Camino 1.5 Released
Camino 1.5 has been released. This Gecko based browser is native to Mac OS X and therefore has a user interface more pleasing for Mac users than Firefox.
A number of improvements in this release are making it a serious contender for my default browser under Mac OS X.
- Spell checking - unlike Firefox the spell checking functionality used is the one built in to Mac OS X, this means no need to worry about managing a separate dictionary for this application.
- RSS feed detection - this puts the browser on a par with Firefox and Safari, a familiar icon will appear in the URL bar indicating a feed is available.
- Session saving - the ability to restore a session after a restart or crash. This feature is also available in Opera and Firefox.
- Improved annoyance blocking - due to the lack of extensions, the Camino team have combined some of the better annoyance blocking features that are seen in Firefox extensions such as ad blocking, flash blocking as well as pop-up blocking.
- Improved tab browsing, including a single window mode adds tabbed browsing features familiar to Opera or Firefox users.
More info on the features page and release notes. The main thing that kept me using Firefox as default on Mac OS X was the lack of advanced tab controls in Camino (particularly single window mode), now this feature is in Camino it is worth a try.
Although I tend to promote Firefox as my browser of choice it still has some problems on the Mac platform which Camino addresses. The Mac look and feel is entirely different to Windows and the look of many window managers under Linux so getting a cross platform app to feel Mac like is difficult. Mac OS X also has built in features that on other platforms need to be implemented by the application, the most important to a browser are Keychain (password management) and form field spell checking. Unlike Firefox, Camino integrates with the built in Mac services giving a more consistent experience.
Work is ongoing to make Firefox more Mac friendly and in future versions it will be possible to integrate with Keychain and the built in spell checker, once this is done they need to make the default theme more Mac like (only on Mac of course) and a few minor look and feel bugs. But in the meantime I suspect Camino will be the best option for most Mac users.