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ElDiabloConCaca
U.S.D.A. Prime
Sure, why not?
Apple could make a LOT of things for the Mac that I'm sure they're perfectly capable of making. But that would require time, money and manpower, and I'd rather them devote those things to the hardware and software they already have. Things need improving, and a browser, since there are SO many alternatives offered, should NOT be high on Apple's priority list. IE 5, in spite of all its shortcomings, is arguably the best browser there is for the Mac at this point in time. Users of Opera, iCab and other "alternative" browsers are usually users who have something against Microsoft in general, or are looking for alternatives to a bloated program, which, arguably, works perfectly well for what it's intended to do.
Apple could make a LOT of things for the Mac that I'm sure they're perfectly capable of making. But that would require time, money and manpower, and I'd rather them devote those things to the hardware and software they already have. Things need improving, and a browser, since there are SO many alternatives offered, should NOT be high on Apple's priority list. IE 5, in spite of all its shortcomings, is arguably the best browser there is for the Mac at this point in time. Users of Opera, iCab and other "alternative" browsers are usually users who have something against Microsoft in general, or are looking for alternatives to a bloated program, which, arguably, works perfectly well for what it's intended to do.
hazmat
Rusher of Din
IE I think is the best browser for both Mac and Windows. I'm no fan of Microsoft, but IE is infinitely better than Netscape. I've been using Netscape since v1.0 and have seen it get more and more bloated, and more and more unstable. IE, on the other hand, has gotten better and better. I've just started using Mac OS recently (hated it until OS X), and find IE5 for Mac cooler than for Windows. Nice interface. But, it is missing some functionality of the Windows version, namely the searchable History tab. As well as a PC, I also have a Sun Blade 100, and one thing I dislike about running Unix is that I have to use Netscape for a browser. There is IE for Solaris, but it sucks. Mozilla is good, but at least last time I ran it on Solaris, it was lacking in support that I needed.
So anyway, think what you will of Microsoft, but they make an excellent web browser, probably the best overall out there.
So anyway, think what you will of Microsoft, but they make an excellent web browser, probably the best overall out there.
davidbrit2
Licensed Computer Geek
In defense of iCab, I think it's much speedier than OmniWeb, and it's got many more control freak features than IE. What would we do without image and javascript filtering? We'd be restarting the browser after crashes more often, that's what. Granted, iCab has had stability problems in the past but the latest release has improved things significantly. Now it only crashes when I ftp... :-\ Oh well, that's what /usr/bin/ftp is for.
kenny
Registered
Maybe... I'm not sure whether I agree or disagree on that point, but I'm a little cheezed off that IE does lag behind the Windows version in its feature set. My latest gripe has to do with certificates...
There I was, all pleased with myself because I could use MacOSX as a dial-up workstation so I could work from home... PPP works well, I can SSH to my Solaris boxen (I do sysadmin work for a Fortune 100 corp), I can export Xwindows apps to it, and the browser works well enough to use it for OWA, and our monitoring tools... Hooray! Our company uses as near to zero Macs as possible, so this was a bit of rebellious victory.
One of the latest apps that we rolled out to the web requires a client certificate, so I dutifully exported the certs from my machine at work, and brought them home, only to find that apparently none of the browsers I've installed under MacOSX supports client certs. In fact, I can see no clear way to instaling our CA cert in any of the browsers. (IE, Omni, Mozilla). Ugh.
There are other areas in which the Mac browsers are not up to speed, but the whole certs management thing was the latest thing I came across. Now, if someone knows something about this that I don't, that'd be cool... But I think that the features that we have compared to the Windows browsers (page holder, for instance is pretty slick) are more eye-candy than solid functionality. Thoughts??
beef
Dinner
my personal feeling is that it's just easier to use IE...
with MS coming up with whatever (stolen or not) every now and then and pushing them as standards... I think it's just easier to let MS develop Internet browser for Mac...
I don't really see a reason to go against MS, until they start charging update fee for their browser or something...
with MS coming up with whatever (stolen or not) every now and then and pushing them as standards... I think it's just easier to let MS develop Internet browser for Mac...
