OmniWeb 4.1 released... finally.

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
And I prefer the old icon.







Oh well, maybe it'll grow on me. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />



So far, it seems otherwise identical to 4.1 sp 91. Hopefully it'll be less crash-prone, as I sent in 20 crash reports for sp 91.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 27
    tooltool Posts: 242member
    Thanks for the tip on the icon. I'll just rename the old one so that I can keep that icon.



    I really liked the halloween one last year..damn, wish I had kept it!
  • Reply 2 of 27
    Not too fond of the new logo either (it looks dated) and And 4.1 seems identical to sp91 to me too. I always try certain web pages to see how the latest version of OmniWeb works with them, and the ones that always have problems are still having problems. To see what I mean...go to <a href="http://www.a-ha.com"; target="_blank">www.a-ha.com</a> The page loads up and then flashes away. Another page that won't load up at all is <a href="http://www.briskeby.com"; target="_blank">www.briskeby.com</a> Try these sites on another browser and then OmniWeb to see what I mean. I wish I had kept the OW sp's that worked with these pages. I know these aren't sites that could possibly be popular in the US...but hey...I'm half Norwegian, and they are important to me! ;-) Otherwise, I still think OmniWeb has the finest/classiest browser delivery when it works! Notice how beautifully it renders airline websites!
  • Reply 3 of 27
    daledale Posts: 2member
    [quote]Originally posted by starfleetX:

    <strong>And I prefer the old icon.







    Oh well, maybe it'll grow on me. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />



    So far, it seems otherwise identical to 4.1 sp 91. Hopefully it'll be less crash-prone, as I sent in 20 crash reports for sp 91.</strong><hr></blockquote>
  • Reply 4 of 27
    daledale Posts: 2member
    [quote]Originally posted by starfleetX:

    <strong>And I prefer the old icon.







    Oh well, maybe it'll grow on me. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />



    So far, it seems otherwise identical to 4.1 sp 91. Hopefully it'll be less crash-prone, as I sent in 20 crash reports for sp 91.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I am getting a message that it cannot verify a resource fork whenever I try and click the dmg to install. Any hints?
  • Reply 5 of 27
    I like the new icon - kind of playful. The old icon was a bit too "eye-candy" for me.



    I'm using 4.1 now and really enjoying it. I had given up on sneaky peaks oh, some 30 releases ago or something (maybe 3 months ago?). The release seems better than the old betas did by a decent margin....
  • Reply 6 of 27
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    I was with beta 6 (or 50-whatever) until this. So far it's got the speed of earlier sneakypeeks which I also got tired of downloading every night with the stability of slower releases. Looks good so far.

    I liked the glassy look of the old logo, but at the same time it looked too much like an Apple/OS X system icon. I like it when companies have their own graphic identity too.
  • Reply 7 of 27
    evoevo Posts: 198member
    What if the OmniGroup just abandoned OmniWeb's proprietary engine and used Gecko (Mozilla's engine)? It's faster, more compliant with websites...



    OmniWeb is by far the best browser in terms of integration with the OS X user interface. I don't think other browsers will even come close, the OmniWeb interface is just downright perfect. But it needs to be more stable and render sites better, and faster. Would integrating the Gecko engine fix that?
  • Reply 8 of 27
    [quote]Originally posted by eVo:

    <strong>What if the OmniGroup just abandoned OmniWeb's proprietary engine and used Gecko (Mozilla's engine)? It's faster, more compliant with websites...</strong><hr></blockquote>Drop my MacNN and ask that question.



    You will get REAMED. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />



    Rick and Ken and Greg have explained this issue in great depth several times before. I'll find one of the threads and give you a link...



    edit: okay, here's a good one:

    <a href="http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=37;t=003527"; target="_blank">http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=37;t=003527</a>;



    [quote]Originally posted by Rickster:

    Why not just throw in the towel and make OmniWeb just another UI for Mozilla? Maybe it's pride, as Fotek suggests. Or maybe we think we can do better. I'll try explaining again why that might we worth our effort...



    In the spirit of those Mac OS X architecture diagrams we've all seen a million times by now, here's a quick picture of what goes on in a web browser:





    None of these parts of a web browser's "engine" is trivial: we (and the makers of other browsers) have invested much engineering effort into each.



    Now, the state of affairs in OmniWeb 1.x-4.x is that the layout & display component (the green part in the diagram) is based on an architecture that made sense back in the earlier days of the web, but that turns out to be a major performance liability on modern pages. (It also makes compatibility with some web standards such as CSS-P near impossible.)



    The other parts of the OmniWeb "engine", however, are based on a modular, multithreaded architecture that's unique among web browsers. That's why OmniWeb totals around 300,000 lines of code while Mozilla is somewhere on the order of 1.5 million lines. It's also why, despite taking a massive performance hit on layout & display, our performance is still competitive enough with the other guys that users are continually arguing over whether OmniWeb is faster or slower than Mozilla/IE/etc.



