So, in response to a recommendation to try
OmniWeb in the
TxD forums, I was asked,
Why is OmniWeb better than Safari?
I responded that it's the little usability tweaks that keep it ahead of the game. I like the benefit of being on a slightly more modern build of the web kit. I've become used to -- and fond of -- the thumbnail tabs, and the Cmd-up/down arrow way of navigating between them. I've come to appreciate the different location-bar completion (matching on full text of the URL, not just the beginnings of the URL strings), allowing me to reach the new posts on TextDrive's forums with
http://forum.textdrive.com/search.php?action=show_new simply by typing "w_n" as the shortcut.
But the killer is that the browser remembers workspaces. I don't have to clear out tabs for a restart or quit. I don't need to panic if the browser goes down because of a nasty incompatible page.
The drawback with this way of working is that it encourages working with lots and lots of tabs. I stress my PowerBook's memory a lot more nowadays as a result, and there's a point at which, under low memory, OmniWeb just gets inexplicably slow. However, a quit and relaunch will fix that situation, with no work lost.
(Also, I bought a license ages ago, way before Safari. The educational OmniWeb 5.0 upgrade price was something silly like 6 USD, which I did just on principle, even though at the time (and until a couple months ago) I was a regular Safari user. There's currently (November 2006) a sale on, where a full license is available for $10. I would definitely recommend it to anyone serious about browsing at that price.)
