Since this is my first column for Applelinks, an introduction is in order.

I am a freelance journalist and commentator by profession, and I've written for 40 or so different magazines and newspapers in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia over the past dozen years. I have syndicated columns with Continental News Service of San Diego, California, and with my own Barquentine Ventures Newsfeatures in Canada, and am also an associate editor (freelance) with a couple of monthly magazines.

I write regularly about politics/culture/religion/philosophy; powerboating and sailing; the marine design, shipbuilding, and commercial fishing industries, health and wellness, and other topics. I am also a consummate Macintosh fan, and do my best to plug this platform wherever and whenever I can.

Some of you may be familiar with my continuing contributions to the MacTimes Network and MacOpinion Websites,in MacToday magazine, and for the now-defunct MacOS Daily site. I would like to thank Joe Ryan for his invitation to contribute here at Applelinks from time to time as well, and I am also delighted to be working with my esteemed colleague and fellow MacOS Daily alumnus, John Martellaro, and with my Mac news hound counterpart John Farr. I look forward to bringing you software reviews, commentary, and how-to articles, perhaps a bit of all three in many instances.

iCab Browser Has A Revolutionary Vision Behind It

By Charles W. Moore

The first question most people ask pertaining to the new iCab Web browser is: "why should anyone pay twenty or thirty bucks for a browser when they can get Netscape Communicator or Microsoft Internet Explorer for free?" We'll get back to that point in a moment.

iCab is a Mac port of the existing and successful Atari ST Web browser, "Cab," developed by German programmer Alexander Clauss, 30. Cab was written in Pascal, but the Mac port of iCab has been coded entirely in CodeWarrior C, and is currently available in public beta preview versions, which have been frequently updated over the past six weeks or so. iCab is a small, private software development firm founded by Oliver Joppisch, 34, and based in Braunschweig, Germany.

I have downloaded three different iterations if iCab, and have been testing it for several weeks on a PowerBook G3 Series 233 and a PowerBook 5300. The first preview (1.0) was in German, but version 1.2 and 1.25 have been available in English, and 1.25 also has a 680X0 version in addition to the PowerPC edition. The 680X0 version requires System 7.5 or better and is limited in relation to the PPC version only in that Apple's Mac RunTime for Java 2.1 is PowerPC- only, so 680X0 iCab users will have to soldier along without Java support.

iCab is extremely small at just 2 MB -- smaller even than Netscape Navigator 2.02, and it operates happily in a -- get this -- 1,280 kb memory partition (1,400 MB preferred) if VM or RAMDoubler is turned on. This makes it especially well worth looking into if you have an older Mac with a small hard drive and limited RAM upgrade potential.

It is also plenty speedy, definitely competitive with the 4.5 iterations of Internet Explorer and Communicator, and faster in some instances. It breezes through cached pages almost instantly, and is lightning with the pictures turned off.

The interface is clean and uncluttered, and in place of IE's and Netscape's somewhat pretentious animated logos at the upper right of the browser window, iCab features a little animated cartoon car (cab) driving through the window blowing puffs of cartoon smoke. A nice, light-hearted, self-effacing touch. It appears that some folks have been underwhelmed by iCab's icon set, however, and somebody has posted a substitute icon patch for iCab at: http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Strasse/8114/. I am quite happy with the standard icons, myself.

Unlike Internet Explorer, which is fast and powerful but has a sort of raggedy, unfinished feel about it, as if the developers went home when they were only 90% finished, iCab, even in beta form, has a competent, efficient feel about it that bespeaks its Teutonic origins.

Described by iCab as "the Internet taxi for the Mac," the iCab browser requires

• At least 4MB free RAM (with VM turned off)
• System 7.5 or better
• MacTCP or open feed
• ThreadManager (built into current versions the MacOS)
• InternetConfig starting from V1.2 (or Mac OS 8,5)
• Additionally recommended are:
• Drag Manager (built into current versions the MacOS) iCab incorporates extensive support for Drag-and-drop in the browser window, the Hotlist, and the Download Manager. You can drag links from the browser window directly into iCab's Hotlist window, or to the Download Manager to initiate a download with one motion. You can also remove links from the Hotlist or Download Manager by dragging them to the Trash, where they remain as a text-clipping until the trash is emptied.
• for Java support, iCab needs Apple's Mac Runtime for Java starting from V2.0 (because of the many bugs in MRJ 2.0, iCab "urgently" suggests at least MRJ 2.1)

   

Special abilities of iCab include:

• HTML 4.0 support
• supports most HTML extensions of Netscape and Microsoft IE (e.g.: <BLINK>, <MARQUEE>, <MULTICOL> and many others).
• Very flexible filters for pictures and Cookies; all new cookies of the current session can be set to automatically expire at the end of the session.
• iCab can bookmark frame pages
• iCab offers an error report, over which you can at any time recall the errors in the HTML code of the displayed web pages.
• iCab automatically reloads specified web pages, as soon as you change them in a parallel running program (e.g. a wordprocessor).
• iCab offers a full text search under the "Find" function in the "Edit" menu, allowing you to search for information by keyword or content not only on the current Web page, but also in files on local volumes, in iCab's own Web cache, or on the Web. You can configure iCab to call up two preselected search-engines in new windows while you continue browsing in the main window. Sort of a "Sherlock lite."
• A special mode also enables fast search
• any search engine on the Internet can be called directly from iCab's normal search dialog
• iCab can import Web Archives (and the Web Caches) from Internet Explorer (starting from version 4.0)
• Download manager
• Full support of the Appearance manager in MacOS 8.5
• * Support of navigation services, contextual menus and proportional Scrolling (MacOS 8.5)
• * iCab offers a full text search for HTML and text files on active Mac volumes and a full text search for all files in the Web Cache -- a very useful feature.
• You can send emails with iCab, but there is no provision to receive them. Joppisch says there are no plans to add full email support , as featuritis quickly causes bloat and there are plenty of good email clients available. He personally likes Eudora Pro, and Alexander Clauss uses Claris Emailer.
• A smiley face icon on the toolbar smiles if the page is OK supporting proper html coding with no errors. Joppisch notes that if you watch the smiley in iCab, it's hard to find pages that completely conform to the HTML specification. He's right. The "smiley" looks glum an astonishing proportion of the time.
• Planned features (for the final version)
• Cascading StyleSheets level 2 (CSS2)
• Creation of Web files in the platform-independent ZIP format (to download complete web pages)

Getting back to our initial question of why buy iCab when you can get Communicator or Explorer for free, in separate interviews with MacWelt magazine (Translation byMatthew Rothenberg for MacWeek here).and with ATPM Managing Editor Daniel Chvatik, iCab Co. founder Oliver Joppisch explained that the Linux Web-marketing paradigm appeals to him and that:

"If you look under the hood, these competitors aren't really free: Microsoft distributes Internet Explorer free of charge because the company wanted to break Netscape's dominance of the market, but Bill Gates will recoup high development costs through the content of Web sites."

"Microsoft is selling content (with links, bookmarks, channels) and Communicator will soon become a program that solves the wishes of AOL. And AOL is not for free. They have interest in selling their AOL content. Only 10%- 20% of the AOL users are working on the Internet. The rest are working inside AOL. And this will be Netscape's focus in the future."

"We would like to offer the final version of iCab for a fair, low price and continue to offer a somewhat limited version via the Web. All iCab sales will be conducted via the Internet, which will make this pricing feasible. We'd like to use the money we make on iCab to speed the development of the software over the coming years."

"We didn't want to start an English version at the moment, but many people asked if we could do this.... In the future, the German and English versions will be updated at the same time."

Joppisch also said that motivating factor for iCab development was that both Communicator and Explorer are based on older programming concepts and evolutionary development, and are thus very bulky. He noted that Internet Explorer for the Mac is quite attractive (better than it is under Windows), but it still seems excessive. iCab is intended to be a "slim," fast, smooth browser. Joppisch noted that more than 50,000 people downloaded the free preview version of iCab in the first three weeks. He says that iCab's price will be kept low (and indeed the estimated $20 - $29 price for the "professional" version is in shareware fee territory -- Joppisch suggests that he may use shareware clearing house Kagi to collect license fees for iCab), and that profits will be dedicated to improving the software in the coming years.

Joppisch's admiration for Internet Explorer is evident in iCab, which incorporates many of IE's useful and convenient features like a persistent History (even after you close a browser window or quit the program that shows the time of the last visit), the ability to download web pages as complete archives with images or sounds embedded, the ability to autocomplete URLs and forms, convenient Hotlist (bookmark) editing, and a Download Manager, and a few not so convenient ones, like jerky scrolling on slower machines like the PB 5300 that reminds me of IE 4.0.

Joppisch says that iCab is not intending to challenge Microsoft and AOL (Netscape) for market share, but rather to offer a solid, fast, and small browser for those who want one. Indeed there should be a ready market for that sort of software, catering to those who continue to use older browsers like Netscape 2.02 for their speed and small footprint. However, the next versions of both Communicator and Explorer will be smaller and faster than the present 4.5 versions.

