Sleipnir, for those not versed in Norse mythology, was the eight-legged horse of the god Odin. It’s also the name of an iOS browser that has a reputation for doing things a little differently. Sleipnir developer Fenrir is now bringing it to the Mac with the release of a new beta. Since it’s highly unusual for a browser to be released for iOS before OS X, we thought we’d take a look at the things Sleipnir does differently from other browsers on the Mac.

Interface

Sleipnir really differentiates itself with its interface. Contrary to Chrome, Sleipnir de-emphasizes the URL bar, making it a small button in the titlebar. Clicking it slides the URL bar out to fill the titlebar, which is pretty slick. Since most people find websites via search rather than entering the URL, de-emphasizing the URL bar makes sense. It also allows Sleipnir’s interface to take up significantly less space, as the tab bar can be placed where the URL bar is found in other browsers.

Speaking of the tab bar, it’s easily the most striking aspect of Sleipnir’s interface. As with its iOS counterpart, tabs are displayed with miniature previews instead of traditional text labels in Sleipnir. The current tab is highlighted by a hovering triangle, and inactive tabs are grayed-out. The advantage of this layout is that it doesn’t take up much space, and tabs are easier to pick out, since our brains can recognize images faster than text. The disadvantage, of course, is that it can be harder to tell some websites apart without a label, say if you have several Google searches going, as pictured below.

TiledTab

TiledTab is a tab-grouping feature similar to Firefox’s aptly named Tab Groups, but prettier and more user-friendly. Accessed via a button in the tab bar, it shows your current tabs as previews against the familiar linen background, with groups appearing as color-coded sections at the bottom. You can swipe between groups with a two-finger gesture. The TiledTab button also changes color to reflect which group you’re in, so you don’t feel lost. You don’t have as many options for managing tabs as you do in Firefox’s Tab Groups (you can’t close them, and you’re limited to six groups), but TiledTab makes managing tabs in this way seem like less of a chore.

Bookmarks

Sleipnir also takes a different approach to bookmarks. The Bookmarks window has an “Inbox,” which is where unsorted bookmarks go. To add a bookmark to the bookmarks bar, you simply “ribbon” it. Labels allow you to group bookmarks together by tagging them, and act as folders in the bookmarks bar. You can color-code labels as well. And then there are the actual folders, which perform the same basic function as labels, except they aren’t accessible from the bookmarks bar.

Sleipnir can sync your bookmarks with a service called Fenrir Pass. Setting up an account is easy: Go to Sleipnir’s settings and click the button to create a new account in the Sync tab. Syncing across Mac and iOS works relatively well, but it’s a little confusing, as ribboned bookmarks in Sleipnir for Mac don’t automatically appear in the iOS version’s bookmarks bar.

I’m really excited for the full release of Sleipnir for Mac, and I can’t wait to see the final version. But what do you think of Sleipnir? Do you have room for another Mac browser?

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Surprisingly, it does so not by adding very much, but by taking quite a bit away. Cyberspace is designed to simplify the web browsing experience in much the same way that Safari’s new reader view does: It reduces web pages to their most basic elements for easier consumption. And while I find Safari’s reader feature useful, it’s even more of a boon to mobile browsing.

Cyberspace does the bulk of its amazing work thanks to the Instapaper Mobilizer-powered Text mode and Readability bookmarklet, both of which help to reduce the clutter on text-focused websites, providing you with two options for getting rid of things like graphics and sidebars to read the actual content you came to the site to find in the first place. Both can be used with regular mobile Safari, but they require far more steps. With Cyberspace, Text mode is always one click away, and Readability is only three, and neither requires any additional setup.

The browser does its work very quickly, and without any annoying customized chrome elements that some other third-party solutions have chosen to go with. And even though the UI is minimal and plain, it’s still quite powerful. As mentioned, you can switch between Full and Text views with one tap, establish and access a queue if you’re planning on reading a number of things in succession, add bookmarks with a single click, and access both local and social bookmarks all from the main screen.

Other perks that Cyberspace offers include an amazing recommendation engine for the search/URL bar, which draws from different sources including Google and responds nearly instantly. The app also provides a “Switch Keyboard” button that lets you change between iOS’ URL and search field contextual keyboards with a single click. It’s much more elegant that providing two separate text entry fields for search and URLs, like mobile Safari does.

Finally, Cyberspace lets you share to Instapaper, Read It Later, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Delicious, Pinboard and Google Reader quickly and easily, and provides a scratchpad within the app so you can keep notes for yourself while browsing. Those notes can be sent to Pastebot, and shared to Twitter and Facebook, or via email.

Cyberspace will cost you $1.99, but it’s a universal app optimized for both iPhone and iPad, and it packs so many features that $2 is worth the time you’d save trying to set up mobile Safari to emulate even half of its functionality. If you do a lot of reading on the web, or even just a lot of mobile browsing and sharing via social networks, then Cyberspace is an absolute must-buy.

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UPDATE: Skyfire has been pulled from the App Store by Skyfire, not Apple, due to high demand. Skyfire’s current server capacity can’t handle the load, but the company is planning to retool and reintroduce the app.

