iCab Preview 2.0

iCab recently released public beta Preview 2.0 version of their browser.

New features in iCab Preview 2.0 include:
• Hotlist: folders can be opened in new windows, Import, Export
• Aborted downloads can be resumed
• Better JavaScript support (but still not finished)
• Support for automatic proxy configuration scripts

Developed by Alexander Clauss and the iCab Company, a small, private software development firm founded by Oliver Joppisch, 35, and based in Braunschweig, Germany. iCab is currently available as a public beta from http://www.icab.de. iCab's was first developed for the Atari platform, but the Mac version is a complete rewrite. iCab for Atari was written in Pascal, but the Mac version has been coded entirely in CodeWarrior C.

iCab is especially useful for older Macs, thanks due to it's modest RAM and hard drive real estate demands (there's a 68k version as well). The entire iCab folder is only 3.2 MB (the application itself is 3 MB), and iCab operates happily in a 1.9 MB memory partition (with VM or RAMDoubler enabled).

Joppisch's admiration for Internet Explorer is evident in iCab, which incorporates many of IE's useful and convenient features like a persistent History, the ability to download web pages as complete archives with images or sounds embedded, the ability to autocomplete URLs and forms, cache surfing, convenient Hotlist (bookmark) editing, and a great Download Manager.

On the other hand, in happy contrast to Explorer, iCab does not dump a ton of junk into your System folder -- just a modest Preferences folder.

Speaking of Preferences, iCab has a comprehensive range of preference settings, and is as configurable as Communicator and Explorer -- in some respects more so. For instance, you can specify the search-engines to be used when iCab conducts a search on the Internet, and set an expiry period for your browser cache.

As with Internet Explorer 5, you must download Apple's Java Virtual Machine For Macintosh for full Java support if you don't already have JVM installed. A link is provided on the iCab Download page.

I quite like, iCab's clean, understated, un-busy appearance, but if you find it too austere for your tastes, iCab has posted a dozen or so alternate button "skins" on their download site, including an "Aqua" themed one. Just drop an alternate icon set in the iCab folder, and the program will load it automatically on startup. You can also make your own custom buttons using Res-Edit. Like IE 5, iCab supports folders in the personal toolbar, not just individual URLs. iCab includes no full email module, but can send emails from email links.

iCab is still a beta release, lacking CSS and complete Javascript implementation, Mr. Joppich has stated that a DOM 1 kernel and XML 1.0 support will be incorporated in the fullness of time as well, but for most Web surfing chores it already provides stable and polished performance.

In a recent interview with Macwelt, Joppich commented that "The praise for the Internet Explorer 5 for is actually just the repeated wording of Microsoft press releases. iCab has supported the W3 Org-standards from the very beginning. Nothing in Internet Explorer struck us that would be lacking in iCab. iCab is clearly faster than Internet Explorer on many pages. If one misses the browser's speed with real world pages, one can be sure that iCab is distinctly faster than Internet Explorer in many cases-and that's without speed optimization. To judge the quality of the IE5 HTML engine one can go to the HTML test page [http://www.icab.de/test.html] and compare it with the display from iCab."

I have not yet taken up that challenge, but my unscientific assessment is that Mr. Joppich is right. ICab is indeed faster than IE 5 in many cases.

With iCab, Command Shift click on a link opens the link on a new page but behind the window you are viewing. This is great for going to a news or links site and opening articles in the background while you read. Command 1 cycles your open windows. Thanks to reader Michael Crumpton for those tips.

One thing that is still missing with iCab is 128-bit encryption for online banking, but Joppich says that "Apple will take care of that for the 'URL access' later once the 128-bit release in the USA is possible both officially and worldwide."

More --

Part 1 of 4: Internet Explorer 5
Part 2 of 4: Netscape Communicator 4.72
Part 3 of 4: iCab Preview 2.0
Part 4 of 4: Netscape 6 - The Future, and Summary

Charles W. Moore

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Saturday, 22-Nov-2008 03:27:20 EST