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iCab released another new browser beta this week. iCab 4.1.1 beta 62 fixes a crash when updating the "phishing" lists from google, and fixes several bugs and issues.
One thing that really strikes me about these latest iCab builds is that they are lightning starting up - even faster than Safari if my gut impression serves me. Another is that while I've always liked iCab, going back to experimenting with a German-language version back in the late '90s, it's never been more likeable than it is with these Version 4.1.1 builds.
iCab is a niche player in the browser world, with less than one percent of the market, but it deserves a wider clientele on merit, and reminds me of long-running ad campaign for a brand of beer here in Atlantic Canada, which claims that "people who like it like it a lot." The same goes for iCab's fiercely loyal cohort of fans, and they have a point. There is an awful lot to like about iCab, which I consider the Mercedes Benz of browsers. It may not be the most potent powerhouse on the Information Highway, but it's a tour-de-force of solid and innovative engineering with a quiality feel.
One new feature in these latest builds of iCab is the Cache Browser that is now available in the Tools menu if you're runnign MacOSX 10.5 and later. Under Mac OS X 10.3/10.4 the Cache browser is not available because the format of the cache files is unknown under these MacOS versions. The Cache Browser window displays a list of all files that are stored in the web cache, and it's possible to filter out certain items by activating/deactivating the file type buttons or by entering some text. There's also a preview available for all files. Through the contextual menu it's also possible to save the files to disk. Very cool, especially for folks like me who spend a lot of time working offline and are stuck with a slow dialup connection..
Another very cool and handy new feature recently added to iCab is the ability to save Web pages as PDF files.
If you've never checked out iCab, or it's been a while since you did, give this little browser a look. You may get hooked. The only caveat is that while iCab has pledged from the outset that a free version would always be available, it remains one of the last two browsers (OmniWeb is the other) that requires a software license fee for full support. A single user license of "iCab Pro" costs $25 / 25 EUR. Entering this code in iCab will switch off the "shareware reminder" box. At the moment, the only restriction of the free version is that annoying little "shareware reminder" box popping up from time to time. Also users who have paid for a license are able to get newer (beta) releases of iCab earlier than other users.
System requirements for iCab 4:
MacOSX 10.3.9 and newer,
MacOSX 10.4.x or 10.5.x is recommended.
System Support:
PPC/Intel
$25 Shareware/Freeware (NagWare)
For more information, visit:
http://www.icab.de/
Changelogs
New in iCab since the version 4.1.1 final release:
Changes in Beta 62
- When parsing the phishing lists from google, iCab could crash. This could happen when multiple parsing threads for the phishing list updates were active at the same time. Normally this should be impossible, but in case the parser was stopped for example because the computer went to sleep, the next update of the phishing list could be loaded directly after the Mac woke up and now the old parser continues while a new one was started to process the new phishing list update.
- In the experiemental settings it's now possible to enable a notification via "growl" when a web page address is permanently redirected by a server (HTTP status code 301). This means that the web page has moved and has a new URL. This might help to update the bookmarks
Changes in Beta 61
- Bugfix for the inline editing in the "all forms" settings of the forms manager.
- When saving a web page as web application, iCab will now use any suggestions for the filename that are made in META tags for the default file name. Until now the default file name was the document title.
- In the experiemental settings it's now possible to change the font size for the popup menus of the favorite toolbar.
- When accepting cookies, iCab was too strict when evaluating the cookie path, so it could happen that cookies were rejected which should have been accepted.
Changes in Beta 60
- Another correction for the "localhost" problem of beta 58.
- In the "Programs" settings of the Preferences dialog iCab will now try to use multiple APIs to set these default internet applications. This way it should be able to configure applications which do not have a creator code but instead have a bundle identifier.
- When reordering URL filters in the filter manager it could happen that some settings were mixed up.
- In the experimental settings it's now possible to switch off the text label of the favorites buttons in the favorites toolbar. This way iCab can be configured to only show the favicon in favorited toolbar and display much more items at the same time.
- When printing PDF files which are directly loaded in iCab (not being embedded in HTML code and without a PDF plugin) the WebKit seems to behave very odd. Sometimes it just prints the parts which are visible on the screen instead of printing the whole PDF page. To prevent this, iCab will now search through the internal private view hierarchy of WebKit to locate the PDF view object and print this directly.
