While Mac users grow impatient for Google’s Chrome browser to come to the platform, there’s a small bit of good news today: A new beta version of the excellent Camino browser.
Camino is a browser built by Mozilla specifically for the Mac. Unlike the much more popular Firefox, Camino is extremely lean and fast. It’s so fast that it’s been my browser of choice for the past several years. And the new version, Camino 2.0 beta 4, released today, offers some nice improvements. Among them:
- Phishing and Malware Protection: Camino 2.0 Beta 4 includes phishing and malware protection based on Google Safe Browsing.
- Full Content Zoom: The scale increment used by full content zoom has been reduced to provide smoother zooming. There is also a new Zoom Text Only item in the View menu to toggle the zoom keyboard shortcuts between full content zoom and larger or smaller text.
- Software Update: When quitting for an automatic update, Camino will now save and restore pages that were open before quitting regardless of whether the “Load the pages that were open before quitting” preference is enabled.
- Updated Appearance: The tab bar, Bookmark Bar, and folder icons now better match the appearance of Mac OS X 10.5 and newer.
The key feature for many users will be the last one. Mozilla has finally updated Camino to blend in a little bit better with OS X. While the changes in the look and feel definitely aren’t huge, they are subtle and nice.
But here’s the real interesting thing about Camino, its project lead, Mike Pinkerton, also happens to be the guy leading the development of the Mac version of Chrome for Google. It seems likely that most of his time is now spent on Chrome (and his Twitter updates indicate as much), but he has always maintained that work would continue on Camino for Mozilla.
Of course, it has been almost a year since Camino 2 first went into beta testing (last December) and it’s still not done yet. Meanwhile, in that time, there have been three official releases of Chrome (though, again, none for the Mac). Still, it’s nice to get even little updates to Camino. It remains a great browser.
On the Chrome end, Google has publicly stated that it will be available before the end of the year. Judging from the Chromium builds, it seems very close. No word on when Camino 2 will be finalized, but that too, seems pretty stable.
What do you use as a mail client on the mac MG? Or are you strictly GMail?
mostly Gmail. i use the Mail app for mobile me stuff, but rarely.
I’m interested to see if Thunderbird 3 gets any traction on mac, the betas have been nothing short of amazing.
I also wonder why Mozilla doesn’t have a strictly mac port of Thunderbird, like Camino to Firefox.
I send a lot of links to my workmates through email. With Mail.app as my default mail client, I can just right-click and ‘Email this link’. This is the main reason I’m still using Mail.app.
So, MG, since you’re a web GMail user (or to any web GMail user here), is there any way that I can do the ‘Email this Link’ through web GMail?
You can download a beta version of chrome from this link:
http://www.goog...dev.html?dl=mac
I’ll be interested to see how it compares in terms of speed to Minefield (also a Firefox variant) and Safari (which has improved dramatically recently).
I must agree here. I found Camino right after I purchased my MacBook in early 08 and it has been my browser of choice. However, I hope they do speed things up a little, the new 64-bit Safari w/ Snow Leopard is the fatest I have and has been eating my love for Camino little by little.
I actually asked the Camino guys about a 64 bit version and was told that Gecko doesn’t go the 64bit route just yet.
I was told that during some testing with 64 bit coding here and there, if they were to implement it, the amount of work that would go into redoing all of Camino ( with Gecko ) is not worth it.
There was very very little improvement ( if any ) if it were to go 64 bit.
The reason why Safari is alot faster on Snow Leopard is, Apple did some major work, aside from just making it 64 bit, that made it faster and smoother.
It is the future of apps but not really a major need as of right now. And it won’t produce a significant result if Camino was tomorrow ( since it’s so bare bones as it is )
Once Techcrunch confirms excellent Chrome version for Mac , i will just go ahead and buy Mac Air.
(Its been years i’m thinking to switch)
So, you’re not buying Macbook Air because Google Chrome for Mac is not yet final? Just curious..
Actually Yes.
Tested Safai/Firefox on Mac and did not like them.
