29/06/05
27Camino 0.9 alpha mini-review
Back in January 2003, when I first discovered that there more options for browsing in OS X than IE and Netscape, Camino (then called ‘Chimera’) became my browser of choice. The first beta of Safari had just come out, and while showing promise, it didn’t become something I wanted to use every day until v1.2 came out the following year, and discovering Saft. For at least a year, it was Camino all the way.
Ever since Saftari though, my Camino usage has become almost zero, although I still pulled down the latest nightly every few weeks to check up on whats been happening. Its been a slow process (let’s not forget that Camino is run and developed by volunteers), but Camino 0.9 alpha is out there, and there are many improvements that demand attention.
When I first started using it, it looked awful, It had ugly, over-complicated toolbar icons, and the interface lacked a little polish. It was this that started my obsession with browser theming. Its come a long way since then. It now sports Jasper Hausers lush new icons and the toolbar uses the latest ‘unified toolbar’ look, which I’m definitely a fan of.
Advantages of using Camino?
First of all it’s fast – easily the fastest browser I have on my Macs. It feels responsive and nimble. All the bookmarklets and apps like TiddlyWiki that only work in Firefox/Mozilla, work in Camino too, but with the added bonus of having a cocoa wrapper with services integration (I’m not clear on Camino’s Applescript support – anyone got a comment on that?)
Its also the only Mac browser to support 10.2, 10.3 and 10.4. If you’re concerned about Safari engine being too closely tied to the OS, Camino may be what you’re looking for.
Finally, they’ve added important features such as autofill, and (what was my biggest bugbear), a global history menu. These 2 were key usability obstacles for me. The browsers tabs finally got their own look (rather than using the system tabs, which were intended for things like preferences), and it makes the world of difference.
Reasons to use Camino over Safari:
- Option to bookmark all current tabs
- You can choose a bookmark folder to show up in your dock menu.
- Midas (Rich Text Editor) support
- Preference options to stop javascripts changing the window size or position
- Find as you type
- Bookmark separators
- Configurable pop-up blocker (allow pop-ups for certain sites)
- Basically, all the goodness of the Gecko rendering engine, but in a native cocoa app.
Having said all that, its still not my browser of choice. If you’re looking for just ‘a good browser’, Camino will probably suit. For me, there are a few key things that I miss, such as session saving, that I get from Omniweb, Firefox or Saftari. The lack of extensibility is a drawback for me, although things are looking up on that front. Over the last year or so CamiTools have been evolving nicely, and give hope for the future.
Om Malik stated ‘Camino is Firefox done right for Mac’. Its not quite, but its getting there. If there was such as thing as a Cocoa Firefox, I’d be using it in a flash. Alas, Firefox’s extensions use XUL, and Camino is Cocoa, so its not to be. Camino is definitely one to keep an eye on though.
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Darren said 1167 days ago:
Camino’s AppleScript support is weak, but better than Firefox, IMHO. Obviously not even close to Safari’s, though with Safari 2.0, Apple threw a few script curveballs w/o notifying the public (i.e., do JavaScript “getSelection()” needs to be – do JavaScript “unescape(getSelection())” now … who’d a thunk to put “unescape” there?).Speaking of which, “do javascript” is yet to be implemented in Camino. It’s in the library, but not working.
I really like Camino, but my main point of contention is the inordinate hogging of CPU (at least on my system). Depending on which sites are open, the CPU is rarely under 15% when idle, and up in the 50-60% range – also idle (in the background), with sites like the NY Times open.
Safari is not as much a hog, although Safari’s handling of cache and favicons seem to contribute to its rapid decline in responsiveness. YMMV as I hit hundreds of sites per day for MacSurfer.
Camino handles text selection better than Safari, methinks. Safari block-selects(?) now with 2.0. Bizarre behavior, IMHO. But on my system Safari wins out for its lower CPU usage and higher degree of site-compatibility. Speedwise, they’re very close now. Camino may have a slight edge – it certainly feels snappier, but in side to side visual comparisons, for complete page loads, they were almost the same.
Neil T. said 1167 days ago:
I’m really glad to see that Camino is still being actively developed and improved even though Firefox is now Mozilla’s primary application on OS X. I’ll be buying myself a Mac in the next couple of weeks so I’ll have to give it a spin.Jeff Wheeler said 1167 days ago:
I have Safari as my default browser, but use Camino when I want to test in Firefox.There are three main things I don’t like about Camino:
1. When typing into a textbox, it is very slow
2. I can’t highlight and drag text
3. The tabs are uglyy to me
Phill Kenoyer said 1167 days ago:
I would switch to Camino in a second even though I’ve bought a Omniweb license, if…1) They had the thumbnail side bar (tabbed browsing), with all the trimmings that comes with. Drag Arrange thumbnails and all.