- It seems that the WebKit call [webView reload:sender] does no reload all the resources of the web page. So now iCab will do some additional steps to make sure that a page can be fully reloaded. Clicking the "Reload" button will now only reload those resources which have changed on the server, while Shift-Clicking the "Reload" button will reload all rescource, regardless if they have changed or are still unchanged.
- In the experimental settings it is now possible to set the maximum number of days the history will store. The number of history items setting in the main preferences is still active and has the highest priority (so if the max number of history items is reached, but the number of days is not, the history will start to remove old items when new ones should be stored).
- In the browser toolbar you can now also insert a combined button for "back" and "forward" only.
Changes in Beta 59:
- When switching off the synchronization of the bookmarks iCab nevertheless checks for a bookmarks update another time.
- For many top level domains (TLD) the second level domain (SLD) has a special meaning and is used as if it is part of the TLD (for example "co.uk"). This is important for the "Same Origin Policy" that is used for Cookies that should be only accepted from the main document and for the "foreign server" settings/filters. Some of these special SLDs were not recognized by iCab.
- In the non-German resources of the "file overview" window the contextual menu was not connected.
- The Icon "Add Bookmark" in the browser toolbar will drawn in two different variations "solid" and "hollow" to show the user if the URL of the current web site is already in the bookmarks (hollow) or if the page is not yet bookmarked (solid). This is similar to the new Firefox 3 "add bookmark" icon.
- Under 10.4.x or newer a click on the "lock" icon in the status bar that is activated when visiting a secure web site ("https") will display the certificate chain. (iCab uses a private API of Cocoa for this feature because there's no public API available yet. This private Api is avalibale in 10.4 and later).
Changes in Beta 58
- The corrected cookie processing of Beta 57 caused some problems for cookies that are set from "localhost" addresses because of a bug of the MacOS. MacOS changed the cookie domain from "localhost" to "localhost.local" so comparing the host names would fail. Now iCab has a worksaround for "localhost" to avoid this issue.
- When iCab is configured for "private browsing" in Kiosk mode, iCab will now use a private Cookie storage for the Kiosk mode which is seperate from the private cookie storage that is used in normal mode. So the cookies which are collected in normal mode are no longer deleted when a new kiosk session starts or an old session ends. Important: iCab must be configured to use the private cookie storage (which is the default setting) and not the global cookie storage.
- When iCab provides a virtual keyboard in Kiosk mode, there's now an addtional button in the toolbar to enable the virtual keyboard. Before the virtual keyboard could only be enabled via contextual menu or triple-clicks in the document.
- The Bookmarks can now also include URLs from the MacOSX Address Book
- When saving the session iCab now also saves the state of the navigation toolbar of the browser windows.
- Small correction of the "Snap-Back" shortcuts.
- iCab now checks the integrity of the phishing data. In case there are any errors iCab will now download a fresh copy from Google.
- The synchronization of the bookmarks is now available in the preferences dialog (instead of the experimental settings as before).
Changes in Beta 57
- Bugfix when processing Cookie. When "Accept cooies only from main document" was enabled, iCab could also accept some Cookies from IFrames which where coming from other domains than the main document.
- Bugfix: Beta 56 crashes under MacOSX 10.3.9 when the Address Book folder was added to the Bookmarks. iCab did use a certain detail of the Address Book API which is not available under 10.3.9.
- Saved "Web Applications" no longer check for iCab updates.
Changes in Beta 56
- Web-Applications can now also use filter configurations for the Filter Manager of iCab. To install a filter configuration in a stand-alone Web-Application just drag the filter configuration file in the Finder onto the Web Application icon in the Finder. If you create a Web Application for YouTube for example you can install the Video Download filter for YouTube in the Web Application as well.
- Because of a bug in MacOSX it could happen that iCab could use a Cookie that should be already deleted. This could happen in HTTP redirections when the cookie will be deleted as part of this redirection process. It seems that Cocoa is using a cached copy of the cookie to load the new destination of the redirection even when this cookie is explicitly deleted. Now iCab avoids a certain Cocoa routine to work around this issue.
