Camino 1.5, a Web browser for the Mac OS, was just released offering a slew of new features that will undoubtedly appeal to a lot of people. At the core of the browser lies the same rendering engine that Firefox 2 uses, which is good news because as the Firefox browser continues to gain in popularity the number of Firefox-compatible websites keeps increasing.
Here are some of the other things Camino 1.5 brings to the table:
- In-line spell checking! This is Firefox 2’s most notable feature, but Camino does it a little differently. While it does check text fields for misspellings as you type, it actually uses the Mac OS X dictionary instead of providing an additional dictionary like Firefox does.
- Session restore – just like Firefox, Camino will now offer to restore your tabs after a crash. It can also be set to automatically restore your tabs after you restart the browser.
- Keychain compatibility – use the same Keychain entries for both Safari and Camino
- Feed notifications – Camino recognizes when there is a feed available for a site, and if you want it will use the Mac OS X default feed reader to subscribe to it.
- Single window mode – prevents sites from opening another window.
- Improved pop-up blocker – blocks pop-ups and also has Flash blocking capabilities (with the option to whitelist a site).
- Gecko rendering engine 1.8.1
- Resizable search field
- and more…
As I was reading around there were quite a few users reporting constant crashes with the newest version, but it seems to be attributed to the use of CamiScript and CamiTools. I’m guessing that’s because the tools are not supported add-ons for Camino 1.5, and have not been updated to work with the newest version of the browser. Actually, CamiTools isn’t even being developed anymore so they removed the download from their site.
Source: TUAW
I’m curious what people think about these other browsers using the Firefox engine. I don’t have a problem with it mind you, I just think it’s interesting. For instance, I think it’s great that Firefox engine is so great it’s expanding into other creations… but what’s the benefit? Like I don’t use Netscape, and if I had a Mac I wouldn’t use Camino… because I can just use Firefox and it does everything I want it to. The only one I see any real benefit to is Flock because it uses Firefox as its engine but has really defined itself and redesigned how the UI works and added a lot of functionality.
Anyway, just some thoughts. Firefox rules!
Well Camino supports a lot of Mac’s native features, where Firefox is still a pretty separate entity. I know quite a few Mac users, and all use Firefox with a Mac-like skin on it. They like it that way, but there are always the people who like to use the software built for the operating system they are running.
The only problem is that the developers of these applications typically run an entire version behind the existing Firefox. By the time Flock gets there version out that is based on Firefox 2, Firefox 3 will probably be just a few months away. Then the Flock developers have to start all over again trying to get Firefox 3 in there. Eventually they will probably branch off of Firefox and do their own work because it will get too hard trying to keep up, but the projects just seem to get further and further behind Firefox.