You can now get the much-hyped Skyfire browser for your iPhone, which brings the ability to watch Flash content. You won’t get that for free, though, as the price is $2.99 at launch, which is described as an “early adopter price.” So is it worth it?

Skyfire works by sending Flash content to its servers, transcoding it using a proxy and sending it back to your device as HTML5. However, it has its limitations. If you were planning on watching Hulu on your device through its website, for instance, you’re out of luck, since it isn’t supported. It also won’t work with Flash games.

It does, however, play Flash video without issue on many sites, and provides audio, too. In my experience, it worked often, but when it didn’t, I was very disappointed. For example, streaming video from network sites here in Canada didn’t work at all. Other sites, like Current TV worked fine, albeit with some slowdowns likely caused by strain on Skyfire’s servers.

Is it worth $2.99? Well, it also offers a private browsing mode, related search terms automatically combed from every site you visit, the ability to select whether pages load mobile or standard versions by default and a Facebook quick view feature that makes posting to and viewing your account while browsing easy. So as a Safari alternative, it isn’t without merit.

Even with all these features, though, and with Flash capabilities, I’m not sure the app is a good buy. It seems to run slowly, and video conversion quality can vary greatly depending on the quality of your connection. Finally, it seems most are warming up to HTML5, so iOS incompatibility with Flash may not even be an issue for much longer.

If this app had been around two years ago, it might have been worthwhile. Then again, the only reason Apple approved it now is probably because it knows it pretty much won the HTML5/Flash video war at this point, anyway.

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I’m happy to report that it seems livelier and more stable than the version 10.62 release, which was already very good. Since the upgrade conveniently runs in the background and allows you to keep doing other things, even surfing, it makes the process easy and painless.

What Opera Offers That Others Don’t

Opera Turbo

Opera offers some unique features, such as Opera Turbo, which uses Opera’s servers and proprietary compression technology to compress webpages, boosting your browsing speed on crowded Wi-Fi hotspots, tethered mobile phones or even dial-up, letting you browse up to 2x faster than its competitors when connected at slower speeds.

Encrypted traffic remains that way around the compression servers, so when you’re on a secure Web site, such as your bank’s, you’re still secure and communicating directly. Turbo can be instantly toggled on and off using a button on the interface window margin, or you can set up Opera Turbo to be enabled automatically when a slow network connection is detected.

Mouse Gestures

Another unique feature of Opera — mouse gestures —  lets you perform common browsing actions with small, quick mouse movements. Gestures can be stacked to perform more complex actions. You can enable or disable mouse gestures in the Opera preferences. There’s even a tutorial to get you started.

Opera Unite

Opera Unite turns your computer into a web server. With Unite, you can share content directly with friends without having to upload anything, stream music, show photo galleries, share files and folders, or even host your own website directly from the browser. It’s a great feature that other browsers don’t really come close to offering, at least not in an all-in-one package.

The Little Things

Opera has a raft of small touches that keep me coming back to it as my most-used browser, such as a very convenient Zoom menu on the interface window that lets you infinitely magnify page content using a slider control to read websites with small text easily, or get an bird’s-eye view of an entire site. Unlike some other browsers, Opera’s zoom resizes all elements of the page, not just the text. You can also toggle images on and off from this menu to improve readability and speed up page loads.

With Opera, you can also search in the address field. Opera uses several keywords to provide quick access to several popular and useful search engines. You can also add any search engine.

Opera’s Closed Tabs button, also on the user interface window, provides a pull-down list of recently closed tabs, so you can easily return to where you left off. Finally, in case you’re concerned about speed, Opera is also very fast, in the same league as the latest versions of Safari, Firefox, and Google’s Chrome browser.

Good for Those Who Appreciate a Fine Vintage

Opera is evidently an acquired taste, with about four percent of global browser market share outside North America, and around 2.4 percent overall, which puts it in fifth place behind Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. But it’s also one of the dwindling crop of current browsers that still support older Power PC Macs and OS 10.4, although the Opera folks tell me that version 10.6x will be the last with Tiger support, alas. All the more reason to enjoy it while it lasts.

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However, former Apple Dashboard developer Todd Ditchendorf’s programmable browser Fake is something genuinely different, a sort of hybrid melding of Safari and Apple’s Automator scripting utility. Fake allows you to drag discrete browser Actions into a graphical Workflow that, once configured, can be saved and run to perform various online tasks automatically.

How it Works and Why It’s Useful

Fake is a useful timesaver, automating tedious tasks like filling out lengthy forms, capturing screenshots, and more. Developers especially can make great use of Fake by graphically configuring automated tests for their web apps.

Fake’s automation features are powered by OS X’s built-in scripting tool AppleScript, so you can incorporate web automation into many OS X scripting tasks.

Fake’s user interface is derivative of the Automator UI, with a side panel containing a library of configurable “actions” that can be employed as an easy alternative to writing AppleScript code from scratch. Tasks available include clicking checkboxes or links, filling out and submitting forms, navigating to URLs, opening and closing browser tabs, and so on.