I just want Wave. God I want it so bad..
While We Wait For Chrome For Mac, Mozilla’s Camino Gets An Update^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H, there’s always, Stainless, the other (and first) one-process-per-tab browser for OS X.
http://www.stainlessapp.com/
This browser was actually very impressive but the only thing that prevented me from using it on a daily basis was that you can’t import bookmarks.
Why this feature isn’t the first thing to be put in is beyond me but I also understand, the browser is in the works so, we’ll see…
I’ve been using the latest dev builds of Chrome for Mac as my primary browser all week and I have to say I’m extremely impressed. Safari could never pull me away from Firefox but Chrome has. I absolutely do not want to go back, at all. It’s just so damn fast and the experience in general just feels nicer.
If only extension support would appear and developers would build things like ad blocker and web development toolbar for Chrome.
Ehh… why? Mac Firefox 3.5 is fast, supports all extensions, etc. Is Camino really that much faster?
If you’re looking to gain a couple milliseconds on pageloads, you’re probably already using Safari 4.
Why bother with Chrome when there is Firefox?
I know Camino is based on Firefox/Mozilla, but didn’t realize it was their property. Has this always been the case? (You learn something new every day.)
Unfortunately, sometimes the things you learn turn out not to be entirely true
Mozilla provides infrastructure (build machines, an SCM repository, bug and crash reporting hosting, download servers, etc.) for Camino, but don’t do any of the development. It’s what Mozilla often refers to as a “community project” (like SeaMonkey). Camino is actually made by a group of volunteers, so it’s not really accurate for the article to say “built by Mozilla” or “Mozilla has finally updated Camino”.
(Camino isn’t based on Firefox, by the way; Camino in fact predates Firefox.)
Mozilla is better than Google. Experience is important!
Mozilla is better than Google. Experience of Mozilla with browsers are most important!!!
It’s not inaccurate to write about “Mozilla’s Camino”, as the Mozilla project (mozilla.org) does list Camino as a project of the “Mozilla community”. But the Mozilla Corporation does not list Camino in its products (on mozilla.com); it only lists Firefox and Thunderbird.
I am not sure employees of the Mozilla Corporation or Mozilla Foundation ever worked on Camino. The Camino lead developer is (was?) Mike Pinkerton. Pinkerton worked for Netscape in the good old days, then for AOL. In 2005, he was hired by Google to work on their “Firefox team”. In late 2008, Pinkerton wrote he was working on the Mac port of Google Chrome. He may have been working on Chrome from quite a bit more time before that.
This looks like the Camino project stalled because Google had its lead developer working on a competiting browser. (Just the way it looks. People participating in Camino development may be able to provide a better description of it, obviously.)
> It’s not inaccurate to write about “Mozilla’s Camino”
I wasn’t trying to say that it was, just that it wasn’t really accurate to talk about “Mozilla” actively developing or updating Camino (as in two phrases I quoted). There’s no cohesive “Mozilla” entity (either the Mozilla Foundation or the Mozilla Corporation) that can be meaningfully be said to develop Camino.
The distinction is important because when people read “built by Mozilla” they usually assume that means the Mozilla Corporation, and that Camino development works like Firefox development, which isn’t at all the case. We don’t have a full-time, paid development team, nor are resources being diverted from Firefox to develop Camino as people often believe.
> the Mozilla project (mozilla.org) does list Camino as a project of the “Mozilla community”
Right, because it’s a community project, as I mentioned.
> People participating in Camino development may be able to provide a better description of it
I’m one of the primary Camino developers, so I feel pretty confident in my characterization of the situation
As for the long cycle for Camino 2.0, that’s just a combination of being an all-volunteer project (and thus having very little manpower), and issues with Gecko 1.9 development that prevented a stable Mac embedding release using earlier versions of Gecko 1.9.0.x. The specific details of any one developer’s full-time job don’t have any affect on the schedule.
The Google Toolbar is something I really miss when using my Mac at home, but interestingly Google Chrome currently doesn’t have the Google Toolbar features.