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iCab: Alternative Browser for macOS

icab.de

31–40 of 83 posts

Re: iCab: Alternative Browser for macOS

#34
iCab Mobile is also one of the only truly unique iOS browsers. Was the only way to reliably download multiple files for years on iOS, and today still is the closest to having browser add-ons in iOS. Supported uploading files long before Safari too. Its custom zoom levels made many web apps usable on the original non-pro iPad screen sizes as you could fake a higher resolution screen (and you could change your user agent if websites refused to show their desktop version). You can tweak iCab's interface quite a bit too, which makes it a great way to make an internet appliance of sorts to show a single website without having extra toolbars and stuff.

It's not my default browser, but is a great tool to keep around!

Re: iCab: Alternative Browser for macOS

#36

I used to use this in college before I switched to Camino!

Oh my God, I loved Camino so much! The browser scene for the Mac in the early Aught's was such a mess. Netscape was bloated, slow as hell, and wasn't keeping up with standards. IE was great, but you were always suspicious of MS's agenda. Safari was still a bit rough and lacked a lot of features.

Camino was snappy, clean, and had very good standards compliance. Such a great little browser!

Re: iCab: Alternative Browser for macOS

#38
post #35
post #32

Anyone remember the browsers that made you small amounts of money per hour for using them to surf the web?

AllAdvantage? (probably showing my age here) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage

I forgot all about this... blast from the AOL past.

Re: iCab: Alternative Browser for macOS

#39

I personally use iCab for using the internet on classic Mac OS machines. Very useful, as it’s the most recent browser supporting them. Other than that, I’m not usre if this is worth the effort on usual machines... I would recommend Safari instead.

How does iCab compare to Classilla? Which itself is very out of date. https://www.floodgap.com/software/classilla/

Classilla handles modern pages better, but iCab has better performance/memory usage

Re: iCab: Alternative Browser for macOS

#40
post #3

Apparently it switched to Webkit a while back.

Why does this keep happening? Browsers sell their soul to just be another coat of paint on top of WebKit. I honestly don't get it. If you're working on a web browser as a personal or open source project, switching to WebKit is basically just replacing the entire project that you've worked on, and then writing your name on WebKit. There's not much more to a browser than a rendering engine. There really isn't a killer…

As important as politics and implementation diversity are, if I were to take on the monumental task of developing my own browser I would rather focus on improvements that are actually manageable and useful to me as an independent dev or small team. Browsers are more than just webviews with tabs and a lot of potential in the non-core parts is left unexplored by the major players.

And it's not like you're throwing away any effort. A browser isn't automatically worthless "just" because it's built on WebKit the same way an operating system isn't worthless "just" because it's built on Linux.

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