Chimera

splinemodel

This might be old news, but I stumbled upon version 0.5, and it seems to be pretty stable and pretty good overall. I've been using it for a bit now.



I like it better than IE and OmniWeb. The tab feature (Think Adium) is very nice. It's also standards compliant.

chych

Yes Chimera rocks!

trevorm

Yeah Chimera is great, but I always find myself going back to Internet explorer, till version 1 or somethig comes out

escher

Chimera has been my default browser for months now. In addition to many great qualities, Chimera is by far the fastest browser available on OS X. Today's <a href="ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/chimera/nightly/latest/"; target="_blank">nightly build</a> (2002100504) is even faster than previous builds. Chimera just keeps blowing me away, even though it's still a beta.



At this point, I don't use IE or OW more than once a week.



Escher

rogue27

They fixed some of the java issues, but mouse dragging still doesn't work.

ghost_user_name

[quote]Originally posted by rogue27:

<strong>but mouse dragging still doesn't work.</strong><hr></blockquote>That's right. Not only does it not work, some dragging operations flat-out crash the entire app.



Text entry fields are still horrendous.



It's still very crash-happy when using multiple tabs with plugin content.



Chimera is nice, but I doubt I will be able to use it full-time for quite a while.

xionja

I don't do any advanced stuff(tabbing? mouse draggin?) but for the casual surfer, its one of the best ones out their. If a page continually makes in crash, i use IE just for that page. i have to do that about once every two weeks

onlooker

I like Chimera a lot. I still have a few issues with it. #2 I can not set it as the default browser in OS 10. Although it is my main browser, but netscape 7 (which is faster IMO) pops on now and again from the default. For some reason Chimera wont remain as default in system prefs. But I do like the no popups feature, and the interface. Which is why (even though slower than NS 7) I use it as my main browser.



I think Apple should do some opensource development on it, and bundle it. Sweeeeeet!

kesh

[quote]Originally posted by onlooker:

<strong>I think Apple should do some opensource development on it, and bundle it. Sweeeeeet!</strong><hr></blockquote>



The guy who does work on Chimera was hired by Apple some time ago. Which leads to rumors that we're going to have an "iWeb" app in Panther (10.3) based on Chimera.



Personally, I love Chimera. Fast, easy to use, I'm addicted to tabbed-browsing, and it's got a great bookmarking system. Still a little buggy in some areas, but for a 0.5 release it's surprisingly good. I'd be quite happy if Apple began bundling it in the OS.

rogue27

That would be great if there was an Apple-branded browser based on Mozilla Navigator. I want an app like Chimera that is only a browser, not a browser + other stuff, and basing it off of Mozilla would be great, since Mozilla handles everything well, it's interface just needs to be more OS X-like.



It is also important for Apple to get a default browser on OS X that is fast so OS X won't look so bad to casual users who mostly use their computer for web surfing and stuff of that nature.

serrano

[quote]Originally posted by xionja:

<strong>I don't do any advanced stuff(tabbing? mouse draggin?) but for the casual surfer, its one of the best ones out their. If a page continually makes in crash, i use IE just for that page. i have to do that about once every two weeks</strong><hr></blockquote>



Tabbing is advanced? The only reason I use chimera is because of tabbed browsing; otherwise it is quite crash-happy, though fast. I use it for a week or so and always fall back to ie, the slight speed hit is made up for by stability (arguably) and compatibility. I do wish it played nice with the dock though... well that and had tabbed browsing.



Try this, hit command-T in chimera, or go to file new tab to see what you're missing.

brianmacos

Chimera .5 is actually getting good now. All my pages load correctly and I now for sure have a new standard browser. I haven't set it as my default yet but after I use it for a few days to make sure every thing works ok, than I am sure it will be the default for life, although I will probably never get rid of IE and I think non of us will any time soon.

zo

i use .5.0



Flash sucks



you cant right click on tabs to close them individually (draaaag)



it doesnt seem to remember any sites I go to despite I have it to 30 days



other than that.. well, not too bad. Def the best browser available right now



Does anyone remember how to make all browsers use the same bookmarks? I read about it somewhere once... you can somehow make all browsers use the same bookmarks. which is a big prob for me because sometimes I find important info in one and dont then have it in the other... grrr

brianmacos

[quote]Originally posted by ZO:

<strong>i use .5.0



Flash sucks



you cant right click on tabs to close them individually (draaaag)



it doesnt seem to remember any sites I go to despite I have it to 30 days



other than that.. well, not too bad. Def the best browser available right now



Does anyone remember how to make all browsers use the same bookmarks? I read about it somewhere once... you can somehow make all browsers use the same bookmarks. which is a big prob for me because sometimes I find important info in one and dont then have it in the other... grrr</strong><hr></blockquote>



The only way I have ever known to do it is to Export than Import which can be a pain in like my case when I go from using one to another because the other one just isn't cutting it.

spart

I don't think that if Apple were to create their own browser, that it would be based on Mozilla or Chimera. The code is way too bloated...just look at the load times for Mozilla/Netscape/Chimera compared to OmniWeb or Internet Explorer for instance....with Chimera you have all that baggage code hanging on from the rest of the features in Mozilla.



