[CUBE] somewhat OT: new stuff...

[Riba]

>         So, anyone installed Safari on a Cube running 10.2.3 yet?

I have. I actually wanted to write a short review but didn't want to 
stray too far off topic on the list. Anyway, I'm kind of browser freak 
and I have to try and use every single one of them :)
I must admit I was kind of surprised that Apple would release their own 
browser even though the rumor has been out for quite a while. Anyway...

For quite some time now I've been bouncing between OmniWeb and Chimera. 
I'm the type of person who loves small and efficient apps that do what 
they are meant to. So first just a few words about each one of them:
- IE; i haven't used it in a long time now. I'll admit that it is not a 
bad browser, it isn't even slow, but I can smell the strong stench of 
Carbon when using it, and for some strange reason it bothers me. Plus, 
it's M$ :)
- Mozilla/Netscape; typical example of a good Bloat. If you need 
web/mail/news/irc/whatever in one package, I guess you might like this 
one.
- Opera; Unbelievably great on Windows and OS9, but crashy on OS X, not 
particulary speedy, and cluttered UI on latest version. Too bad, I 
really wanted to like it.
- iCab; I really liked it. 5 years ago. Can't see the reason to use it 
anymore - unstable under OS X, but has a few unique features. Was a 
good lightweight before Chimera came along.
- Chimera; the dream come true. Fast, beautiful, small, great rendering 
engine. Not much to say here - the recent versions are also very 
stable. Tabbed browsing is a must-have feature for every browser.
- OmniWeb; I really want these guys to succeed. This one somehow blends 
into OS seamlessly, has some very good features, but can be slow on 
occasion and more often than not has rendering problems. They are 
making progress, but slowly.

And that brings us to...Safari!

I downloaded it right away to see what Apple could have come up with. I 
was especially interested in a small/fast browser since I'm using an 
old G3 Powerbook at work. Of course I'm not buying Apple PR crap about 
it's unbelievable speed, so I decided to see for myself. I haven't used 
it for a long time obviously, but here is my opinion. The speed is very 
good, comparable to Chimera. Rendering has small glitches on a couple 
of pages but it will be sorted out. The bug report button will surely 
help here. I _absolutely hate_ brushed metal look, but that is easily 
removed :) Preliminary investigation show that Safari taxes the 
hardware a bit less than Chimera which is important for my Powerbook :) 
I miss tabs, very much. The bookmark management seems like the most 
innovative feature, and i feel like I might grow to like it. It 
autoimports IE favorites but since I didn't use IE I had to drag and 
drop every single bookmark into Safari. They need to offer other import 
options. At the moment I'm trying to use Safari as my main browser - 
pleased to report that I haven't had a single crash yet. In short, 
Apple has done a good work, but maybe a bit dangerous move. I wonder 
how will MS react to this.