Bye Chimera, thanks for trying
As posted on Slashdot (ugh!), Mike Pinkerton, the lead developer of Chimera is thinking about stopping development on Chimera, now that Apple has released Safari.
I'm torn about what to do with Chimera. It's obvious it will only ever be a marginal product on a even more marginal platform.
Is Chimera's usefulness at an end? That's hard to say. Personally, I've stopped using it, which is saying a lot since I REALLY miss tabbed browsing.
What does this mean for Mozilla as a whole? Not a lot. Many people have claimed that Apples introduction of Safari is bad news for Mozilla, but really, don't Mac's only account for about 3% of browser market share? The real battle is still on Windows, where it is still very much an IE vs. Mozilla battle.
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This is a *very* bad thing. Mozilla is a great browser, but it ships with all of that excess rubbish like mail and irc clients. Chimera offered the browsing component but allowed you to chose a mail client of your own, like Apple Mail or Microsoft Entourage.
I like Safari when I don't have to use the bloody thing. Sure, it's a good job for a first try and beta, but it's rubbish compared to Chimera. No tabs, no tab groups and a very rigid interface which only allows limited customization. Oh yes, and no nightly builds. =(
Why does Mozilla development have to be an "IE vs." thing? Why can't it simply be the creation of a great browser with features that people want? I think the perspective that open source development is simply anti-MS is short sighted...
I've stopped using Chimera too... for mozilla proper... theres a few things i like about Chimera over moz but theres a few features I missed when i switched... particularly the link tool bar and some of the context menus (like blocking images from server)
I tried using Safari... but it wasn't the tabs i found myself missing... but the bookmark keywords... like other apple apps (mail.app for one) it does a fine job accomplishing the task at hand but I'm looking for more then just the basics
I think the whole IE / Mozilla / Chimera / Netscape ect. thing is over rated. We're missing the point here and that point is :
It shouldn't matter what browser you are using or what platform be it in windows, linux, ps2 or your cellphone as the web site will display properly as long as it uses modern standards compliant technology like XHTML.
Who cares if someone uses Mozilla, Opera, IE6 or Safari as long as its standards compliant.
Mike Pinkerton has stated today that Chimera development will continue.
Chimera is faster enough. If it wants to get recognition, it needs to change its awful and useless user interface.
Remember, you are developing software for Apple's users, they doesn't eat shit.
Isn't Chimera still a beta? Myself, I made the leap from IE on Mac OS X to Mozilla to Chimera (maybe losing a couple of features like ad blocking but nothing major), and then I downloaded Safari and I've stuck with Chimera. Even as beta software, Chimera deals with 100% of my needs. Safari doesn't (the tabs, I admit, are a major sticking point).
I would presume that Safari will have tabs soon. And it's faster, but then I'm happy with Chimera's speed (and I have a dial-in 56k connection). And Safari's brushed metal look annoys me.
It could take Apple a long time to achieve the same level of standards compliance that Chimera (and Mozilla) has. That's what is most important to me, as a user and a developer. I don't think I'll be chucking Chimera any time soon. I hope that the development continues.
What is it with the tabs?
I generally use Netscape 7, which is tabbed-browsing compliant... So i thought i'd give it a try for a while, and then for a couple of days, i kept "tabbrowsing", over and over again... And i still can't see the point...
I can imagine why people want speed, or web-standards compliance, but, tabs?... Uh?
Would you be kind enough to explain clearly the advantages you see in tabbed-browsing?
tabs allow you to avoid cluttering your desktop with unwanted windows. they allow you to quickly compare information or data without having to flick between windows. you only have to have one program open in your taskbar (if you're a windows user). should you have a lesser computer (say, 700MHz or less) then having lots of windows open can be a pain. tabs cut down on processing power. it's something like 16mb of ram that every open ie window uses to account for bad markup, or something - this is cut down on significantly by having just one window open.
plus, it looks really really cool.
I completely agree with the spike comments above. Tabbed browsing has become a necessity for me - they allow me to work fast by concentrating my work space into one defined area, instead of dealing with 5 or ten different browser windows open at once.
Tabbed browsing is the bomb. So much time saved. Tried Safari (still use for testing), but I can't resist the tabs.
Please continue development of Chimera. It's simple, compliant, and fast, just the way a browser should be. For some reason I keep coming back to it after trying everything else. I think that's the mark of a good product.
Though I use Macs predominantly, I also have a Win2k machine, and I think Safari is a worthy opponent to Chimera, however, I think that IE is a nobody compared to Pheonix. I used to use Mozilla all the time, but after Chimera and Pheonix, I realised that it's kinda overrated, and sort of an old, bloated fart.
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