The news is in: Omnigroup’s WebKit-based browser for OS X, OmniWeb, is on sale for the month, for $9.95, down from the $25 it usually is. I bought my copy earlier today.
A while back I wrote a big couple of posts about my ongoing search for The Perfect OS X browser; I switched, tortured, from Safari to Firefox to Camino and around again (I think Flock was even in there for a day or two). I found no solace. A followup, never written, would have said that salvation, strangely enough, came in the form of OmniWeb.
I suppose the reasoning was always there. John Hicks has made his adoration of OmniWeb clear for quite some time, and Gruber has long been an advocate as well. But I balked at the idea of a web browser that cost money, to begin with; then there were the thumbnail tabs—who needed tabs so big? A waste of space, said I.
But I was won over. I believe, when we last left the issue, I was sticking with Camino for my full-time web browser. As time progresseed, I grew frustrated—partly, Type Diva that I am, with the Gecko rendering engine. Partly with the inflexibility of the app; all options and add-ons had to be delivered through slightly hacky methods. It was nearly perfect, but like all great romances, dissatisfaction crept in.
My grievances with the other browsers are on record. Safari is pretty, but slow, and crashy; Firefox is extensible as all get-out but dreadfully un-Maclike, with a very unresponsive interface. Camino, now, is fast as hell, stable as a rock, but less customizable than either Safari or Firefox, and it renders text ugly.1
Now, here’s the thing: OmniWeb is fast. It shouldn’t be; it’s one of those ‘features’ apps, like BBEdit, or MS Word, which does lots and lots of stuff its competitors don’t bother to do. You know, like workspaces, rearrangible thumbnail tabs, per-site prefs, built-in source editor—it’s crammed with stuff. But somehow, those OmniGroup dudes managed to make it fast as hell, in addition. And it’s webkit, so it’s pretty. And the interface is excellently designed (no surprise, considering its origin), so all the features don’t get in the way. And you can even enable open-all-new-windows-in-tabs if you enter a super-secret special code!2 God DAMN!
So, downsides? Well: it’s not free. But it is, for this month, freakin’ cheap! Why pay actual money for a web browser? Because I paid five cents more for a six-pack of beer just last night, and it’s already half gone.
- It’s true. A very large part of why I switched away from Camino is that it, like its papa, cannot render most user fonts on my system. I’m told that when they switch to Quartz this will get fixed, or something. In any event, I’m not holding my breath. The point is, the letters don’t look as nice in the one.↩
- The feature is not totally done yet, but I’m willing to make the tradeoff.↩
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