The Omni Group Announces OmniWeb 5.0

[Phill R Kenoyer]

On Jan 1, 2004, at 11:06 AM, Karl Kuehn wrote:
> 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.

It is four times slower than Safari and two times slower than 
Mozilla/Camino.  You should test it.

> 	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.

I did try OmniWeb 4.5 when it was in beta.  It was a lot better then.  
It did not start crashing until the RC's were released.  I complained 
about it, but they released it anyway.  I will try out 5, but it will 
have to be a _lot_ better before I buy it.

> 	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).

If you were a web developer you would know what I'm talking about.  All 
other browsers set the default for borders on image links to 1.  When 
creating pages, if I forget to set the border=1 then I don't notice 
until I go to another browser or the customer complains about it.  
Sometimes I will forget to set the border at all and it will not show 
on OW but show on all other browsers.  I know that the standards are 
open on that setting, but it should at least match other browsers.  
There are a few other things that bug me also that I can't recall right 
now.

> 	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.

Yeah, the latest Safari finally supports them.  The thing about it is 
that web standards sites recommend using them for anchor tags to 
explain the link.  Even the Apple HIG says to use them for applications 
to explain the buttons and icons.  It's a good idea to have it.  I know 
that WebCore didn't support it before, but it does now and I would like 
to see OW 4.5 fixed and updated.

> 	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.

Mozilla has a menu item to turn cookies on/off for the site your 
browsing.  It's very nice. Galeon makes it easier.  I've suggested this 
to OW way way back before OW 4.5 was even ready for RC.  I suggested 
other things.  I didn't think it would be hard to stick a menu item or 
hot key on that does this.  All well, Safari doesn't make it any 
easier.

> 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.

I will look at OW5 and hope it gets better.  But releasing a broken 
application as a stable production release was wrong.  I purchased a 
license because I wanted to use the sneakypeaks.  They were good.  I 
was happy, thinking that the bugs would be killed and the speed would 
increase.  But they released it and it still worked like a beta.  This 
is why I'm upset about it.  I seen announcements of updates to fix the 
problems, but they never came.  Only two things that I would really 
like for 4.5 is fix the crash bugs and improve the speed.  But it looks 
like they are just dumping 4.5 and going to 5...and charging for the 
"bug fix".  I'm not saying that it's not going to be worth it.  I'm 
just saying that I was burned once by OW, I'm not going to be burned 
again.  I should have waited until a stable version was released then 
bought it.  I wonder if I can get my money back...