Sample Workflow

Here’s a simple example of how Fake works. You probably wouldn’t find this particular workflow especially useful unless you’re obsessed with visiting the Apple Store’s iPad pages, but it gets the basic idea across.

You begin with a “Load URL” action, dragging it from the Action Library to the Workflow pane in the Fake UI.

Once your webpage or form appears, you can drag other actions into the workflow pane to navigate, set values and otherwise configure tasks that you point actions to, such as clicking on an element link:

Or clicking an html button:

When you’ve composed the full workflow sequence, click the Run button in the Workflow pane toolbar.

Which will run your automated workflow and take you where you want to go:

This is a simplified example for the sake of clarity. You can do so much more with Fake, but the best way to find out is to get in there and try for yourself. You might also want to check out this screencast at WebWorkerDaily for another example.

A Browser Apart

Fake’s browser component is based on the open source tech used in the OS X Site Specific Browser (SSB) app Fluid. In a nutshell, Fluid technology provides Fake with an array of powerful features that developers like to have in a browser, such as userscript and userstyle support. Fake also taps into Apple’s WebKit to provide element-level analysis of Web pages.

One other difference with Fake is that unlike mainstream Web browsers these days, it’s for-fee demoware, costing $29.95 for a license. However, if browsers are a tool of your livelihood, or you just have better things to do with your time than repeat mundane tasks on the web, Fake could pay for itself pretty quickly. Fake Version 1.4.2 requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later.

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In a mailing list posting on Tuesday, Mozilla’s Firefox honcho Mike Beltzner affirmed: “I am gathering data on the number of PPC users we have, but the likely outcome is that we will not be supporting PPC [PowerPC] for Firefox 4.”

Mozilla has already cut off Firefox support for Mac OS X 10.4 after version 3.6, and the new SeaMonkey 2.1 Alpha released yesterday (SeaMonkey is based on the Firefox browser engine) also dumped support for OS 10.4.

Feeling The Pain

These developments were inevitable, and the proverbial writing has been on the wall for some time for Tiger support especially, but looming termination of all PPC support is a splash of cold water for legions of holdout users. With two old 550 MHz G4 Pismo PowerBooks running OS 10.4 Tiger still in daily service, I’m definitely feeling the pain of constricting browser support. At present, I’m using SeaMonkey 2.0.6 (current stable release), Opera 10.01, and iCab 4.8 on the Pismos along with old Netscape Navigator 9.

Indeed, in many respects, Navigator 9 remains the most satisfactory all-round browser on low-powered Power PC machines, although its security profile is woefully out of date, so I wouldn’t recommend it for visiting your online banking site, or anywhere else that security is a particular concern. You can still download Navigator 9 here.

SeaMonkey: The Best Compromise?

SeaMonkey 2.0.6 is probably the best compromise at this point between performance, reliability, and security, and I was disappointed when I downloaded the version 2.1 Alpha 3 build, which features some interesting interface upgrades, only to discover that the system requirements cited on MacUpdate were in error, and it doesn’t support OS 10.4.

iCab 4.8 still fully supports Tiger, and I don’t anticipate that it will be dropping it anytime soon, since they still offer a browser on their download page that supports 68k Macs running System 7.1, but the latest 64-bit version of iCab 4.8, of course, requires Snow Leopard, and it’s doubtful that legacy versions get much security updating, if any.

The latest version 10.6 of Opera nominally supports Power PC Macs running Tiger as well, but in practice, I’ve found that it’s slow and unstable on the old Pismos, with lots of spinning beachball time. The last build that works well on those machines is version 10.01 (c. October 2009).

Curtain Dropping On Power PC

Consequently, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that the curtain is dropping on Power PC Macs. I’ll not be giving up on my beloved Pismo PowerBooks any time soon, and hope to continue using them for years to come, but I’ll do any security-sensitive web stuff on my MacBook and whatever supersedes it. Opera 10.6, Google Chrome, Firefox 4, and Safari 5 all offer a superb browsing experience for Intel Mac users.

It’s interesting that Web browsers seem to have emerged as the tipping point of practical computer obsolescence. Are you feeling the pinch?

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I’ll be testing Safari 5.1, Safari 4 beta (thanks to its tabs-on-top design), Chrome 5, Firefox 3.6, Firefox 4 beta 3, Opera 10.6, Camino 2, Shiira 2.2, Sunrise 2.1, and iCab 4.8 .

Testing so many browsers presents a problem: Not all browsers use the same UI conventions. For example, Opera doesn’t have a bookmarks bar; its bookmarks are contained in a sidebar. To remedy this, I’ve broken the tests into two sections, showing different parts of the browser chrome. Section one will be with the bookmarks bar hidden, so only the tab bar and toolbar are showing, so I’m able to include Opera. Section two will be with the bookmarks bar shown, so Opera will be excluded from it. I’ll also include a third section that shows the data overall. I omitted testing status bars because Chrome doesn’t really have one, and I’d argue that most people don’t use them.

