Filed under: Software, Universal Binary
OmniWeb 5.5 released
The Omni Group has put the final touches on the latest iteration of their web browser, OmniWeb 5.5. 5.5 has been in beta for a little while, but now it is ready to run as your primary browser, if you don't mind paying the $29.95 price ($9.95 for an upgrade). Before you balk at the price remember that OmniWeb has many unique features, and it is based on a slightly modified version of WebKit, so it does things Safari can't.OmniWeb 5.5 is a Universal Binary.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Nick said 9:12PM on 9-06-2006
I've been an OmniWeb customer since the Mac OS X DP3/4 days, and finally bought personal copies for home a couple years back. OmniWeb 5 was fantastic, but crashed too much, and was a little too slow on my PowerBook. The release of 5.5 has brought me back, I've been using it for quite a few betas now, and I'm happy to see the final version out. It has yet to crash on me, is lightning fast, and has all the features I've come to love. Yeah, paying for a browser is lame, but this is one heck of a browser.
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Zac said 9:49PM on 9-06-2006
I've used OmniWeb for a little while now (Free trial) and as much as I like it, I just cant see myself paying 30 dollars for this. I appreciate the graphic tabs and things like that, but what does this app really have that justifys the price tag?
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Justin said 9:55PM on 9-06-2006
Yikes I just checked it out..I agree with Zac 30 bucks for what? The tabs? Those suck hardcore..they take up way to much space? and to click on them I have to go all the way to the right or left? It was quick though I'll give em that.
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Nick said 11:11PM on 9-06-2006
Per site preferences alone were worth it for me. The graphic tabs are nice -- if you have at least 1024x768, it's not like you need your browser maximized.
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Dave said 10:35PM on 9-06-2006
OmniWeb 5.5 is really slick. The feature set is solid and the browser performance is very fast. Those used to the rather anemic speed of OmniWeb 4 are in for a bit of a pleasant shock.
It's certainly worth the download. I paid my $30 and would do it again.
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Henry said 11:03PM on 9-06-2006
Features that I use are opening all my tabs on launch (workspaces), preferences for specific pages (very useful), and it's slightly more compatable-ness. I still haven't ran out of my 30-day free usage period, but I would like to buy it.
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fredouil said 12:36AM on 9-07-2006
i tested the 5.5beta but i do not get it, why spend $30 for something that can not really compete with firefox (FF2 is very impressive)
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Zazen said 12:59AM on 9-07-2006
I'm testing it now. When I go to certain sites (like Wired News for example) - I get something that states "not a standards compliant browser" - I mean - not too many show that - but why would it not be standards compliant? Could it just be a CSS problem? Ehhh... I like it tho :) Not sure on the money - but it sure is fast (as everyone has said so far).
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carpeicthus said 1:26AM on 9-07-2006
OmniWeb was always a great idea, but with 5.5 it's truly great in implementation. Zazen: Lots of sites don't *think* they recognize OmniWeb, but because it's based on Webkit, they really do. Go to the web page's preferences (mmm, individual preferences for Web pages) and tell it to identify itself as Safari.
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Steven said 6:01AM on 9-07-2006
With every release of Omniweb there's the debate why someone should pay for a browser, while other browsers are free. I'm a webdeveloper and Omniweb saves me time, thus money, because it has features no other browser, not even Firefox with extensions, has.
For example:
- creating groups of tabs into Workspaces and being aible to open them with one press of a key or switching between two or more projects
- being aible to edit the source of a dynamicly crated webpage and to redisplay the changes is a real big time saver. (i.e. when you want to see how an alteration of the design in a complex php page looks like)
- being aible to pop a textfield in a form into a separate window for editing is realy great when you want to enter a large text. It not only gives you more space for typing, but you can also use text-editing features like find and replace, or entering tabs (without going to the next formfield). Hey, and you can even import an external textfile. And Omniweb uses Mac OS X spellchecking.
- the way Omniweb shows a thumbnail of the page in the tab is not only usefull for quickly switching between webpages, but you can also rearange the orde of the tabs.
- you can set preferences on a per site basis. If you have a pesky that checks for browser compatability (not for browser feature compatability) you can trick the site to see Omniweb as Internet Explorer. Or you can block (or allow) popup windows for every individual site.
- unlike Firefox, Omniweb is a true Mac Os X browser. It uses for example spellchecking, keychain and services. And it can sync your bookmarks through .Mac
- the handeling of bookmarks is much beter than Safari. You can have a bookmarks menu with folders and subfolders. So you can easely group and access bookmarks. Or you can open a seperate window with a group of bookmarks.
- you can set Omniweb to check your bookmarks to see if a page has changes since your last visit. And you can share bookmarks with other Omniweb users through Bonjour.
- autofill forms can store previously entered information of any form, not just the info that's stored in your adressbook. (I was recently working on a website with a form that had over 20 form fields. With one key press I entered all the required info in the form, which I otherwise had to type in manualy each time I checked the form.)
To cut things short, if your a webdeveloper, $30,- for Omniweb is a steal. If your just surfing over the web, decide for yourself if the features are worth paying for.
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Will said 7:30AM on 9-07-2006
OmniWeb is a great browser, lots of rich features that are really helpful (like bookmarks and settings synced to iDisk for cross-computer settings sharing).
I just wish it would stop crashing on me at random times.
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jimmy said 12:42PM on 9-07-2006
I appreciate the speed and features offered by omniweb, but it just wasn't enough to replace Safari.
I've been using Flock for a few weeks as my primary browser and although it's a little slow, I love it - i only wish it was based on webkit. Flickr/Photbucket integration. "web snippets." built-in blogging and social network tools. These are useful additions to a browser. Additions I would definitely be willing to pay for.
With the growth of web 2.0, i think other browsers would be wise to take note.
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Aron said 1:29PM on 9-07-2006
As others have said, it's very difficult to choose this over Firefox (I actually use Flock, but the two are essentially the same, no?). I'm a very big fan of Web Kit as I find it very fast (much faster than FF), and I like the interface much better. However, the reason that I use FF over OW is because of two reasons: The extensions, which open up not only a whole new world of functionality, but a whole new galaxy; and the keyboard shortcuts that I'm used to. If there were some way to change around the shortcuts in OW, I would much prefer it to FF. However, now that I've used it, I simply can't live without my Full-Screen Homestar extension. It's just too good. This is coming from a man who has not just Firefox (Flock) and OmniWeb on his dock, but also Safari, traditional Firefox, Camino, and Opera (I'm not really going to mention RealPlayer, because I don't consider it a true browser, no matter what they may claim). I simply haven't found the one perfect browser, and as a consumer who has no knowledge of code, there really isn't anything I can do. Oh well. Flock it is.
Cheers,
Aron
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Trevor said 7:24PM on 9-07-2006
OmniWeb 5.5 is free for 5.0 users. There is no $9.95 upgrade cost.
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Jack said 10:13AM on 9-11-2006
I was unhappy with OmniWeb 5.0, use to crash regularly. Since upgrading to OmniWeb 5.5 I have noticed a massive increase in speed and reliability. I like it.
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