    So, how do we resolve this issue where one component of our architecture doesn't work too great, but the rest are at the top of their game? If we used Cocoazilla, we'd get the entire Netscape engine, all the way down -- not only would we lose high-level features like best-of-breed Unicode support, we'd also be taking a step backward in terms of lower-level architecture. We could attempt to use the upper layers of Gecko in tandem with our lower-level code, but trying to interface the two completely different architectures in the middle would be a massive project. It'd take far more time and effort than rewriting our own layout & display component from scratch, and we'd still be taking steps backward in certain areas (like Unicode support).



    We think we can do it better, so we're going to try -- we're already rewriting our layout & display engine for 5.0. If nobody thought things could be improved upon, there would be no such thing as progress.<hr></blockquote>

    [quote]Originally posted by gregomni:

    I want to follow up even more on what Rick was saying...



    The different layers in Rick's architectural diagram all run in independent threads, with potentially multiple copies of each type of thread if (for instance) we are loading multiple pages at once or loading multiple images on a single page, et cetera.



    This all funnels together into a single 'main' thread which runs both the user interface and view layout and display. As well as all the problems already mentioned with the view layout and display piece, that 'funnel' is a pretty major bottleneck to the speed up we get for our multi-threaded architecture.



    We'll be fixing this when we replace that component in OW 5. The 'funnel' will essentially move up one level higher to be right below the user interface layer. Meaning, view layout and display will no longer be competing in the same thread with user interface, which should make OW more responsive.



    Anyway, what I originally wanted to get at, is that even today with our outdated view layout layer, OmniWeb is very speedy compared to other browsers if you have a dual processor machine and a fast network connection. Our multi-threading architecture lets us get more done simultaneously, if your hardware and network can support it.



    I see this as a bet on the future. I think cable and DSL are going to get more common, and I think multiprocessor Macs are going to get more common (including, perhaps, quad processors on the high end). OmniWeb is architected in such a way that we can continue to benefit from additional processors and additional bandwidth -- we have a lot of headroom to grow.



    The other browser architectures (at least as far as we've investigated them) are concentrating on single-threaded performance, and don't appreciably benefit from multiple processors. They also don't tend to do as much network processing in parallel, so they don't take advantage of increasing network bandwidth as much as we can.



    I admit it's a little hard to imagine a world in which average people do all their web browsing with a quad processor box hooked up to a megabit per second net connection, and it's even harder to imagine those people still complaining about slow web browsing in such a world. But if they did complain, it wouldn't be about our browser. :-)<hr></blockquote>



    And there's plenty more where that came from.



    [ 06-24-2002: Message edited by: starfleetX ]</p>
  • Reply 9 of 27
    escherescher Posts: 1,811member
    [quote]Originally posted by Colonel Panic:

    <strong>I like the new icon - kind of playful. The old icon was a bit too "eye-candy" for me.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I couldn't have said it better than Colonel Panic. I love the new non-Aqua globe icon for the final version of OmniWeb 4.1. I use three browsers: Chimera/Navigator, OmniWeb, and Internet Explorer (in that order of preference). My dock was getting kind of drab with three shiny blue Aqua icons in a row. I do have to admit, however, that the new icon is a little strong compared to most other OS X icons.



    I bought OmniWeb a couple of weeks ago. It's gotten even better since. It's quite fast too. But I still use Chimera/Navigator most of the time.



    Is there any way to make OmniWeb remember the size of the last open window? OW obstinately keeps opening new windows only to about 3/4 of the width of my iBook's 1024x768 screen.



    Escher
  • Reply 10 of 27
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    I kept my mouth shut for the longest time about it, but 4.1 final (like sp91) crashes like a son of a beyotch.



    What now!? I can't use OmniWeb cuz it crashes every 10 minutes on my Dual-800 G4. IE 5.2 sucks big fat korean donkey balls. Chimera blows goats! And the rest of the browsers are terrible...like the remaining World Cup teams. Korea's gonna win!
  • Reply 11 of 27
    Sure. Just make your window the size you want to be the default and choose Set Browser Size from the Browser menu. That bugged me too...till my cousin pointed it out to me.
  • Reply 12 of 27
    agent302agent302 Posts: 974member
    [quote]Originally posted by Escher:

    <strong>Is there any way to make OmniWeb remember the size of the last open window? OW obstinately keeps opening new windows only to about 3/4 of the width of my iBook's 1024x768 screen.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    The last item in the "Browser" menu is "Save Window Size." Set your browser window to a desired size, and it should stay there when you choose that option.



    Edit: MusicMan beat me to it.



    [ 06-25-2002: Message edited by: agent302 ]</p>
  • Reply 13 of 27
    I LOVE the new icon, more color, very beautiful!



    And BTW, Omniweb totally ROCKS!



    I find 4.1 to be highly stable and very fast on my PMG4. It's my favorite browser bar none. Best GUI, best controls (I have my mouse mapped out with USB Overdrive so I can click on the scroll-wheel button and OW pops open links in new windows behind the current window). My only complaint is that OW doesn't manage downloads very well, you cannot use it to recursively download a web page, and it's impossible to pause a download, you stop it and that's it, you 've got to restart it from scratch. But this is my only complaint.