Tab Bar and Toolbar

I’ll go ahead and say that there are two winners here: Chrome 5 and the Safari 4 beta. But why is Chrome also a winner when the Safari 4 beta so clearly trumps it? My reasoning is that Chrome is a current browser, and that I had to go through a strange rigmarole process to even get the Safari 4 beta running, and it still crashed every time I opened a new tab, so it’s not really usable.

The loser here, by a large margin, is iCab. This was using the default configuration, so I messed with it a little, used small icons and hid the text beneath them. It still came in last, right behind Shiira with 91 pixels, only beating itself. iCab developers, if you’re reading this, please make iCab less space-hungry.

What’s interesting about the comparison between Firefox is that tabs-on-top actually uses slightly more pixels than tabs-on-bottom. Also, using small icons will save you eight pixels.

Here’s a screenshot comparing the top six browsers in this section:

With Bookmarks Bar

Unsurprisingly, the winner here is the Safari 4 beta. However, I was surprised to find that the second winner was Safari 5. Yes, Safari 5 narrowly beats out Chrome by just one pixel. iCab is last in place, by a large margin, again.

I also figured out that, on average, you can save about 20 pixels without the bookmarks bar.

Here’s another screenshot showing the top five browsers in this section:

Overall

I’ve made two graphs that show the data overall: the first by number of pixels in ascending order, the second by browser. I’ve also included a couple of bonuses: I measured Internet Explorer 5 for Mac and Netscape 9. IE doesn’t have a tab bar, so I just measured it with the bookmarks bar. It makes a good watermark for big browsers. And yes, iCab still comes in last, even behind IE. Netscape was surprisingly small, with the minimum being 83 pixels, just behind Sunrise.

Is pixel-friendliness important in a browser? Does it affect which browser you use? Sound off in the comments.

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The free app from Firefox, which now joins Opera as a browser company with a presence in the App Store, brings a user’s search history, saved passwords, bookmarks and open tabs to an iPhone or iPod touch. This harmony between multiple devices is made possible due to a Firefox desktop add-on from Mozilla dubbed Firefox Sync. As the name suggests, the free-to-use Firefox Sync add-on synchronizes all of a users browsing data, from multiple devices — making it readily available in the cloud, wherever a Firefox browser is installed.

But how can you get your Firefox browsing data, be it from a PC or Mac, on your iPhone? Our guide shows you how.

Getting Started

The first thing you are going to need to do is download the application from the App Store.

Install The Add-On

When you open up the companion application the first thing you will be asked is whether you have a Firefox Sync account. If you do, then you can go ahead and select the appropriate option to proceed. But for those who don’t have an account you will need to head to a computer to get going.

When at your computer (in my case a PC, as I tend not to use Firefox on my Mac) open up Firefox and navigate to Mozilla’s sync add-on page. Follow the on-screen prompts to get the add-on installed and restart the browser.

Set-Up Sync

When the browser restarts a pop-up will prompt you to begin the setup process for the now installed extension. As you are new to Firefox Sync you will need to select ‘I’ve never used Sync before’. Selecting this will begin the sign-up process. The sign-up process is a typical one made up of a few simple steps. You will need to provide a username, password, email and a 12-character secret phrase.

With all your sign-in credentials in order you will then need to name your device, for example ‘My Windows 7 PC’ or ‘My Mac Mini’. Taking a few seconds to name your device correctly is an important step for later use, as when you have multiple sync’s in place it’s an easy way to see what data is from what device.

Once all the data has been added, the sign-up process will be completed. You will now find a new ‘Sync’ option in your browser under the Tools menu. A sync of your data is automatically made once a day, however this new menu will show you specifically when a last sync was made, in addition to allowing you to make a sync take place manually.

Back to the App

Now all the settings are in place, it’s time to try the application. Select ‘I Have A Sync Account’ and enter the same login information, including your secret phrase, that you just entered on your computer.

When logged in you will see four options: Search, Tabs, Bookmarks and Settings. The Settings page will let you sign-out, refresh your synced data and see what data is being sync in the cloud. As expected, the Bookmarks, Search and Tabs pages show a listing of any bookmarks, history or open tabs you have from your last sync. Sadly Firefox’s application is lacking in one browsing essential — an address bar. You can’t manually input a URL, therefore using the search tool seems to be the most effective way to navigate around, allowing access to any pages in your history.

And that’s how you use Firefox Home on your iPhone.

Thoughts On Firefox Home

Why Mozilla decided to take this route for its mobile application is unknown, especially considering Opera’s success in getting Opera Mini approved and on the App Store, address bar included. However, despite its flaws, the app does have some value. Take this example — you’re about to head out but want to continue working on a few things while on the move. Mozilla’s app makes this a fairly easy and instant reality, allowing you to pick up where you left off, tabs intact. How often this scenario would arise to be of great benefit to someone is unknown, but the option sure is nice.

While using the app a few things were noticed; the pinch to zoom, like Opera Mini, isn’t quite right. If you have a lot of data to sync, it can take a little while. Finally, unlike the full desktop sync service, the mobile version is not compatible with private servers.

Firefox Home is available to download for free from Apple’s App Store now. Have you tried it, and if so, what are your thoughts on this ‘browser companion’?

To learn more about using Safari, check out our Safari 101 screencast on TechUniversity (subscription required).