2) The had Site Preferences where I can totally configure all the options on a per-site basis. I really need the font size, cookies, pop-ups, and javascript options.
With those 2 options I would definitely switch. Right now I just use Camino for sites that run very slow in OW or don’t render correctly.
Chris Bailey said 1167 days ago:
I’ll be the odd guy and throw out Opera 8 as a suggestion. I had been a relatively hardcore Firefox proponent, but have somewhat recently switched to using Opera as my primary browser. I use it on all platforms I need as well (Mac is my main platform, but I also use Windows and Linux).In terms of speed, I don’t think anything is faster than Opera, which is one reason I switched. Firefox has just seemed to get slower and slower. I like all the plugins/extensions that the Mozilla codebase allows, but the reality is that Opera has basically everything I need right out of the box, and it’s faster than anything else (admittedly I haven’t tried Camino, but while it’s likely better than Firefox it’s the same core rendering engine, etc.).
It won’t be for everyone, but given how much time I spend in a browser, the speed alone is worth it, and I actually prefer it’s UI as well (I feel it’s cleaner, easier to use, and has a few cool features that nobody else has, or that are done in a far better way).
Saving a session? said 1167 days ago:
Nice little writeup on the state of Camino in reference to Firefox et. al…Not sure what you mean by “saving a session”. You can save a page. Is this what you mean?
Peter Krug said 1167 days ago:
I’ve been using Camino for the last couple of years – ever since it was at .4 or so, pre-safari. I have many problems using Safari for online banking, and user agent spoofing didn’t resolve this problem. Camino is fast – I’ve been running the nightlies for the last year or so with no issues big enough to remember. This .9a1 release has been much faster than that .84 release, but I’m noticing some JAVA issues with this one.Go camino! And Starflyer59 rocks, too!
Travis Bell said 1167 days ago:
I would switch from Safari/OmniWeb if a one, single feature existed.Remember previous text field entries (It’s not really autofill, but in the same vein as.)
I type “ste” and it starts guessing (based on my previous entries) what I am searching for.
I truly find it genuinely annoying when I have to type every single thing out. There are lots of sites where I search the same thing a few times a week, or even day. Camino gets that and I’m a convert.
JJ Rivera said 1167 days ago:
Camino has truely made vast improvements to become my browser of choice. Safari and Firefox may have other options but you said it best. ” First of all it’s fast – easily the fastest browser I have on my Macs.” It screamsDamian said 1167 days ago:
Camino has a built-in adblocker, too, which is nice.IMO, It’s good that Mozilla have a cross-platform solution (i.e., Firefox) – good for them and the community. But I’m not a fan of non-native apps on OS X myself. There are a number of reasons for this, and you touch on them there.
The comment about the Services Menu is to the point. I don’t know how many Mac users know it’s there. But it is good. I extend mine with AWS:
http://rixstep.com/4/0/aws/
Frankly, I sometimes think the Services Menu is a simpler and better way of accessing web services than widgets and Apple haven’t made full use of it.
I think Safari’s RSS implementation is good, and I’d miss that. But really heavy RSS users will be using NetNewsWire and that won’t carry weight with them.
I don’t know what’s going on in the RSS world. My guess is “enclosures” might become more important. This is how podcasting started – so perhaps a separate application is still a better bet.
All in all, yes, Camino 0.9a1 is very nice. (What is more it certainly doesn’t feel like an alpha!) It’s worth anyone’s while having it to hand as a backup to Safari if nothing else.
Jon Hicks said 1167 days ago:
#1 Darren – Thanks, I didn’t know that Apple had changed it! On my Mac, Safari is much more of a hog than Camino, but then again, I have a whole load of plugins going on in there!#3 Jeff – Good point, the lack of inline spell checking is sore point still
#4 Phil – so basically if it became Omniweb! ;o) (I know what you mean)
#5 Chris – Actually, I’ve been impressed with Opera 8, and love its feature set. Its a shame that the interface is still sooo cluttered. But thats for another post…
#6 – What I mean is being able to to restart the browser, and have all my tabs as they were when it quit.
ecco said 1167 days ago:
I’m a Camino die-hard for a long time now. To be honest, it’s not the only useful browser out there but Camino has (almost) all the features I need and it’s wunderbar and fast.Fx has more extensions and Safari has the AppleScript advantage but I don’t need that on a daily basis.
