iCab 4.0

Hi-
I'm a registered user of iCab. In fact I've been using it since MacOS 9.x days. Interestingly, my original registration code works properly with iCab 4.0. Like this browser for its superb speed, security and flexibility. Renders perfectly on my Mac and passes Acid Test 2! BTW, the folks at Agile are looking into adapting 1Password to iCab, now that would be awesome!

Here's your bit o' trivia for the day:

iCab is the Mac version of the de-facto standard web browser for the old Atari ST/TT/Falcon line of computers. It's made by the same guy. The browser for Atari was called CAB, which stood for Crystal Atari Browser.

We've been using iCab at our office since OS 9. We have a computer at our front counter that our clients use to look up media in our library.

At the time, it was the only browser with a "kiosk" mode. I can configure it to not show the location bar and only allow users to access our web site and no others. It is supremely customizable, used very little RAM and has always worked flawlessly.

I've never even looked into other browser options.

Heheheh... I just noticed that that big glorious screenshot of the browser whose biggest, bestest feature is ad blocking has ad blocking turned off for that screenshot. I'm sure Circuit City appreciates the placement!

I gave it a try and... It's 1998 all over again. I mean, the interface is BIG and ugly, with a Mail-ish button scheme (already a bad idea in first place). There are some good ideas like prefetch, but the windows are so damn ugly that kills any motivation to use it any longer.

I have fond memories of earlier versions of iCab -- for all the "Safari does that too" comments here, people don't seem to be considering that just maybe another piece of software might be able to do things better.

That said, while I'll give it a looksee tonight, I've installed Privoxy and edited my hosts file to block most advertising and web beacon hosts, so iCab has to be that much more impressive to get my money. But back in the days of interstitial ads and those hideous animated ads that would cover part of the page until you found the close button, iCab was great.

That should be "site you're visiting". Yay for proof-reading.

this thing was interesting, as long as it supported old mac os 9. but it does not make sense to pay for a cocoa only browser - there are enough free ones.

How about a browser that can automatically convert "Microsoft" to "MajorSuck" and "Steve Ballmer" to "bombastic bozo ballmer" (my apologies to bozo).

I probably won't buy this app, but I do want to call out two interesting UI features seen in its screenshots:

Related toolbar buttons like back, forward, and refresh merged into a single "control pad". Not sure I like this, but it is interesting.

A "show all" preferences pane using icons, the way System Preferences does. Most apps use a tab control to switch between a limited number of panes. The iCab way affords easy access to a larger number of panes. I'm not sure it's a good thing to expose all of the configuration options to the casual user, but if the point was to convey the impression of a highly-configurable app, it certainly does that.