Safari 5 also boosts JavaScript performance with Apple’s Nitro engine, (formally known as squirrelfish). Stats on Apple’s site claim JavaScript performance gains up to 30 percent faster than Safari 4, 3 percent faster than Chrome (really Apple, 3 percent?), and twice as fast as Firefox.

Safari’s Reader feature has been available for a while to users of Instapaper and Arc/40′s Readability bookmarklets. Reader takes the text of the web page and presents it in a larger font, uncluttered by other parts of the page, allowing you to concentrate on reading the article. I’ve been a big fan of Readability, so I’m happy to see such a great feature added to Safari. Finding the Reader button took some time. It shows up next to the RSS button in the address bar, and only when Safari detects a page that has an article with a lot of text in it.

Apple has taken another swing at Google by adding support for Bing in Safari. This move shows just how much the tech industry landscape has changed, and how rapidly it continues to change. While Google remains the default search engine, adding Bing as an option means that Apple could flip the switch on which search engine is selected by default at any time.

Firefox users have been able to extend their browser with add-ons for years, and several users have cited the lack of extensibility of Safari as a major reason for choosing Firefox on the Mac. However, it took Google’s Chrome browser supporting extensions to push Apple to support the same thing in Safari. In typical Apple style, it seems that the extensions will be signed, and a certificate to sign the extension will only be available by joining the Safari Developer Program. The extensions will also run sandboxed, further protecting the browser.

Safari extensions are build using HTML 5, CSS3, and JavaScript. Safari 5 packages a tool called the Extension Builder to help with packaging and distributing the extension into the Extensions Gallery. Expect a bunch of long awaited favorites to show up in the gallery soon.

As of this writing, no extensions are available yet. Safari 5 ships with extensions disabled by default, but to enable them, enable the Develop menu in Safari preferences, then select “Enable Extensions.”

Auto-complete in the address bar has also been enhanced. In the short time I’ve been testing it, the suggestions are not only faster, but more relevant. This is because Safari is now searching not only the beginning of the URL, but the entire string for matching characters. So far, this is honestly my favorite new feature, and speeds up browsing significantly. Oh, and address bar progress indicator is back.

Another huge bonus for me is hardware acceleration in Windows. Since I work in an office and use an XP laptop during the day, this means that Safari 5 should be a big performance boost over 4.

If you weren’t sold before, are the additions enough to bring you back to Safari? What other thoughts do you have about the new changes? Let us know in the comments!

For additional learning on Safari for Mac, checkout Safari 101 and Mac Browsers (subscription required).

Tabs

The first noticeable thing about iCab is that it actually uses real tabs. The UI borrows heavily from Mobile Safari; the URL bar looks almost identical. However, underneath the URL bar is a bookmarks bar, and underneath that is the tab bar, which seems to function just like the tab bar in any desktop browser.

The tab bar does two things to the interface: one, it adds what some might consider “clutter” to the window. When compared to Safari, iCab has more of the “chrome” around the web page because of the additional buttons. The second thing the tab bar does is far more important: it reduces friction. Hiding tabs as Mobile Safari does puts them out of the thought process, it creates an independent experience for each tab. In iCab, when all the tabs are grouped together in the tab bar, I can see immediately what I have open, what I still have to read, and what I need to close. I can’t count how many times I’ve opened up the tab window in Mobile Safari and found eight tabs that are already open in the background of sites I forgot to read. Keeping all of the tabs visible means that I have one less step to go through to get to the tab that I want. In iCab, it’s simple; just look and touch. In Mobile Safari, I first have to remember which icon is the tab icon, then find the tab I’m looking for from the collection of website screenshots. It’s pretty, but adds friction.

Settings

iCab has many more settings than Mobile Safari, allowing your browsing experience to be customized to your liking. My favorite setting is the ability to open links to other domains in a background tab. This is by far the best browsing experience on any platform. Have a list of Google search results to check? Just tap each one and it opens in a background tab automatically. Reading through Daring Fireball’s Linked List? It’s as simple as scanning Gruber’s summary and tapping the link to open the tab in the background and on to the next one. This is how I’ve browsed for years on the desktop.

Another favorite setting are the filters. iCab comes out of the box with 142 filters to help block annoying ads. The filters are not enabled by default, but can be easily. Customizing filters is also very easy, assuming you know some basic wildcards.

Instapaper and Twitter are supported via modules. Modules are similar to Firefox’s extensions, but much simpler. They are more like bookmarklets on steroids. iCab does not have a very large collection of modules right now, but it does have a fairly simple tutorial on how to develop them. The repository has modules for jumping to the bottom of the page or the top of the page, and a handful of others, but if someone whips up a Readability module, I think that will have all the important stuff covered.

iCab may not be for everyone, since not everyone is going to need all of the features. I’ve just touched on some of the features that I’ve found useful, I didn’t even mention ScrollPad (place three fingers on the screen to scroll super fast!), the multiple privacy options, support for downloading files and opening them in another installed app, import and export of bookmarks, or full screen and kiosk mode. iCab is $1.99 in the App Store for a universal iPad/iPhone app. If you care about your browsing experience on the iPad, go get it.

