Browser Wars - Chimera just got better!

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
Todays build has just changed to versio .5 and has support for Java. I don't know how well yet but it seems to work well from what I have seen so far.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 33
    overhopeoverhope Posts: 1,123member
    Any improvements in the stability or layout areas?
  • Reply 2 of 33
    Speed is MUCH improved, specifically with rollovers and DHTML.

    Also, recent builds have fixed a font size problem I had been complaining about.



    Stability is still sketchy. It's crashed a couple times on me already. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />



    What problems have you had WRT page layout, Overhope?



    Edit:



    OH, and BY THE WAY, I should point out that Chimera is *not* officially at version 0.5 yet. The splash screen and info have been updated to read 0.5, but that's just because they're preparing for the 0.5 release. This means we're close to 0.5. It's not official until they say so on the front page at chimera.mozdev.org.



    [ 09-04-2002: Message edited by: Brad ]</p>
  • Reply 3 of 33
    overhopeoverhope Posts: 1,123member
    Brad, I'm just going on other reports I've read (perhaps the layout issue was one of the other browsers? ISTR someone complaining about tables going rather strange), but I'm itching to get my hands on a browser which works properly, renders quickly and cleanly (unlike IE 5.2.1, which has so much weird behaviour it's untrue) and doesn't have the word Microsoft on the splash screen.



    I'm aiming for a M$-free system.
  • Reply 4 of 33
    Actually, because Chimera is based on the Gecko engine from the Mozilla project, it has the most accurate rendering that I've seen yet on a Mac. You might have been thinking about OmniWeb, which has NUMEROUS layout problems.



    Chimera beats the pants off the Mac version of Internet Explorer.



    Unfortunately, it's still a tad crash-prone, has very few GUI-accessible preferences, and lacks some functionality of other browsers like banner blocking, spelling services, a download manager, and others. On the other hand, it does sport the tabbed browsing function, a nicely customizable "cocoa" toolbar, pop-up window blocking, and a fairly quick launch time.



    If you just want a browser that renders great pages with "no frills", this is the one for you. I would seriously suggest you download it and give it a try for a few days. You might be pleasantly surprised.
  • Reply 5 of 33
    overhopeoverhope Posts: 1,123member
    Hmm, thanks for that, I'll give it a whirl.



    I need to get out of Explorer: it's making me wa-ay crazy.
  • Reply 6 of 33
    mcqmcq Posts: 1,543member
    Chimera's definitely a very nice browser. I almost exclusively use Mozilla 1.1 on the PC and Chimera on the Mac, the Gecko engine seems pretty nice, fast and pretty accurate rendering. I love tabbed browsing, so I barely use IE unless a site absolutely won't work in Moz/Chimera.



    Definitely still several bugs in Chimera and a lot of preferences haven't been implemented, but the development seems to be moving along quite nicely. Stability is fairly good though, it doesn't crash anywhere near as much as it did a while back when they were at 0.3.
  • Reply 7 of 33
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    I have Chimera on my OS X partition of my Wallstreet's hard drive. It's okay, and it's fast to render sites (MUCH faster than IE, or even OmniWeb). But the UI is very slow on my computer, espeically scrolling and *ESPECIALLY* typing! I have to open up TextEdit to type up anything of significant length if I want to post it here or elsewhere using Chimera. As far as stability, I've found Chimera to be about five to ten times more stable than OmniWeb, based on the number of crashes. One in Chimera, five to ten in OmniWeb



    But for now I'm using OS 9. I like it; it's really fast even on my four year old computer. It can do just about anything I can do in OS X, but faster, I get better battery life, I can play games, and it's compatible with my wireless LAN card (Orinoco Gold). Also I am able to run the Apple Battery Reset program, which increased my battery life by over an hour. So for now, I'm in OS 9, using Netscape 4.8. Since I moved into a dorm, I've had broadband access, so rendering times aren't as important as UI speed, which is why I like OS 9 so much for now. Having a super fast connection, a super fast browser, and a super fast OS all combine to make me feel like it's 1998 all over again!



    On a side note, IE5 is extremely slow compared to Netscape 4.8. While my download speeds max out at about 280KB/s in Netscape, they only go up to about 70KB/s in IE, and that's after waiting for it to get "up to speed" for a minute. It drops to about 40KB/s if I don't have the download manager as the front window., and it drops to 20KB/s if I'm in a different application. Go figure.
  • Reply 8 of 33
    [quote]Originally posted by Luca Rescigno:

    <strong>and it drops to 20KB/s if I'm in a different application. Go figure.</strong><hr></blockquote>Ah, the wonders of Classic Mac OS multitasking.



