The Omni Group Announces OmniWeb 5.0

[Karl Kuehn]

	I understand that you are a bit unhappy, and that is really to bad. 
But, I disagree with your generalizations, and think you missed the 
point in several areas:

	I too have found OmniWeb a bit crash-happy on eBay. Having looked at 
the mess of code that is behind that site, I am not surprised, but I 
agree that it would have been nice if OmniWeb 4.5 handled it better. If 
eBay was your primary goal out of web browser, then I can understand 
your disappointment in the tool.
	But, many people on this list such as myself (and even more not on 
this list) have found OmniWeb a wonderful primary browser. I do not 
feel that it is generically slower than other browsers, especially not 
when it comes to my productivity. Your comment makes it sound like this 
speed difference is glaring. It is not.

	As to "having to buy" new copies, I would suggest doing what you 
should have done before: Try OmniWeb out for a while, and then 
purchase. It is not cripple-ware, and only asks you (with some humor) 
to purchase it. Try out OW 5 for a while, and then see if you feel it 
is worth the $10/copy upgrade fee. As you seem to be a bit sensitive to 
bugs, I would personally suggest skipping the public beta in February 
and waiting for the final release.

	Now on your comparisons to other browsers: I am not sure what you mean 
by "sane settings" on other browsers, but as a web developer I can say 
that OmniWeb does a good job on this. (Other than Safari) It does a 
good job of not following a specific browser (IE is what I think you 
are thinking of), and instead tries to write to the standards (such as 
they are).
	The tool-tips were initially just an IE thing, but more recently have 
become more popular. I would expect this to make it into OW sometime, 
but most of the functionality is already there in the address bar.
	Turning cookies on-and-off for a site quickly would be nice, and it 
seems that OW5 is once again pioneering in this direction. OW4.5 still 
has better cookie handling than any browser I am aware of, and no-one 
has even approached the hot-key you would like. I think that it would 
have been a good idea to bring that idea to the list a long time ago. 
The Omni developers seem to like new ideas.
	If you look at the other major browsers none of them have a list like 
this, where the developers are involved. Mozilla has the development 
lists, but regular users are not really welcomed there. And Safari has 
Dave Hyat's blog... IE has nothing, and I am not familiar enough with 
other browsers' development to comment.
	I am not sure what you were looking to get out of posting your comment 
to this list, but I hope that you will take a (free) look at OW5, and 
make more constructive comments next time.

		Have a nice day!
			Karl Kuehn
				larkost at softhome.net


On Jan 1, 2004, at 12:10 PM, Phill R Kenoyer wrote:

> All I wanted from Omniweb was a fast, stable browser.  I wanted 
> tool-tips for titles (like other browsers), I wanted a way to turn 
> cookies on for the site I'm looking at via hot key, and I wanted the 
> settings to be sane like other browsers (IE borders default to 1 for 
> anchor tags).  What I bought was a buggy browser that I can't even 
> use.  4.5 is terrible.  It crashes way way too much and it's the 
> slowest of all browsers.  There are things I really love about it, and 
> I bought it for those reasons.  But I can't use it because it crashes 
> left and right.
>
> Now version 5 is coming out.  I have to pay again if I want to use it. 
>  I don't think I'm going to pay for v5 after getting burned on v4.5.  
> I'm done.  I'll just use Safari if I have to.  I even bought a copy 
> for my wife, who will not even use it because she uses eBay and OW4.5 
> is useless for eBay.  So I have two copies of OW that I don't use.
>
> What a shame.  I'm very disappointed.