First of all, let me be clear: Opera Mini will never replace mobile Safari on the iPhone. Not, at least, until Apple makes available to users the ability to switch which apps open by default when performing certain actions. As long as Safari is the default web browser across the platform, Opera Mini really can’t be much more than a well-executed novelty.

I did however say well executed. Using Opera Mini is definitely a pleasurable experience. From the snappy loading times that come from having the pages pre-rendered on Opera’s servers and pushed out to the phone at lightning speeds, to the pop-up tab drawer that gives you a quick glance at what you’ve got open without having to scroll through pages, viewing them one at a time as you do with Mobile Safari, Opera Mini is designed from the ground up with the aim of improving web browsing on the iPhone in mind.

There are other great features you won’t find in Safari as well. Like the speed dial home screen, which, if you’re not familiar with Opera, resembles what Chrome looks like by default when it first boots up. You can assign sites you visit frequently to appear in the speed dial view, so it’s like having instant access to your bookmarks. You can also sync your speed dial, bookmarks and installed search engines from the desktop version of Opera.

Very handy things like the ability to save pages for offline reading and a find in page function also make Opera Mini shine on the iPhone platform, but still, it’s the rare occasion these days when I’m firing up a browser on my device unprompted by another app. Generally speaking, Safari opens on my iPhone because a link in a Twitter or Facebook app has caused it to do so.

If you are still going to install and use Opera, and I recommend that you do, if only to prove to Apple that its users would very much appreciate browser choice on the platform, there are some neat things you can do by accessing the advanced settings. To do this, simply type “config:” into your Opera address bar. This will bring you to a Power-User settings page, where you can tweak options like whether or not Opera will automatically fit text to your screen, change the loading timeout, and set the minimum length for phone number detection.

Use it, enjoy it, and rate it highly in the App Store, but if you’re like me, Opera Mini won’t be much more than a show piece until Apple allows users to change their default browser, which, I’m guessing, will be never. 

The free browser application, which prides itself on its speed, was sent off to Apple for approval on March 23, nearly three weeks ago, and at the time many were unsure as to what Apple’s final decision would be. Therefore, today’s decision comes as somewhat of a welcome surprise.

But does this move display a possible turn in Apple’s strict policy on not allowing apps that compete with the pre-installed software applications, in this case Safari? It would seem not, as Opera has cleverly made its browser just different enough to not upset the guys in Cupertino. Unlike Safari, Opera Mini does not make use of the WebKit engine, instead, the new mobile browser loads websites via a proxy, which in turn means pages are not rendered directly on the device itself, bypassing any possible problems Apple may have with how code is seen.

Opera’s proxy compresses up-to 90 percent of data, resulting in a faster load time. The app also promises to reduce bandwidth consumption. In addition to packing in attractive speed features, the app also boasts a feature similar to that of Safari’s Top Sites. Known as Speed Dial, the feature offers visual access to nine of your favorite sites.

Whether this will open the app store up to more browser choice is yet to be seen, but the introduction of Opera’s browser to the store is an interesting one. You can find out more about Opera’s journey to the app store in Liam’s post.

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I don’t use any browser on my iPhone other than Mobile Safari. And, unless you have a jailbroken iPhone, neither do you.

That’s because Apple’s webkit-powered Mobile Safari provides the browser engine for all the iPhone’s various windows onto the Interweb. So, whether you’re viewing a webpage from inside Tweetie 2, Instapaper or any one of the multitude of apps that allow for in-app web browsing, you’re using Mobile Safari.

Back in early February at the Mobile World Congress, Opera showed off an iPhone version of their mobile browser, Opera Mini, to a select group of reporters and tech-pundits. That left me a little confused; how could they produce a real browser, built from the ground-up, using its own in-house rendering engine, without breaking the rules?

You see, Apple has a strict rule that native applications are not permitted to reproduce the functionality offered by the iPhone out-of-the-box. That’s why you don’t see a third-party Camera app that doesn’t also offer some kind of additional “unique” functionality you wouldn’t get by simply using Apple’s own Camera software. The same goes for email applications, phone applications, iPod-like applications… you get the idea. Anything you can think of that seems similar to an Apple-made app likely is considered just different enough to be approved.

Opera’s Partner Manager Phillip Grønvold told Wired;

There are two reasons why we are confident that Opera Mini will met [sic] the requirements of the App Store…

One, our compression technology imposes limitations on what the browser can do — Opera doesn’t render rich, content-heavy documents like Safari does.

Two, Opera Mini does not actually render HTML on the device, it uses a custom binary representation of the website. We believe these technical differences make Opera Mini sufficiently different to Safari to be made available on the App Store.

So, let’s get this straight; the Opera Mini web browser doesn’t actually render HTML? Web pages are converted from HTML into some other markup (compatible only with Opera Mini) and then the ‘browser’ delivers a sub-par browsing experience? Presumably that’s what Grønvold means when he says Opera Mini ‘…doesn’t render rich, content-heavy documents’. It renders something less than you’d get normally. But, according to Wired’s Michael Conroy, it is fast. So, I guess that’s something. But… it’s something less than you’d normally get. It’s just a thought, but, wasn’t that the problem with phones before the iPhone? They delivered less than the best? I’m just saying…

With this in mind, the question shouldn’t really be “will Apple approve it” but rather, should we care about it in the first place?