- iCab now supports the keyboard shortcuts for the "Snap-Back" feature of Safari:
+ Cmd-Alt-P: goes back to the very first page in a window or Tab
+ Cmd-Alt-S: goes back to the last results of a search engine request (which are initiated vie search field for example).
- It's now possible to add a special Address Book folder in the Bookmarks. This folder will be populated automatically by iCab with all the URLs that can be found in the address book of MacOSX.
- When saving a "Session" iCab will now also save minimized browser windows. When loading the session again, these minimized windows will be still minimized.
- In the "Experimental Settings" (enter "settings:" in the URL field and hit the return key) it's now possible to activate the synchronization of the bookmarks via WebDAV server. This feature can be useful if the user has multiple computers and wants to keep the bookmarks consistent on all computers. Is this feature active iCab will save the bookmarks not only local on the harddisk of the computer (as usual) but also on the WebDAV server) whenever the bookmarks are changed. The launching iCab, iCab will check if the bookmarks on the server are newer then the local copy of the bookmarks and will load the bookmarks from the server if this is the case. To configure the synchronization it's only necessary to enter the URL of the WebDAV server where iCab should save the bookmarks. This must be the complete URL to the (existing) folder on the server. For example "http://www.domain.tld:81/folder/" would tell iCab to save the Bookmarks in the folder "folder" on the Server "www.domain.tld". It's also possible to change the default file name which is used by iCab to save the bookmarks on the server, but the default filename should be usually fine.
Important: The synchronization feature currently only works if only one copy of iCab is running at the same time, or if only one copy of iCab is changing the bookmarks if multiple copies are running at the same time. If multiple copies of iCab are running at the same time and all of them change the bookmarks, only the bookmarks of the copy of iCab which are saved last will survive.
- In the tooltips of the favorites toolbar iCab will now show the "remarks" that are defined for these bookmarks as well.
Changes in Beta 55
- When searching for GeoTags, iCab did forget to search inside IFRAMEs as well.
Changes in Beta 54
- When saving web pages as "Web Application" it's now possible to provide a custom Icon. By default iCab uses the FavIcon of the page.
- Stand-alone Web Applications can now download files on their own. They don't call the default browser for this anymore.
- Stand-alone Web Applications did pass IFRAMEs from foreign servers to the default browser. This doesn't happen anymore.
- Stand-alone Web Applications do now use their own private saved form data instead of the ones from iCab.
- When saving a web page as Web Application, iCab will now provide the special URL filters that are necessary for google services and Flickr. Both sites do use multiple domains when logging-in so all these domains must be part of the URL-Filter which controls which web pages are allowed for the WebApplication. When google is accessed from outside the USA it will redirect to the local google version (like google.de when accessed from germany) while logging-in and then redirect back to google.com. And Flickr uses yahoo for the login.
- The Cache Browser could crash if the cache was empty or if it conatined invalid/damaged data.
- Fixed an issue while processing the "Content-Disposition" HTTP header.
Changes in Beta 53
- When importing bookmarks from other browsers, iCab will now also import the seperator lines.
- The bookmarks file is now saved in the much more compact binary "plist" file format instead of plain-text XML.
- When downloading iCab will now process the HTTP header "Content-Disposition" itself instead of letting this handle the Cocoa classes to avoid some issues of Leopard.
- The Growl notifications "Download Successful" and "Download failed" were mixed up. This was only visible if the user configured Growl to use different layouts for the two notifications.
- In Kiosk mode iCab won't show the Print dialog anymore. Because iCab will always cover the whole screen, several options of the print dialog which open another window or dialog would open this below the iCab window. And this can cause some problems. Now icab will just use the default printer settings for printing in the Kiosk mode without showing the print dialog.
- In the "Page Layout" ("File" menu) settings there's now an additional settings panel (available through the "Settings" popup button) where you can change the margins which iCab uses when printing.
- Fixed a small bug in the Cookie processing. In rare cases it could happen that a cookie was not accepted even if this cookies is valid.
- Fixed a bug in the font settings of the preferences dialog. If a font that was configured is no longer available, it was not possible to change this font setting.
- When selecting a sound it will now played immediately so the user knows it he has selected the right sound.
- The "field-based" form fill out feature (second tab in the Forms Manager window) can now be activated automatically when a web page has finished loading. So it's no longer necessary to seelct the menu item "Fill out forms".
