preferences only support configuring a home page.

There is not a major investment in time to download and try Radon, but in my estimation, you're a lot better of with the real Safari or one of the other full-featured Web browsers available for OS X.

System requirements:
Mac OS X 10.5 or later.

System Support:
PPC/Intel

Free

For more information, visit:
http://radon.tominatedsoftware.com/

Charles W. Moore

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