As for MacOS X support, Joppisch says that since iCab has very up to date coding, porting it to Carbon compliance shouldn't pose any problem, and this will be done as soon as the consumer version of Mac OS X begins to shape up. By comparison the recoding from Cab's Pascal/Atari to CodeWarrior C/Apple was more difficult. However, a special port to Mac OS X server is too esoteric for iCab to bother with.

Installing iCab is about as simple as it could be: just expand the compressed file, open the folder containing the iCab browser application, double-click the iCab icon and you're away to the races with no restart required. iCab asks you if you want it to assimilate the Favorites file from Explorer or Bookmarks from Netscape. I chose the former, and it worked efficiently, even depositing my Explorer Toolbar Favorites in the corresponding iCab toolbar, which is configurable by opening the Hotlist window, moving the mouse over the desired folder, opening the contextual menu (Control-click) and choosing "Use for favorite toolbar". To add new entries to the toolbar you can also just drag files/URLs onto it.

In happy contrast to Explorer, iCab does not dump a ton of shared libraries and other 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.

So, does iCab deliver the goods? To a large extent it does, but there are still some deficiencies that would prevent me from using it as my everyday Web Browser yet. My main beefs are:

• You can't download Webpage content as text files -- only HTML.
• iCab doesn't support certain important (to me) Webpage forms, such as my local newspaper's login page, iMacFloppy and the Geocities file upload form for my Website there.
• The beta version crashes too much. It is reasonably stable on the G3, but considerably less so on the PowerBook 5300 -- a disappointment because iCab's speed and modest system requirements are especially appreciated on the 5300. Unfortunately, the latest iCab preview version (1.25) is the worst offender in this regard.
• Downloading graphics is accomplished through drag & drop, and works well enough, but is more awkward with a small monitor than a "Save As" function implemented through a contextual menu.

Lesser gripes include:

• HTML rendering is sometimes more than a bit wonky, especially tables and forms.
• iCab boots creditably fast on the speedy G3, but very slowly on the 5300. Not only that, there is no splash screen or progress dialogs, so one is left wondering if the PowerBook has hung or not.
• One feature of iCab that those of us who make part of our living from Web pages find less than enchanting is its ability to selectively filter out images, either by specifying dimensions or blocking URLs they are linked to. This can efficiently prevent, say, banner ads from loading while other images continue to appear. When asked about this in the MacWelt interview, Oliver Joppisch, explained that in his opinion "the current trend toward bulky advertising images isn't very smart; advertisers are going to have to think up better concepts." Well, that may be so, Oliver, but until they do, Websites like Applelinks continue to live or die on the basis of banner ads. If everyone has a convenient means of switching them off, advertisers are going to bail, and the lights will go out on Websites around the world.

Oliver Joppisch believes that a software revolution is underway, enabled by the Internet, whereby many new and innovative software products will come, not from big companies like Microsoft -- but from individuals and small developers like iCab. He says he hopes iCab will be one piece of the "new order" of the Internet world, which "must be done by people, not by companies," many of which "don't understand that the rules have changed."

Joppisch is also a thoroughgoing Macintosh fan. He notes that while it would be no problem to port iCab to Windows 95/98/NT, he really doesn't want to. "We like Apple," he says, " and we don't see a better system right now." Bravo.

The iCab browser has real promise, and is a refreshing antidote to the bloat of Communicator and Explorer, and the heavy corporate baggage they carry, while retaining most of the features most people use and even adding some innovative wrinkles of its own. If Clauss and Joppisch can address the few problematical issues I have outlined above, they will have a superb browser. Whether that will be enough to convince users to buy iCab in enough numbers after they start charging for it remains to be seen. However, as Mac-only developers, they deserve the support of the Mac community. Give iCab a try. The price is right.

To download a beta release (expires mid-May) of iCab 1.25, go to http://www.icab.de/download.html

ADDENDUM TO iCAB REVIEW

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Charles W. Moore is a Nova Scotia based freelance writer and editor. His articles, features, and syndicated columns have appeared in more than 40 publications in Canada, the U.S., Europe, and Australia. He is an editorial writer for The Interim and The Atlantic Fisherman monthly news magazines, and a columnist and contributing editor for The MacTimes Network, a feature writer for Mac Today magazine, and a columnist for MacOPINION and Continental Features Syndicate.

© 1999 Charles W. Moore All Rights Reserved

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October 12, 2008