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Shiira v2 beta released


Remember that Shiira v2 beta preview that delusions of grandeur had at the end of July? Well instead of simply reading about it, now you can take your own copy for a spin, as a public, localized beta has been released. Shiira, if you haven't been following the coverage as of late, is an open source and uniquely feature-packed browser based on WebKit, the same web (and also open source) rendering engine that powers Apple's own Safari.

Most of the new features that were previewed seem to be implemented, including the Shelf, Tab Exposé, a tab thumbnails option (instead of standard tabs found in Safari and Firefox), FullScreen Mode with a really slick and self-hiding navigation overlay, a palette replacement for the sidebar and more.

When this first landed on digg, the download was only a PowerPC build, but it has since been replaced with a true Universal version. So what are you waiting for? Get downloading!

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Remember that Shiira v2 beta preview that delusions of grandeur had at the end of July? Well instead of simply reading about it, now you...
 

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miyamotofreak

I saw Shiira mini and downloaded it. Pretty cool.

August 13 2006 at 4:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
drivebybiped

I really don't see anything getting me off of firefox any time soon. The ability to use all the extensions and write me own to customize it and have it be the same environment on every computer I work on, be it windows, mac, or *nix just is too nice to make me want to change for some fancy UI effects which in my opinion tend to always just slow me down trying to use my browser.

August 07 2006 at 1:54 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Don Parr

I'm very impressed indeed! Yes, it is unstable, yes, all features have not yet been implemented - but - they told us as much :). I can see where a lot of thought, debate and midnight oil has been burned in producing this beta, and am truly looking forward to great things from the "Shiira Project," as others have already mentioned, the potential is awesome :)!

August 07 2006 at 12:45 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Le Citadin

Hmmm... Omnigroup should get worried about this...

August 07 2006 at 6:45 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bonzo

@blackout: Its a beta. Its says "very unstable" on the second line of the blog entry. What do you expect?

August 07 2006 at 4:37 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dan

New. Innovative. Brings something to the table. I welcome Shiira 2.

I'm a Camino man, but I love any browser that pushes the rest to improve, and Shiira is certainly breaking many norms. Hoorah!

August 07 2006 at 3:17 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Will

Umm... I like it. Way better than the old Shiira. Like they say, it is not entirely useful yet as a beta, but I will be downloading it again when version 2 comes full circle.

I don't like Safari, so I am trying to find a good webcore based browser and so far I'm empty handed because of the one thing mozilla's creatures still have on us: ad blocking. (pith helmet, I know) This new shiira has no ad-blocking-via-css ability, which I really really want.

P.S. Tab expose is cool.

August 07 2006 at 2:12 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Joe

I agree The Sidebar was an awesome idea and to me an advantage over every other browser I use. I hate a popup downloads window I hope when the make the final version 2.0 it has that feature back.

Ill be using 1.2 until a stable version is released

August 06 2006 at 11:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Joe Jacobs

Hmmm, I don't think I like it. It's.....well.....diffrent....

Part of what I like about Shiira right now is the sidebar. That option so stay in Shiira 2. I mean, I couldn't even figure out how to pause a download.

August 06 2006 at 11:15 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
kevin

also, the scrolling in this using the two-finger trackpad ability is FANTASTIC. even better than safari and i did NOT expect that! usually, other mac browers fall short of this capability and shiira has somehow been able to exceed my expectations. very very very cool.

however, another gripe about the tabs is that i wish they could be shrunk down in height a bit more. i had to customize the toolbar so that it would display "icon only" to make the toolbar less heavy and take up less space. i mean, if i left the default toolbar and had the page dock on as well, it left VERY little webpage space. i'd recommend an option to move the pagedock to the left/right like in omniweb or just simply do what opera does preview a tab by hovering your mouse over it for a few seconds.

August 06 2006 at 9:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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