I don't really see a reason to go against MS, until they start charging update fee for their browser or something...
sithious
no longer a member
huh? internet explorer?
no way, certainly not for me ... i use ie only in emergencies when there's a site that omniweb won't load properly , and 99% of the time that`ll be ie in classic, as omniweb, for me anyway, only has problems with flash 5, which ie 5 won't load either ... this is because there apparently isn't yet a plugin for os x ... so i have to revert to using ie in classic ... but why use ie in x?
it looks cruddy, it renders awfully, it's slow as hell, and, speaking of hell, it was made by microsloth ...
netscape, as far as i can see, is just this huge clunk of stuff... i want a browser, not a browseremailclientnewsgroupreadercleunupthekitchenwhileyou'regone ... in my experience it's slow, renders as badly as ie, doesn't smooth fonts in any noticeable way....
mozilla is just netscape without the netscape...
icab and opera i tested and chucked back into the trash ... they're okay, but they don't seem to do anything much that omniweb can't do...
omniweb looks beautifully aqua, smoothes fonts wonderfully, has a lot of cool possibilities (blocking banners and popups is the best!), and apart from that, omnigroup coded for nextstep, so they're worth supporting ...
so:
OMNIWEB! OMNIWEB! OMNIWEB!
*lol*
no way, certainly not for me ... i use ie only in emergencies when there's a site that omniweb won't load properly , and 99% of the time that`ll be ie in classic, as omniweb, for me anyway, only has problems with flash 5, which ie 5 won't load either ... this is because there apparently isn't yet a plugin for os x ... so i have to revert to using ie in classic ... but why use ie in x?
it looks cruddy, it renders awfully, it's slow as hell, and, speaking of hell, it was made by microsloth ...
netscape, as far as i can see, is just this huge clunk of stuff... i want a browser, not a browseremailclientnewsgroupreadercleunupthekitchenwhileyou'regone ... in my experience it's slow, renders as badly as ie, doesn't smooth fonts in any noticeable way....
mozilla is just netscape without the netscape...
icab and opera i tested and chucked back into the trash ... they're okay, but they don't seem to do anything much that omniweb can't do...
omniweb looks beautifully aqua, smoothes fonts wonderfully, has a lot of cool possibilities (blocking banners and popups is the best!), and apart from that, omnigroup coded for nextstep, so they're worth supporting ...
so:
OMNIWEB! OMNIWEB! OMNIWEB!
*lol*
beef
Dinner
I think I remember going to some flash sites... in IE5...
I never understood what it means wheh people say "omniweb is beautiful"... don't tell me it's the buttons on the toolbar... I think it gets alot of points just for being a functional browser that isn't MS... Nothing against Omniweb, but I don't really see much advantage over IE...
I never understood what it means wheh people say "omniweb is beautiful"... don't tell me it's the buttons on the toolbar... I think it gets alot of points just for being a functional browser that isn't MS... Nothing against Omniweb, but I don't really see much advantage over IE...
simX
Unofficial Mac Genius
... it's slow, especially compared to IE. That's why I've reverted back to using IE (for the time being). I hope this will change with the final version of OW 4.1. The 4.0.x series is even slower than the 4.1sp series.
In OmniWeb, it RARELY or VERY VERY SLOWLY registers clicks on links while a page is still loading. That's what sucks, because often the Stop button does not totally stop the page loading, and so I have to wait for OW to finish rendering the page before it even considers going through the link that I clicked on. That's the most annoying thing with OW.
However, OW is damned powerful, if it's slow. I LOVE the JavaScript feature thingy, and all the other options you can do are very nice. I also love the slide-out bookmark drawer.
Beef: OmniWeb _IS_ beautiful. Why don't you download OW and take a look? The main thing is that OW uses antialiasing in page renderings, which makes all pages look very beautiful. Plus, it doesn't use the horrible over-enlarged fonts that IE uses -- and it uses a GOOD font. Seriously, if you can't tell the difference in quality of page renderings between OW and IE, you're blind.
With that said, I REALLY, REALLY hope that OW 4.1 final will be fast and eliminate that annoying bug that I said above.
In OmniWeb, it RARELY or VERY VERY SLOWLY registers clicks on links while a page is still loading. That's what sucks, because often the Stop button does not totally stop the page loading, and so I have to wait for OW to finish rendering the page before it even considers going through the link that I clicked on. That's the most annoying thing with OW.
However, OW is damned powerful, if it's slow. I LOVE the JavaScript feature thingy, and all the other options you can do are very nice. I also love the slide-out bookmark drawer.
Beef: OmniWeb _IS_ beautiful. Why don't you download OW and take a look? The main thing is that OW uses antialiasing in page renderings, which makes all pages look very beautiful. Plus, it doesn't use the horrible over-enlarged fonts that IE uses -- and it uses a GOOD font. Seriously, if you can't tell the difference in quality of page renderings between OW and IE, you're blind.
