Everyone is well aware that there is a major war being fought among the popular web browsers, especially since the internet boom of the 2000s. This is a direct result of the popularity of the internet, as well as the introduction of free web browsers. Internet Explorer and Netscape ruled the ruled for a time, and the peace was unstable but lasting. Then, Netscape crumpled, giving birth to projects like Mozilla and eventually Opera, though indirectly (idea of a free, universal browser). Now a greater war is taking place, especially in the Mac community, the fight between browsers based on Gecko and WebKit. However, I’m not really interested in all this jazz, just interested in explaining why Camino is currently my favorite browser, and dispelling some myths about the browser.

First, lets give a definition of what Camino is:

Camino combines the awesome visual and behavioral experience that has been central to the Macintosh philosophy with the powerful web-browsing capabilities of the Gecko rendering engine.

So, if your like me who loves Mac OS X and loves Gecko, this is like a dream come true right? Well, some may wonder why I use Camino over Camino. The reason is pretty simple. I don’t need all those stupid add ons or themes, just a browser that’ll display websites, view media, and provide some pretty good features to boot. Firefox is bloated, ugly in Mac OS X (that’s suppose to change in 3.0 apparently), and does not have native widgets. Firefox honestly doesn’t offer any feature that Camino 2.0 alpha or Camino 1.6 does not offer:

• Website Search Engines in toolbar
• Feed Detection
• Automatic Updates
• Session Saving and Restoring
• Spell Checking
• Keychain support (if your a big password freak like I am this is a god-send)
• Camino also supports Applescripting, something still impossible in Firefox.
• Beautiful pop up and ad blocking features and options
• SPEED SPEED SPEED! *not however, on Javascript or Flash heavy sites, a quite noted downfall*

Now, personally, I think Camino also has much more versatility and features than Safari, or at least more control over them *got to about:config in the location bar and tell me what kind of control you have over the browser.* Not to mention the added features that CamiTools provides. *I won’t go into detail about all of them, but go to the devs site or download it and be amazed.*

Now, lets dispel some myths about Camino:

Camino doesn’t have Add-on support
Well, to a certain extent yes, but it does have Applescript and preference pane support, providing very similar features to add ons.

Camino doesn’t have theme support
Again, correct to a certain extent, but at PimpMyCamino you can download toolbar and tab images to change the appearance of the browser.

Safari has more plugins available for it!
Any input manager available for Safari has the capability of working for Camino *Flash, PDF viewers, etc.* AND, again at PimpMyCamino, even more plugins are available for Camino, not to mention Applescript support.

Camino scores a really low score on the Acid 3 test WAHHH!!!
Well, since the Webkit devs wrote most of that test…its not a valid judgement plus the Gecko rendering engine isn’t written to pass a test. Not to mention Safari 3.0 scores a 75/100, and Camino scores a 71/100, its not that big of a difference.

Camino’s interface is outdated for Leopard
Personal opinion I guess, but if it really is that out of date, change the icons and tab theme via PimpMyCamino.

Even with all these features, etc, people also need to remember why Camino was and remains, so special: It ported Gecko to use the Cocoa API, all native Alert panels, widgets, buttons, CustomViews, and a buildable Xcode project to boot. The class and view is called CHBrowserView. All of this was done for the Camino project, and is being used today to make Firefox more native in it’s alpha version 3.0.

I hope I cleared up some myths about Camino, and explained my viewpoint over the browser and why its my favorite. But then again, its a blog, so it could be all my opinion and fake, you never know ;). Just try the browser, with CamiTools and version 2.0a, and tell me what’s the best browser for your needs.

Believe it or not, I have been working on an app over the few months. It’s a native Runescape client based off WebKit, with some handy features as well. Note: This app is no Metis, but a simple, ad free environment to play the online game. It’s also fair to note that I don’t actually play Runescape myself, can’t stand the game myself. Just seemed like a good idea.

Features include:

• Ad free
• World Map
• Fast java load time *thanks to Webkit, w00t w00t*
• Etc….

What I need help with:

• I need to know how to dictate when the webview loads based on when the window becomes active
• Some advanced java features within webkit would be nice
• Possible Runescape converters/forumlas would also be nice for future use

Drop an email if you can help!

So, today I downloaded my latest nightly build of Camino, and naturally stripped it of its Intel architecture, like I always do. Suddenly, as I watch the list of stuff stripped goes by, I see something magical. I see a framework stripped titled “Sparkle”. GASP! SPARKLE SUPPORT! That’s right people, genuine future Sparkle support in the next version of Camino. Want proof? Here’s some screenshots:

Sparkle Shot 1

Sparkle Shot 2

As the last post states, I finally splurged and bought a Katana II. But then there came a problem. Could I get the pictures off this phone without paying for a monthly cost by Sprint? Viola! There is a solution!

BitPim is an application that takes CDMA based phone’s information and saves it on your computer in an ordered view. You can access your PhoneBook, multiple media options, your cell’s Calendar, Todos, your SMS messages, Call History, and view your phone’s filesystem. It is THE FREE, open source utility for your cell! Bitpim supports transferring information to and from your phone, and provides an easy way to access information from your computer. It supports Mac, Windows, and Linux, because its written in Python and its interface is written in WxPython, the Python library to access the wxWidgets C++ library. If your not picky on Cocoa based applications, this is the choice for you!