    I also like the customizability of OW. Using the privacy settings, I can filter out most ads, and prevent any sites from opening windows on their own. Very nice.



    And OW's drawer's for history and bookmarks totally rule! Bookmark organization is the best of any browser, and I love the favorites bar and how easy it is to customize.



    The other browsers, in order of my appreciation, all suck IMO.



    Internet Explorer 5.2:

    Text looks ugly to me, even the AA text (for some reason OW's AA text looks better..maybe the font?).

    Unstable.

    GUI is average, non-Aqua compliant.

    Good download manager.

    Poor customizability options.

    Confusing preference organization.

    Poor bookmark organization.

    Bloatware.



    Mozilla:

    Unstable! This heap of code crashes ALL THE FSCKING TIME!

    GUI: sucks ass.

    Zero Aqua-compliance. At least some skins are ok, but still....

    GUI: Totally SUCKS! cludgy and ugly.

    Managing bookmarks is a giant pain in the ass

    Tabbed browsing is OK, but offers little advantage over OW's ability to spawn new windows behind the current window with the click of a button.

    Extremely poor threading: Open a menu, and Mozilla stops in its tracks, rendering freezes while you navigate the menu. This is totally unexcusable for an OS X application...it wreaks of lazy programming.

    Bloatware.



    iCab:

    GUI sucks ass.

    Totally lacks compliance to any Aqua standards, and it's "skin" is ugly as sin.

    Rendering is slow, and butt-ugly.

    Overall very lame.



    Chimera:

    Unfinished, so I don't even use it.

    Shows excellent promise, and will probably give Omniweb 5 some stiff competition.

    Renders fast, but then wouldn't any browser that has no bells and whistles?

    I'll be keeping an eye on this one.





    In summary, Omniweb is my browser of choice, and for sites that OW can't render well, I use IE5.2.



    <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
  • Reply 14 of 27
    [quote]Originally posted by dale:

    [QB][/QB]<hr></blockquote>



    It's much better, this icon, for the simple reason that there's a bit of Africa and a bit of Europe on it too: irrational perhaps, but it sort of bugs me when the Americas are presented as the default 'front view' of the planet... especially for a web browser. Ain't the net supposed to be a global thing? So well done Omni, I say, for being a bit more inclusive with your icon.



    Little things, little things...
  • Reply 15 of 27
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    That americas globe bugged me too. Stuck out a bit if you don't live in the americas, looking like an atlas open to a page as opposed to the whole world.



    I haven't tried it since beta 1, and I use Mozilla for my main web-browsing. Steve Jobs likes the Moz (at least the apple.com webmaster does) .



    Barto
  • Reply 16 of 27
    escherescher Posts: 1,811member
    [quote]Originally posted by MusicMan:

    <strong>Sure. Just make your window the size you want to be the default and choose Set Browser Size from the Browser menu. That bugged me too...till my cousin pointed it out to me.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    [quote]Originally posted by agent302:

    <strong>The last item in the "Browser" menu is "Save Window Size." Set your browser window to a desired size, and it should stay there when you choose that option.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    MusicMan and agent302: Sincere thanks to you both! The option is easy enough. Yet I never figured it out and rarely used OmniWeb because of that one quirk. Once you know, it's actually much more helpful than saving to the size of the last closed window (especially since there's a good chance it's a smaller pop-under window, at least in the other browsers that can't block pop-up and pop-under ads ).



    Escher
  • Reply 17 of 27
    cubedudecubedude Posts: 1,556member
    Does anyone know how to block banner ads? I have seen some screenshots of OW4.1 without the banner ad, or even a placeholder. How do I set OW to do this? Please Help
  • Reply 18 of 27
    [quote]Originally posted by CubeDude:

    <strong>Does anyone know how to block banner ads?</strong><hr></blockquote>Use the Privacy pane in the preferences:



  • Reply 19 of 27
    thegeldingthegelding Posts: 3,230member
    thanks starfleetX...boy after never really thinking about browsers, i am now downloading them all and trying them one by one....i'm on dialup right now, but changing to cable modem this weekend....will probably re-try them all and post my thoughts (not that my thoughts count for much)....g



    can tell you me likes tab browsing and pop-up killing....font in omniweb is the easiest to read, but omniweb seems slowest on dial-up (on my single proc 800 MHz iMac)...like its looks the best and nice options all around, if cable speeds it up to the others, and if they hurry up with 5.0 and tabbed browsing, it would be my default browser easily....i also like the simple looks and function of grey modern on mozilla....if omniweb doesn't get a equalizing speed boast with the cable modem i will probably go with mozilla with it's speed and tabbed browsing... at least untill Chimera gets up to a more finished feel...g
  • Reply 20 of 27
    torifiletorifile Posts: 4,024member
    g- I just went from dialup to cable myself, and I must say, OW is great speedwise. I must say that I'm a little biased because I love Omnigroup's apps and I've been using OW since it came out for OS X. Everything's plenty fast, I just wish it would work with all the sites I visit. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
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