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Why Pay Money For The Best Mac Browser?

OmniEncore Review: Browsers are less than a dime a dozen. Nearly so. Browsers are free and they’re the gateway to the internet.

So, why would Alexis recommend a browser you have to pay for? It’s all about value, expectations, needs, and affordability.

As the designated Mac360 Queen of Cheap and Freebie Fanatic is it sacrilege to even look at a Mac browser with a price tag?

No. Why? Because everything has an exception, an Exceptions Law of sorts, and, because I can.

What got me to thinking about the state of Mac browsers was Jack’s recent review of a Mac browser for children.

The browser in question was BumperCar. For $30 you get a decent, stable browser, with plenty of features, and a comprehensive set of filters to keep kids off bad web sites.

That’s it. Is that worth $30? For some, yes. For others, certainly-- whatever keeps crappy site content away from teens and pre-teens is worth that kind of money.

The other browsers on the Mac range from great to very, very good. Safari, Camino, Firefox, Opera, iCab. I don’t think there’s a crummy browser left.

Of course, you know I’m not talking about Microsoft’s defunct Internet Explorer for Mac, right?

Another great Mac browser is OmniWeb. At $14.95 you better get something worthwhile; something that sets OmniWeb off and ahead of the pack of free browsers.

Why? Because the free browsers are awfully good, so why pay money?

Free browsers are fast, stable, have plenty of features, and are different enough to find room in any Mac users heart.

Unless, of course, Bill Gates just happens to use a Mac. In that case there’s not enough room in his so-called heart. I digress.

OmniWeb is at version 5.5.x, so it’s mature, stable, dependable, and based on Apple’s WebKit so it’s as fast as anything else out there.

How can it be worth $14.95? Is it making enough money for Omni to keep up development? Even if you’re satisfied with Firefox, once you’ve tried OmniWeb, you have to answer yes to both.

OmniWeb is a bit different, and loaded with many features. Mac-like features. Yet, it’s not so different as to be formidable and disappointing. I reserve that for Opera and Firefox, respectively.

What OmniWeb has going for it is that big stack of features that will make your browsing experience fun again.

First on my list of surprises in Tabs. All browsers have tabs. OmniWeb’s tabs reside in a tab drawer that draws an image of the page in the tab. Think different.

With Safari and company, tabs show up as just a tab with a name attached. There’s no graphical representation of the page.

OmniWeb ends that with drag and drop visual comfort for tabs. It’s cool.

Next on my list of Different for OmniWeb is Shortcuts. These little beasts do the heavy lifting, uh, rather, heavy searching on searchable web sites like Google, Yahoo, Ask, and others.

Display the shortcut field in the toolbar, enter a key search word or two, save the shortcut for later use.

One of my favorite features in Safari is Pop Up Ad Blocking. The only problem is that Safari sometimes blocks that which should not be blocked.

OmniWeb has a preferences section for Ad Blocking which gives you more flexibility. It even traps the blocked pop up window so you can check it later.

Workspaces is another nifty feature not found in the free browsers but mimics the way we use a browser. Save collections of related windows by clicking Auto-save, and OmniWeb saves everything about those pages and their tabs.

You can even share WorkSpaces with other OmniWeb users. Therein is the rub. I only know a few other OmniWeb users.

One problem I have with other browsers has to do with “save state.” There isn’t any. If I accidentally close an open window in Safari and it has six tabs open to different web sites, I’m hosed.

All the tabbed windows (sites) just disappeared. The same happens with a crash. Poof.

OmniWeb trumps that problem with Auto-saved Browsing Sessions.

Select a Workspace, select Auto-save, and all the tabs and pages will be there next time you open OmniWeb. That’s cool, too.

But what of BookMarks? I must have a thousand different bookmarks in dozens of categories in Safari. I used Bookit to sync with OmniWeb. No problem.

But what of RSS feeds? Safari does a decent job taking RSS technology to the mainstream of users. Click the Subscribe button and you’re done (the button is hard to find at the bottom of OmniWeb).

One thing you’ll notice right away with OmniWeb is preferences. There’s many more preferences than Safari or Camino. That’s both good and bad.