With that said, I REALLY, REALLY hope that OW 4.1 final will be fast and eliminate that annoying bug that I said above.
sithious
no longer a member
yeah, ie 5 will show whatever flash sites omniweb shows too, but try http://www.beatles.com or http://www.gorillaz.com ... neither of them work in omniweb or ie ... something to do with showckwave/flash 5 ...
no, it's not the buttons on the toolbar, even though i must say i like those too ...
but try a simple little test: open these forums in ie and in omniweb and put the two windows next to each other ... have a look:
ie - pixeled fonts, looks like the internet ... omniweb - smooth fonts, looks like print in a magazine
also, omnweb has quite a few incredibly practical functions ie doesn't have:
- blocking banners
- blocking popups
- checking bookmarks for dead or rerouted links
- apple-i displays info about the page you're looking at, which makes it easy to download embedded media, like quicktime films on the apple page, for instance, as the infobox shows you the direct adress of all elements in the page
- displaying page source code
- individual handling of cookies... you can determine whether to keep, reject, or keep and discard at quitting depending on which page you're visiting and whether youu want their cookies or not ... i keep cookies from here and a couple of other places and reject all the others ...
- automatic rejection of pictures and banners from 'insecure' sites (doubleclick.net, for instance)
to name just a few ... apart from these things, omniweb can do anything ie can ...
plus omnigroup are extremely friendly people... mail them with a question (i mailed them about the flash/shockwave problem mentione d above) and you get a friendly, informative answer the same day ... mail microsoft with a question, you get ... nothing.
so that's why i prefer omniweb...
hazmat
Rusher of Din
That's a subjective thing. I don't like the download manager. I prefer to tell the browser where to download the file, on a per file basis. It's not as obtrusive since I set the download folder to ~/download, though. I would be happier if I could configure it to close when the download it done. I find it annoying that it stays up.
90X Double Side
Registered
I agree with all the comments by sithious, OmniWebs smart handling of pop-ups alone would make me ditch IE. But more generally, I think that the reason the OmniWeb interface is so pleasing is that it actually looks like a good aqua app should. IE introduced some striped backgrounds and candy buttons in their OS 9 version long before X was finalized, then when they went to make the OSX version, they didn't change the interface at all. The buttons are a terrible very light blue color when you chooses 'Aqua Blue', whereas OmniWeb fully supports aqua style buttons, colors and antialiasing. The other big reason to switch is how much more you can customize, go play with its preferences for a few minutes. I have six browsers on my system to test web pages, and I always use OmniWeb except for the two pages I have to use IE to see correctly. If they can add full XHTML/CSS2/JavaScript in 4.1 it will be arguably the best browser for any platform.
Official OmniGroup answer in their roadmap: Version 5. OmniWeb 4.1 won't bring the full thing yet. But the browser is on very healthy legs and the OmniGroup actually listens to its users quite well.
And btw. HTML is standardised enough. It's the designers that think they're coders when they commit those crimes...
And btw. HTML is standardised enough.
It's the designers that think they're coders when they commit those crimes...But my main problem is speed. I have a W2K box with 1/14th the RAM of my Mac, an older processor, etc. etc. They share the same cable modem and pages load appreciably faster with IE for Windows than they do on any browser on the Mac. OW is by far my favorite, but I've started using Mozilla just because it's faster. But still lags behind the Windows side.
I used to think I was OK with the slowness given the nifty features that Win browsers lack, but now I'm not so sure.
Give me stick drawings for the icons and zero features if it will load pages as quickly or more than anything on the Windows side.
I used to think I was OK with the slowness given the nifty features that Win browsers lack, but now I'm not so sure.
Give me stick drawings for the icons and zero features if it will load pages as quickly or more than anything on the Windows side.
hazmat
Rusher of Din
I think you are right about the speed difference between the Windows and Mac IE. I wonder if part of the difference is that though this is the thing many people hate about it, IE for Windows, is integrated into the OS, where other browsers are all self-contained. Just a thought. I wonder if Apple took that approach and made a more integrated browser into OS X it would be as fast as IE for Windows. Then again it would piss a lot of people off. Catch 22?
vikingstad
Registered
Have you tried Netscape 4.75 for Classic? My Norwegian web-bank service, Skandiabanken.no, requires this in order for me to log in.
I think Netscape 6.2 also works, but then you have to first export the certificate you are using and then import it in 6.2.
Good luck!