Journal: News & Comment

Camino is my new browser

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Since Apple released Safari more than three years ago, it's been my main web browser. (My wife uses Firefox.) I found it generally speedier and less cluttered than the alternatives, and I particularly liked its ability to synchronize all its passwords and bookmarks through my .Mac account, so every copy I use, at work, on my own machine, or on my account on my wife's iBook, operates the same way.

However, as of today I've switched over to Camino. I've had it, and its many predecessors, installed on my Macs since it first appeared years ago, but now the 1.0 version really is ready for prime time. It's faster than Safari, uses the same more widely supported rendering code as Firefox, Mozilla, and new versions of Netscape, and has a nice Mac-centric user interface, with tons of cool skins available too (I prefer the colourful but low-key Skyy v2).

Some things are a bit clunky—customizations require separate utilities that sometimes lack the interface polish of the main application. But it works well, and the overall experience is superior to Safari or Firefox (or OmniWeb or Opera or iCab) for me.

The key thing that got me to switch over is CamiTools, which permits bookmark synchronization. Like other Camino add-ons, it's a bit of hassle: you need an FTP server instead of .Mac, the upload/download process is manual so you have to remember to do it, and when you download bookmarks you need to restart the browser. But it's good enough to get me to change over, and I'm sure it will improve. Good job, Camino team.

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