    The problems Chimera has with text boxes stems from its Mozilla origins. As some of you my already know from my previous posts, I absolutely LOATHE Mozilla's text entry handling. There's the speed problem but much worse is how awfully it handles text navigation. Navigating by using arrows and modifier keys is broken in a thousand ways. I'll leave that bickering to another thread, though.



    Luca: Have you tried Mozilla or Netscape 7 on your Classic Mac OS system? I was just curious as to why you're using such an old version.
  • Reply 9 of 33
    Actually, not even. I used Transmit to download a Linux ISO in OS9 because Exploder was crawling way slower than my school's Lan was capable of. So the same ISO, from the same server d/led at like 400KB/sec using Transmit as a background app.
  • Reply 10 of 33
    escherescher Posts: 1,811member
    [quote]Originally posted by stimuli:

    <strong>I used Transmit to download a Linux ISO</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Transmit rocks! Note that Panic is currently working on Transmit 2, a complete rewrite. Visit <a href="http://www.panic.com/transmitbeta/"; target="_blank">http://www.panic.com/transmitbeta/</a>; to sign up as a beta-tester. Of course, Chimera rocks too.



    I love good shareware and good open-source software!



    Escher
  • Reply 11 of 33
    badtzbadtz Posts: 949member
    the 09/05 build imo, looks great! [visually]



    no more buggy tabs. sometimes tabs will carry over weird images on mine.



    the toolbar seems even smaller/minimal [or am i wrong?]



    browsing seems a bit faster also [even from the 09/04 build yest. morning]



    !!!!!
  • Reply 12 of 33
    Downloaded Chimera yesterday. Deleted it already because it wasn't rendering my java applets properly. It seemed to treat mouse clicks as though they were about 100 pixels above where I actually clicked. It also didn't handle mousedragging at all. (in Java applets)
  • Reply 13 of 33
    Can't get font preferences to stick.



    Anyone have any idea which files to delete to revert to the original font settings? it's stuck on tiny, now...
  • Reply 14 of 33
    overhopeoverhope Posts: 1,123member
    I can't even get into ftp.mozilla.org at the moment...



    Try the direct download link for Chimera: IE sits there setting passive mode and not getting anywhere.



    FTP in the Terminal: sits there like a dumb thing.



    FTP in the Finder: craps out with a -36 error!



    <img src="graemlins/surprised.gif" border="0" alt="[Surprised]" />



    Anyone got a mirror?
  • Reply 15 of 33
    Still using fake aqua elements...



    I won't use any browser that doesn't use Aqua (i.e. Chimera, Mozilla, Internet Explorer, iCab), so I guess I'm left with OmniWeb.
  • Reply 16 of 33
    [quote]Originally posted by crawlingparanoia:

    <strong>Still using fake aqua elements...</strong><hr></blockquote>And likely will for a VERY long time, for the same reason it doesn't use a native text editing box that would utilize the system-wide spell checker.



    I agree. It's fugly. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" /> OmniWeb is still my default browser and will be for quite some time.



    [ 09-05-2002: Message edited by: Brad ]</p>
  • Reply 17 of 33
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    [quote]Originally posted by Brad:

    <strong>Also, recent builds have fixed a font size problem I had been complaining about.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I have a font size problem with... recent builds



    Go to <a href="http://forums.invisionboard.com/"; target="_blank">http://forums.invisionboard.com/</a>; and notice how some fonts are just way too small. Did you introduce that bug?
  • Reply 17 of 33
    [quote]Originally posted by badtz:

    <strong>no more buggy tabs. sometimes tabs will carry over weird images on mine.</strong><hr></blockquote>Tabs are still buggy for me. When opening QuickTime movies or MP3s in a tab and I switch to another tab, when I switch back the movie slider is permanently gone. No amount of clicking brings it back.



    I also get frequent crashes when closing tabs.



    There is still an ugly gap above the tabs where garbage is sometimes drawn when the tabs first appear.

    [quote]<strong>the toolbar seems even smaller/minimal [or am i wrong?]</strong><hr></blockquote>The toolbar is the same size, but the icons are just slightly different from older 0.4 builds. With Jaguar, though, you can set any cocoa toolbar to use "small icons". That may be the case on your system.
  • Reply 19 of 33
    [quote]Originally posted by Chucker:

    <strong>I have a font size problem with... recent builds </strong><hr></blockquote>Actually, it would seem that the bug was only half fixed, damnit. <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />



    I'd already discovered that where it makes fonts that were previously too small back to the right size, it still makes some other text even smaller. WTF.



    [ 09-05-2002: Message edited by: Brad ]</p>
  • Reply 20 of 33
    bodhibodhi Posts: 1,424member
    Chimera is an incredible browser, I can't wait to see how it flies when it reaches version 1.0.



    Have they fixed the password problem yet? It doesn't want to save passwords for sites.
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