And of course, I love the CamiOptions (surprise, surprise).
Charlie Riverleaf said 1166 days ago:
I’ve been a Mozilla suite user since 2002, and a Firefox one since 2003. I’ve always loved the myriad of options they offer to me as a web developer, but I can’t say so about the user experience. Well, Firefox for Windows looks nice and polished, but in the Mac it lacks integration, a very important point in a Mac app. More: when using certain number of extensions, it can turn sluggish and unresponsive (sometimes I even have to force exit).Despite its limitations, Camino feels fast, responsive and well integrated app. I keep using Firefox for web development, but as a user I prefer Camino.
XanDaMan said 1166 days ago:
But you can’t review without screenshots.You just can’t.
Philippe said 1166 days ago:
Nitpicking: Firefox also runs fine on OS X 10.2 – and even 10.1 for Fx 1.04 ;-)It is possible that Firefox 1.04 feels slow, you should try the latest nightly builds. Blazing fast, with a ridiculously low CPU usage when idle (
Philippe said 1166 days ago:
Darn, Firefox (latest nightly) crashed halfway through submitting, I think that preview script is acting up.Here is what I wanted to post in full:
Nitpicking: Firefox also runs fine on OS X 10.2 – and even 10.1 for Fx 1.04 ;-)
It is possible that Firefox 1.04 feels slow, you should try the latest nightly builds. Blazing fast, with a ridiculously low CPU usage when idle (
Philippe said 1166 days ago:
3rd try, seems Textile is eating up something, Preview was fine though. Sorry about the comment spam. Feel free to delete my previous attemps.Nitpicking: Firefox also runs fine on OS X 10.2 – and even 10.1 for Fx 1.04 ;-)
It is possible that Firefox 1.04 feels slow, you should try the latest nightly builds. Blazing fast, with a ridiculously low CPU usage when idle (less than 1%), even with 20+ tabs open.. Hmm, just notice that both the latests nightlies for Firefox and Camino are using more memory. Might be temporary.
Camino is certainly an interesting alternative for the average user, who doesn’t need all the power goodies that come with Opera or Firefox. I’m not a big fan of Camino’s tabs though, they fill small and packed.
(I still can’t like Safari, though)
Ryan Clark said 1166 days ago:
Camino 0.9a is a superb piece of software. This year, my browser usage has trended from primarily Firefox until Tiger was released, then primarily Safari, and since 0.9a primarily Camino. The one thing I miss is Firefox extensions (I assume this is what you bean by a “Cocoa Firefox”). The latest versions of Camino are very unified, from the preferences panel to the toolbar and, unlike Firefox, it’s definitely got “teh snappy.”Ryan Clark said 1166 days ago:
P.S. As Philippe mentioned…the comment preview on this site is strangely flickery and slow in Camino 0.9a.Chris McElligott said 1166 days ago:
Its getting close to having all the features it needs. I want/miss…– RSS support and notification because Safari has spoilt me, can’t wait for Josh to add it in
– Session Saving (Omniweb has spoilt me)
– Basic Spell Checking
– Better text rendering, some sites like Macupdate.com look horrible. I can’t stand seeing un-aliased text anymore
Joe Clark said 1166 days ago:
Safari manifestly does not save your session.Jon Hicks said 1166 days ago:
“Safari manifestly does not save your session.”No, but with Saft it does!
Elliott said 1166 days ago:
Camino is nice, but it still seems a little unpolished. As well, I prefer the WebKit rendering engine to Gecko now. It just seems so much faster and more standards compliant.Nordic said 1165 days ago:
Camino also works fine in 10.1, if you install the java patch.Mary said 1165 days ago:
Safari rocks! :)patrick said 1165 days ago:
Camino has been a favorite of mine since I downloaded it earlier this year. It does tend be rather speedy, and all in all, is a very standars compliant browser. And, for the kicker, it supports transparent window mode for Flash movies.Wevah said 1163 days ago:
“I can’t highlight and drag text”You can: You have to start dragging immediately, as all the Gecko output still happens in a QuickDraw view (evil), and not (for example) via Cocoa text stuff (which requires a slight hold before you can drag).