OmniWeb 5 (beta 4)

ghost_user_name · March 30, 2004 11:26PM

It's out!

http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omniweb/5/beta/

I'm running it now. It has *oodles* of fixes. I'll report back shortly with my immediate experiences...

ghost_user_name · March 30, 2004 11:34PM

Well, it's fast and seems to work well, but my biggest complaint already: ad blocking is completely broken for "from blocked URLs".

*sigh*

mr beardsley · March 31, 2004 9:54AM

I'm giving it a go as my primary browser. So far it seems much better than the previous betas. They were so flaky I didn't use them for long.

ghost_user_name · March 31, 2004 10:28AM

Overall, beta 4 feels much faster and more stable. It does still glitch the drawing when scrolling from time to time. Aside from the blocking not working (I'll just have to pull out my old edited hosts file), it feels pretty solid overall.

mr beardsley · March 31, 2004 11:53AM

It crashes quitting on me when I have several tabs open. I also noticed the drawing anomaly when scrolling. Overall much better though.

torifile · March 31, 2004 12:06PM

Me likey this version.

Too bad the blocked images still get through. I have changed my hosts file to block them, but I'd rather not have to do that. (Have you seen the size of the log files this generates? Every time it looks for a file on my computer, as the 0.0.0.0 thing would do, it generates an error. It makes using my error_log for troubleshooting my site impossible. Maybe I'm doing something wrong?)

And the day they make the ad-blocking *not* regex, is the day I'll be very happy. I'd learn regex to use it but there's no way of knowing if I got it right because the results are inconsistent....

It's a smooth program though and I have no doubt that once it's finished, it will again be the only browser I'll ever pay for. Check this out (may have been there before but it's new to me):

Hovering over a blocked image:

http://homepage.mac.com/torifile/.Pictures/owblock.jpg

edit: Agghhh!!! How is that damn image getting through?!? Back to Safari for me....

edit by Brad: Two words: "wide load"

ghost_user_name · March 31, 2004 12:16PM

The ad/blocked hover info has been a feature since 5.0b1 and hasn't ever worked as smoothly as it did in that first version.

Something I've found helpful in trying this new version is quitting and deleting all of the related ~/Library files first. Does so seems to have already cleared up a couple of quirks I was having.

mr beardsley · March 31, 2004 1:29PM

I deleted all my ~/Library/Application Support , ~/Library/Preferences, and ~/Library/Caches before I installed. I still see a few niggles, but no show stoppers. This is the longest I've kept it in my dock. I think its finally a keeper, and its only going to get better.

chucker · March 31, 2004 2:36PM

I really, really see a huge mistake in them using an outdated WebCore build and waiting for the next minor release to update that.

deestar · March 31, 2004 3:14PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Chucker

I really, really see a huge mistake in them using an outdated WebCore build and waiting for the next minor release to update that.

Yeah I agree, would have made it feel even more like a "Millstone" Update after all it is a full release not a point release. I can just about put up with the speed but its more the compatibility is the problem... Shame

ghost_user_name · March 31, 2004 3:37PM

Quote:

Originally posted by deestar

Yeah I agree, would have made it feel even more like a "Millstone" Update after all it is a full release not a point release.

Millstone?

There reason Omni is using an older WebCore build is because they have a number of customizations rolled into it that make all those customizable preferences possible. It may or may not be an easy task to carry them over to a new version of WebCore. Would you rather have a stable version that looks 97% the same as Safari? Or would you rather have a horrible buggy version that's looks 99% the same as Safari?

In all honestly, I have not encountered a single site since using the OmniWeb 5 betas that doesn't render the way Safari renders it. I don't think it's that big of a deal.

That said, Omni developers have stated that there will be a point release soon after 5.0 that will roll in the latest version of WebCore. Meanwhile, it's more important to hammer out the major functionality bugs and crashers.

deestar · March 31, 2004 3:56PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Brad

Millstone?

There reason Omni is using an older WebCore build is because they have a number of customizations rolled into it that make all those customizable preferences possible. It may or may not be an easy task to carry them over to a new version of WebCore. Would you rather have a stable version that looks 97% the same as Safari? Or would you rather have a horrible buggy version that's looks 99% the same as Safari?

In all honestly, I have not encountered a single site since using the OmniWeb 5 betas that doesn't render the way Safari renders it. I don't think it's that big of a deal.

That said, Omni developers have stated that there will be a point release soon after 5.0 that will roll in the latest version of WebCore. Meanwhile, it's more important to hammer out the major functionality bugs and crashers.

hmmmm, looking back millstone was probably not the best word to use

but all I was tying to say was that Omniweb is at version 5 and its a shame that the renderer is not up to date.

Site that will not render properly: Gettyimages

Don't get me wrong I love Omniweb but with safari advancing quite well and Firefox there are some really fast browsers at the moment.

torifile · March 31, 2004 3:59PM

Quote:

Originally posted by deestar

Site that will not render properly: Gettyimages

It looks fine here. What problems are you seeing?

BTW, I think you meant milestone.

deestar · March 31, 2004 4:24PM

Quote:

Originally posted by torifile

It looks fine here. What problems are you seeing?

BTW, I think you meant milestone.

*Note to self* must learn how to spell

It does not render correctly in Omniweb 5, menu system on the home page is all mashed up.

mr beardsley · April 1, 2004 12:18PM

So I've been using it for a while now, and I LOVE ow 5. The "picture tabs" are great. I like choosing by the look of the page, and not the name. It still isn't quite as quick as Safari for me on my iBook, but its not bad. I'll like the tab drawer even more when I get a widescreen G5 pb.

ghost_user_name · April 1, 2004 1:15PM

A tip about the tab drawer:

Remember that it's resizeable!

Just grab the little handle in the center of its outside edge to adjust. OmniWeb remembers that size and uses it for future windows too.

amorph · April 1, 2004 3:38PM

Beta 4 completely freaked out when I was trying to post here, so even though it's a vast improvement generally, I'm stuck on Safari or FireFox while here.

Ah well. The next beta will be here within a month or so...

(For those curious: It wouldn't acknowledge my typing in a field until I changed focus to another field, and if I selected something and deleted it, it would do nothing until I tabbed off - at which point it would delete everything except what I selected. Eeek!)

OmniWeb 5 (beta 4)

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