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never considered Mobile Safari unacceptably slow. My Internet connection has sometimes been slow, but that’s not the fault of Mobile Safari — which dutifully renders what it can, when it can. And you know, even when my throughput is a bit meager, I’d rather wait the additional seconds for the full-quality I’ve come to expect from Mobile Safari. Otherwise, what’s the point in owning an iPhone, if I’m only going to use apps that deliver pre-iPhone results?

And, while I’m on the subject of connectivity; in areas where my coverage is very limited and my iPhone can barely hold on to a simple GPRS signal, I simply don’t bother surfing the web. It’s an exercise in frustration. A hyper-optimised, super-fast alternative browser might seem like an attractive solution to someone who often finds themselves with limited throughput, but really, wouldn’t most people just wait until they get a stronger signal? Or, even better, access to a Wi-Fi network?

I know I haven’t tried it yet, I’m going by what Grønvold showed-off at the MWC —  but I just don’t see that it offers much in the way of utility and quality. Fart apps and Bikini apps also don’t offer much in the way of utility and quality… but look at what’s happening to them…

So, will Apple approve Opera Mini? I doubt it. It doesn’t matter that it renders web pages in some special way, it’s still a browser.

That won’t stop the wider tech press turning this into something it’s not. If it is approved, there’ll be talk of how it signifies this or indicates that and someone will claim this in some way ‘proves’ Apple and its iPhone are losing their sparkle… Walt Mosspuppet (the only technology journalist in the world) has this to say on the (unlikely) possibility of Apple approving Opera Mini;

…it would be great if their app makes it onto the store. After all, there are all sorts of big bets I win once I can show evidence that Hell’s frozen over, and Apple allowing another browser on the iPhone might just do it.

If (and when) Opera Mini doesn’t get approved, Apple will be criticized for… well, all the usual. Just fill in the blanks yourself, you know the words to this song by now. Ultimately, some kind of drama will be invented. It always is.

Do you want a different browser on the iPhone? And if you do, is Opera Mini the replacement you’ve been waiting for? Why? For goodness’ sake, why! Get sharing in the comments below.

Historically I have always been a loyal Safari user. Sure, I’ve flirted with Firefox occasionally, but I always came back to Safari eventually. I’m afraid, however, that I’ve finally found a browser that has led me to leave Safari for good: Google Chrome.

I started using Chromium, the open-sourced branch of the browser, a few months ago and switched to the developer branch of Chrome when it got support for extensions. Even though the Beta version of Chrome for the Mac now has extensions support I’m sticking with the developer branch just because I like getting new goodies before other people.

Whatever version of Chrome you’re using on the Mac, you now have access to most of the features that people will want from a browser, so if you’re ready to take the plunge and make Chrome your default browser here, are a few hints and tips from you from someone who’s been using it for a while now.

Set up custom search engines

A feature that’s been available on other browsers for a long time but was always missing from Safari is the ability to set up custom search engines. This allows you to directly search websites, Google Images, Yahoo etc., by using keywords in your search. In Google Chrome you can set this up by right clicking on the address bar and select Edit Search Engines… from the list. If you’ve been using Chrome for a while you’ll notice that several websites have already been populated, this is because Chrome automatically adds any search engines you use to the list.

To make any search engine easily accessible double-click on it and change its keyword to something easy to remember, such as fb for Facebook. From now on you can use that specific search engine by entering the keyword first in the address bar and then entering your search query.

Sync your bookmarks with Safari and the iPhone

If you’re an iPhone user, one of the problems with switching away from Safari is that your new browser doesn’t synchronize bookmarks with your phone. Thankfully the Xmarks extension offers a handy workaround since it will synchronize both your Chrome and Safari bookmarks with the cloud. Thus when you make a change to your bookmarks in Chrome it will automatically synchronize with Safari and by extension the iPhone.

Get 1Password into Chrome

1Password is my go to password manager and not having it in Chrome was a pain. Thankfully the helpful folks over at Agile are working on an alpha as we speak, and even though it’s not perfect yet, it’s good enough for me to use it on a daily basis. To use the extension you’ll need to download the latest beta build of 1Password, which you can do from your update settings in the program. You can get the 1Password alpha extension here. If you’d prefer to avoid alpha software, which is certainly something to consider, there’s also this workaround available until we get a final shipping version.

Keep track of your tabs

If you’re anything like my wife, your browser windows quickly become crowded with tabs. Finding the exact page you’re looking for is difficult when those tabs shrink down to the size of a thimble. Thankfully there are a variety of tab management extensions available for Chrome. I’ve gone through almost all of them, and have found some unstable and some just plain ugly, but I can heartily endorse VerticaTabs, which is both simple and stable.

