Ming the Mechanic:
OmniWeb

The NewsLog of Flemming Funch
 OmniWeb2007-04-26 15:56
7 comments
picture by Flemming Funch

Earlier I was lamenting my lack of success in having a browser that works for me on my Mac. But I hadn't seriously tried OmniWeb, and it was sort of the only remaining browser after Firefox, Opera and Safari. I hadn't given it much attention, because it is the lesser known, and it isn't free. Only $14.95, which is perfectly alright, but that was enough of an obstacle that I hadn't seriously tried it.

And, as it turns out, OmniWeb is the only browser that solves my showstopping problems. Mainly that if I use the other browsers the way that comes naturally to me, at the end of the day my machine would have slowed to a grinding halt, and I see the spinning beachball for several seconds no matter what I push. There are other things that are nice to have, but that in itself far outweighs all the other concerns.

Part of the secret is that OmniWeb has several separate Workspaces. That is, one can have collections of windows and tabs, and they're kept separate from one another. So, I can have 30 sites open without them all showing at the same time and the one with bad javascript slowing everything down. I see just the windows and tabs I'm working on. When I switch out of a workspace, it still keeps running for an hour or so, so if I went back to it, it would be there instantly. If it is longer than an hour, it would need to load the pages again, but everything would still come back like I left it, rather quickly.

After two weeks of using it, I haven't had that slowdown experience at all. So, they must be doing something right in terms of managing resources.

OmniWeb has a system of "tabs" which aren't like tabs in the other browsers. Not little folder tabs along the top. Rather, they're small snapshots showing in a sidebar to the left. Which is a bit odd as far as tabs go, but it actually works very well.

There'd still be a bunch of things I'd miss from FireFox, like the FireBug javascript debugger, and various other plugins and add-ons for dealing with pictures, showing Google PageRank and things like that. But the other thing that really irritated me with Firefox - that a download of any file would take 10 seconds to start, freezing all activity in the meantime - no problem like that in OmniWeb. Opera and Safari don't have that problem either.

OmniWeb uses the same engine for rendering pages as Safari, the built-in Apple WebKit, which seems to work fine.


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7 comments

26 Apr 2007 @ 20:44 by ming : Resources
Usually a restart of firefox will do it. But I do occasionally experience gradual slowdown of the machine, for reasons I can't figure out, which don't get resolved by restarting individual programs. Memory leakage of some kind. Nothing really annoying, as it is weeks between that I restart the machine. But the less memory one has, the more that will happen, obviously. Mac loves memory. I have 2G, which is the max I can have in this iMac, but which I actually would suggest should be the minimum for anybody who actually has work to do.  


27 Apr 2007 @ 19:22 by gravitonring : cancelled comment not a mac browser :(
cancelled comment not a mac browser :(

a bunch mac browsers suggested [i have not used any]

{link:http://darrel.knutson.com/mac/www/browsers.html|http://darrel.knutson.com/mac/www/browsers.html}  



27 Apr 2007 @ 20:11 by ming : Browsers
Wow, I had no idea there were that many. I'm talking like there were only 3 or 4.  


30 Apr 2007 @ 14:20 by gravitonring : :)
:) i owe it all to my search engine, the God of the Insects, i will post my article soon :)  


30 Apr 2007 @ 16:03 by vaxen : Heh, heh...
I guess you've not tried building your own Opera, eh ming san? It is really infinitely configurable. CSS and, actually, most every aspect of the browser, if you've got the time.

But the new one 9.20 is really tight, and sweet, with a 'speed dial' function --- you might enjoy playing with.

The dev team could use some input and...

What collective intelligence is...

Collective intelligence is older than humankind itself. Here is a broad, straightforward definition:

Collective intelligence is any intelligence that arises from -- or is a capacity or characteristic of -- groups and other collective living systems.

Source Document For Collective Intelligence

http://www.community-intelligence.com/blogs/public/2007/01/a_source_document_for_collecti.html  



19 May 2007 @ 18:03 by vaxen : I'll bet...
Looks like you've opened the door to spammers Flemming san. Lots of weirdness happening on the site. A Gremlin or two, perhaps? Maybe too much Santeria? The eggnog? The above is kind of comical in a weird sort of way.  


17 Jun 2016 @ 10:17 by SDS @39.36.57.60 : DSF
Typically the most popular destination with regard to outsourcing the actual finance perform is England, but China and Far eastern Europe will also be favoured locations. Some providers have procedures in each Britain as well as India. Companies search for suppliers that may deliver personal savings, better high quality of info, improved efficiency and much better control. bestfinanceresources  


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