It’s good if you want more control over your browsing experience. Bad if you like simplicity and few choices. And choice is really what it’s all about.

Firefox is annoying but does some things better than Safari, especially Javascript apps, and those dozens of great extensions. Firefox is just too much like Windows for me. Same with Opera.

Camino is great and very Mac like but thin on options and features.

As I spend more time browsing, I also look for ways to do more, improve the process. Nothing improves without change, right?

I’ve been using OmniWeb regularly since last fall-- back when it cost $30. It began to be a joyful experience after a week of use.

Is it a perfect experience? Gawd no. The tab graphics are too big, almost cartoonish. Too many preferences mean a little more confusion and trial and error to see what works and what doesn’t.

But OmniWeb is obviously a work of love and passion for the Mac style of building an application, so it’s worth some time and effort.

Is it worth $14.95? Try it for a week to see. Let us know what conclusion you come to. For me it’s been an impressive couple of weeks.

Off Topic Note: Help support Mac360 and save a few dollars on Mac software at our local Amazon store. Click Here to save almost $10 on the new version of Photoshop Elements, and almost $20 on the latest version of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, available now from the Mac360 Store (it’s really Amazon). Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage and more-- barely $50 more than Apple’s iWork ‘08. Save money and support Mac360 at the same time.

   • Article by Alexis Kayhill • Published on Tuesday, June 3, 2008
   • Category: Encore Reviews • 5 Reader comment(s) • Email This • Digg This • Shop Now
  Page 1 of 1 Page(s) for this article.

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Readers Talk Back:
rje says:

OmniWeb has two problems for me. The first is autofill. They can’t get it right. It just doesn’t work. The second is tabbed browsing in drawers. I really dislike it. Drawers have all but disappeared from the Mac world. I want traditional tabbed browsing from OmniWeb, which I paid for a long time ago. I won’t use it till they get autofill. They don’t have it now. They have something, but it’s inferior to the same function on any other major browser.

   — Posted on Tue Oct 07 at 8:24 am by rje

Mr Macintosh says:

LOVE OmniWeb!!!

“that’s the way we are used to browsing” - who is this proverbial “we”????? The tabs on the side are MUCH nicer then tabs on top. Wish other browser would give the choice.

I have paid a couple of times for OmniWeb. It is rock solid, fast, great features, and OmniGroup is a good company that makes all kinds of great products. I got hooked on their browser back in the NeXT days and have never given it up.

PS - Tab Thumbnails are adjustable. . . .

   — Posted on Wed Jun 11 at 10:10 am by Mr Macintosh

Mr Fred says:

MacBook Pro here and:

Safari - Never seems to be that reliable for me. Despite the 3rd party apps, ads are an annoyance. I have wanted to like it but, to me, it still needs work.

Camino - My choice for years but, it still has trouble with streaming video on some sites.

OmniWeb - It’s nice but, PLEASE put the tabs on TOP! Do that and I’ll buy it. It’s just not as intuitive winging your cursor to the side and down or up to navigate tabs. Every other browser has them on top and that’s the way we are used to browsing. On the side though? Ugh.

Firefox - Until Beta 4, it never ran that great on my OSX computers. Now? My browser of choice. I have ZERO problems with it. It uses less resources than it used to and takes care of all ads, streams every video well and just works! Truly the King of Browsers now.

   — Posted on Sat Jun 07 at 9:58 am by Mr Fred

Brian says:

hey, Safari does have an “auto-save” feature. If you have that window with six tabs and you close it… go to “History => Reopen Last Closed Window” it’s saved me a million times!! I am running Leopard and Safari 3.1.1, I don’t know if that makes a difference… Hope that helps some people!

   — Posted on Tue Jun 03 at 8:42 am by Brian

Larry Harrison says:

Seems you’ve discovered my private Guilty Pleasure: Omniweb.  Been using it for years; LOVE it. I wish the tab thumbnails were size adjustable. I wish more people would give it a serious try. It opens my banking site (and several others) perfectly when neither Sarafi or Firefox will.

   — Posted on Tue Jun 03 at 7:59 am by Larry Harrison

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