I think Apple's best bet is to buy OmniGroup outright, and give them some more people to work on 5.0 with, aka iWeb 1.0.

outsider

I've been using Chimera since .5 first cam eout... but I had to fall back to OmniWeb. Chimera is FAST. But it crashes way too often and lacks alot of features a modern browser should have. Although Omni's java sucks and it's a tad slower it still beats both IE and Chimera. I'll wait till .6 and then I'll try again.

barto

Not true. Not true at all.



Mozilla and Chimera are the fastest browsers in benchmarks.



While Mozilla may be bloated, and Chimera is a bit early in development, try Pheonix if you have a Linux or windows/vpc system available. It uses the x-platform Mozilla code, but it's JUST a browser. I HATE Chimera, it's ugly, has no real features and has a crap UI.



I would love if Pheonix came to Mac OS X, but Mozilla.org says it doesn't want to compete with Chimera. YET, they compete with Galeon et al.



If Apple built Gecko (Mozilla rendering engine) into Mac OS X, you can bet that the browser Apple could develop would be the best on the planet.



Barto

kecksy

[quote]Originally posted by ZO:

<strong>i use .5.0



Flash sucks



you cant right click on tabs to close them individually (draaaag)



it doesnt seem to remember any sites I go to despite I have it to 30 days



other than that.. well, not too bad. Def the best browser available right now



Does anyone remember how to make all browsers use the same bookmarks? I read about it somewhere once... you can somehow make all browsers use the same bookmarks. which is a big prob for me because sometimes I find important info in one and dont then have it in the other... grrr</strong><hr></blockquote>



Add the following line of code to your prefs.js file located in ~/Library/Application Support/Chimera/Profiles/default/********.slt/ to add a history tab to the side bar.



user_pref("chimera.show_history", true);



It should remember all the sites you visit.



Also, anyone using Chimera 0.5.0 should upgrade to this nightly build: <a href="http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/chimera/nightly/2002-09-24-12/"; target="_blank">http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/chimera/nightly/2002-09-24-12/</a>;



It's much faster than the official Chimera release and just as stable. Newer builds are not for the faint of heart, however.



You can also grab some cool custom Chimera graphics here: <a href="http://www.jasperhauser.nl/mac/chimera/"; target="_blank">http://www.jasperhauser.nl/mac/chimera/</a>;



Instructions for installing the icons and splash-screen are provided.



If you're really interested in Chimera, check out the Chimera Boards. <a href="http://chimera.eternaltedium.com/"; target="_blank">http://chimera.eternaltedium.com/</a>;



To see a list of the latest changes to the Chimera branch go here: <a href="http://bonsai.mozilla.org/cvsquery.cgi?treeid=default&module=all&branch=CHIM ERA&branchtype=regexp&dir=&file=&filetype=match&wh o=&whotype=match&sortby=Date&hours=2&date=week&min date=&maxdate=&cvsroot=%2Fcvsroot" target="_blank">Chimera Branch Checkin</a>

escher

[quote]Originally posted by ZO:

<strong>you cant right click on tabs to close them individually (draaaag)</strong><hr></blockquote>



ZO: Just use command-W to close the frontmost tab. Much faster than trying to mouse and click.



Use command-}, i.e. command-shift-], to cycle through tabs. Command-{ cycles tabs backwards.



Escher

zo

thanks for all the tips. I knew about Apple+W but sometimes I can have dozens of tabbed windows open, and I only want to close a select few without ctually having to click on tab, wait for page to appear, then close. In Mozilla, you can right click on the tab and have a few choices.



I downloaded the October 7th build... my GOD is it faster. I have an iBook 600Mhz 384MB ram and I can REALLY tell a difference from Oct7th version and the 0.5.0 release.



Hasn't quit on me yet! Great stuff... I fathom to believe what a 1.0 release will be like. Heck, at this point I'll prob be amazed at the 0.6.0 release





Barto: Chimera uses Gecko... doesn't it?

chucker

[quote]Originally posted by ZO:

<strong>Barto: Chimera uses Gecko... doesn't it?</strong><hr></blockquote>



Yes, it does.