- A Cache Browser is now available in the "Tools" menu. The Cache Browser is only available under MacOSX 10.5 and later, under MacOSX 10.3/10.4 the Cache browser is not available because the format of the cache files is unknown under these MacOS releases. The Cache Browser window displays a list of all files that are stored in the web cache. It is possible to filter out certain items by activating/deactivating the file type buttons or by entering some text. There's also a preview available for all files. Through the contextual menu it's also possible to save the files to disk.
- When saving a web page it's now also possible to save the web page as "stand-alone WebApplication". This creates a real Universal Binary application for this web page. Technically the new application is an iCab browser where many features and GUI elements are removed, which will only display this web site. This is useful for all the Web Applications like "Google Documents" or the new "me.com" Web Application from Apple which look like normal Desktop applications. When saving these sites as "stand-alone WebApplication" the user can use these WebApplications like ordinary desktop applications, they have their own icon, they can be placed in the Dock, they have their own private preferences, cookies, history etc.
Because WebApplications like "google documents" usually use buttons, Drag&Drop instead of following normal links, the URL field, the forward/back buttons often can't be used anymore. So by default the browser toolbar is switched off.
When saving a site as "stand-alone WebApplication" the user can enter the start page and a filter which defines which URLs the web application is allowed to access. Both settings are already filled out by iCab so usually these don't need to be changed. The only thing the user should change is the GUI languages which should be included in the "stand-alone WebApplication". One language must be activated. The more languages are actived the more space is needed for the "stand-alone WebApplication" on disk.
Changes in Beta 52 :
- Bugfix: While parsing the phishing lists iCab could crash.
Changes in Beta 51:
- Hitting Control-Return in the URL field will now do the same as just pressing the Return key.
- The Phishing/Malware lists are not saved more compact, so iCab only needs half of the memory than before.
- Updating of the phishing listes will be now done in the background to avoid that iCab is blocked for some time (on older slower Macs), when several 100000 of items must be exchanged.
- The Phishing/Malware feature is now found in the normal preferences dialog in the panel "Security" (it's no longer in the experimental settings). This feature is still only available for registered users.
- In the Phishing/Malware settings iCab will now also show the number of known phishing/malware sites and when these lists were last updated.
- In the experimental settings it's now also possible to set the maximum Tab width.
- Automatically filling out forms when entering a web page was only done for the active Tab of a window. Now this will also work if the Tab is in the background.
Changes in Beta 50:
- Workaround implemented for a bug in WebKit which treats the HTTP status code 200 and 204 identical. Now iCab makes sure that WebKit no longer removes the currently displayed page when a status code 204 is received.
- Workaround implemented for invalid URLs which contain space characters in the host name.
- In the "experimental settings" (enter "settings:" in the URL field) registered users can now enable a phishing and malware site detection. This service is provided by Google (and is also used by Firefox) to warn the user when he opens a suspected phishing site or a site that offers some kind of malware. iCab will regularily (approx. every 30min) load/update a list of phishing/malware sites from google to do all these checks, so iCab will never send any information about visited sites to google. Unfortunately this services from google is not yet absolutely reliable. Depending of the current global traffic of the google server that is providing this data, google will only send back small updates of existing phishing/malware lists or even no data at all (when there's high server load) or with luck it sends the complete lists (low server load). When switching on this feature the very first time, all the lists must be completely loaded from google. The phishing list (which is relatively small) seems to be no problem, but the malware list (which is much bigger) can take many attempts to download successfully (it took a few days until I got this list). Google doesn't send such a large amount of data when it server load has reached a certain level, and this level seems to be reached most of the time. The phishing list is probably the most important list for Mac users and the phishing list can be currently loaded without problem from google. So the only problem is the malware list, and because malware works usually only on Windows, the malware list is less important for Mac users. And once the malware list was received the first time, iCab only needs to ask for updates for this list, and the load problem is gone.
- On US keyboards it's now also possible to use Cmd-{ and Cmd-} (Cmd-Shift-[ and Cmd-Shift-]) to switch between Tabs in addition to the existing shortcuts.
Charles W. Moore
Tags: Reviews ď Internet Reviews ď