Get rid of unresponsive tabs

One of Google Chrome’s most interesting features is that each tab is an independent process. With Safari when a tab became completely unresponsive I was often forced to relaunch the entire browser. With Chrome, however, you can use the built-in Task Manager to get rid of a tab, even if clicking on it does nothing.

Simply go to View > Developer > Task Manager to see a list of all processes, including your extensions. Pick the offending tab from the list and press the End Process button. Please note that you may need to be on the developer branch of Google Chrome to use this feature, as I’m not sure it’s been added to the Beta version.

Get on the developer channel of Chrome

Speaking of the developer channel, if you’re willing to put up with some risk and want Google Chrome goodies before the more stable Beta channel gets them, then you can switch to the developer channel. The developer channel is a bit more stable than the Chromium nightly builds, which include all the latest updates to the open-source version of Chrome, but I can’t promise it won’t crash on you.

While the debate over Mac versus PC will last for eternity, one of the elements that many “diehard” PC users have thrown at Apple fanboys is the ability to really tweak their experience, through application add-ons and plugins.

Mac users who use Firefox have had a little taste of this with Greasemonkey, a Firefox add-on that allows support for on the fly changes to websites. If you haven’t heard of Greasemonkey, this is a must read for you and if your browser of choice isn’t Firefox, we’ll show you how to install its equivalent, GreaseKit with Safari.

What Is Greasemonkey?

Greasemonkey is an add-on for browsers that allow users to install “scripts” that are fine tuned to affect how different websites function. For example, if you’re a person who uses MySpace and really hates how the login page is full of ads, you can install a script that adjusts the display of the page when it loads and gives you a cleaner experience.

Cleaning up MySpace is just the beginning; there are scripts for just about everything. If you’re not a fan of the default Gmail web interface, you can use a script that declutters it.

But it’s not just about changing the look and feel of a website; there are scripts that remove content like ads and scripts that add functionality, like a script that lets you add notes to entries in your Netflix queue.

Installing GreaseKit in Safari

While Greasemonkey is an easy add-on if you use Firefox, you can also use similar add-ons in Safari. For Safari users, begin by downloading SIMBL and install it. Then download GreaseKit and install the bundle file inside to ~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins. If this folder doesn’t exist, just add it before dropping the file inside.

Next, relaunch Safari and, provided things worked well, you’ll see a new menu entry for GreaseKit. Now go find some scripts (see below) and click “Install This Script” to copy it into GreaseKit. You’ll see the JavaScript flash on screen and eventually it should be added to your GreaseKit menu.

Getting Scripts

There are a variety of places to find the scripts that integrate with Greasemonkey or GreaseKit. Userscripts.org is perhaps the largest of these and an excellent place to start. I urge caution though as these scripts can become dated when the websites they affect are updated. Also, because you’re not running the scripts in Greasemonkey on Firefox for Windows (where they are usually tested), the add-ons may not function exactly as described. This is likely to happen in Safari if the script is overly complex, requiring additional interfaces to manage it.

Here are the scripts I’ve discussed in this article:

• Netflix Notes
• MySpace Clean Redesigned Login and Logout
• Simplify Gmail

You also might enjoy the Unfriend Finder for Facebook that lets you know when (and who) has unfriended you. This particular script doesn’t work well in Safari, so I recommend using it in Firefox.

Have you found any good scripts? Feel free to use the comments below and let us know what you think.

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I’m going to try my best to use Chrome as my default browser for a decent length of time, in order to give it a fair shake. But I am a little worried about potential feature scarcity. As has been reported before, the Chrome beta is missing some things that its Windows counterpart offers. Below is a brief list of what’s been omitted, and why it worries me that some of these things aren’t there with this new beta.

• App Mode: One of Chrome’s greatest strengths is its ability to create Fluid-like single site browser instances that work more like apps than websites. It’s great for Gmail, Google Docs, and any other web app that has its own dashboard, menus, etc. The option is there, it’s just grayed out for now.
• Gears: I know Gears is dead in general, as per a recent announcement, but for now the existing implementation is much appreciated. I’d like to hold on to it as long as possible, pending HTML 5′s gradual rollout, but the Chrome Beta isn’t onboard.
• Multi-touch Gestures: Both the trackpad and the Magic Mouse’s multi-touch gestures won’t work in this beta of Chrome. That’s a big omission when you’ve become as dependent on multi-touch as I have, especially in terms of mobile computing.
• 64-bit Support: Chrome is 32-bit only, despite Snow Leopard’s focus on 64-bit performance. It’s not a major strike against it, since the browser is still blazingly fast in my experience, but it could become an issue down the road if Google doesn’t give its browser a bump up.

There are other things I’ve left off my list, like full-screen browsing, for the simple fact that I don’t use them that often and they probably won’t affect my experience. And despite my complaints about what isn’t in this beta, what is there is very impressive indeed. The speed with which Chrome renders pages never ceases to impress, no matter how many times I take the browser out for a spin on either Windows or Mac machines.

Tabs also still do run as isolated processes, which is the major advantage Chrome brought to the table in the first place. Now when I have 57 tabs open across five windows on three screens, a badly coded Flash ad on one of them won’t force me to start fresh. Wait, that might not be a good thing…

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