Camino 2 beta 1 is available now
Yesterday, the Camino team released the firs beta version of its Gecko-based web browser, Camino 2. Camino is a real treat for Mac users, because it combines Firefox's rendering engine with the native polish of Safari. The first alpha of Camino 2 was released in October, and the beta fixes a number of bugs, adds new features and offers better stability.The big change with Camino 2 is that it is now based on Gecko 1.9 - the same version that Firefox 3 uses. With the retirement of Firefox 2 and the end of security updates, the Camino teams seems to be working hard to get the next version out as soon as possible,
The new stuff in the beta:
- You can now rearrange tabs by dragging and dropping
- The nifty Tab Overview view has an optional toolbar icon
- You can block Flash animations on a site-by-site basis
- The "Downloads" stack will bounce in the dock when a download finishes
- Support for JavaScript 1.8
In the last day, I've found Camino 2 to be stable enough for high usage -- but as with all beta software, there are some bugs.
You can download the Camino 2 beta 1 here.
[via VentureBeat]












Comments
4
Subscribe to commentsPatrick72Dec 28th 2008 5:58AM
I'm a Windows kid and not an Apple user but I know Mozilla offers Firefox 3 for the Mac OSX system.
So why should an Apple user use this Camino 2 (which is "based on Firefox 3 / Gecko 1.9") instead of the real Firefox 3?
And accepts Camino 2 all available Firefox 3 extensions?
Ryan KarolakJan 1st 2009 2:42AM
Camino is ideal for people who want a light-weight browser that focuses on low resources and speed. Because this is the focus, Camino is quicker than Firefox and uses less resources. If someone wants something simple, quick, or has an older Mac they may choose Camino over Firefox.
MzngDec 30th 2008 11:36AM
Because it is not made for Mac.
GrantFeb 18th 2009 5:48PM
Camino is a filly developed web browser in it's own right. It is not simply a cheap cheerful cut-down browser. There are certainly features that it lacks, and save Java issues have been overdue for correction. Nonetheless Camino is one of the best, if not the best browser on the Macintosh.
It brings FireFox's excellent web page compatibility to the Mac in a way FireFox itself failed to, owing to it not being a truly native "Mac" application.
FireFox is not able to access useful Mac technologies such as the system services, meaning things like text to speech is not available.
Camino however is a native Mac OS X binary in the genuine sense of the term. It is able to use the underlying frameworks in OS X to bend the web experience to the modern OS X users will.
Camino browser is my preferred browser on OS X, as it combines the native experience of a Mac application, with the worlds best rendering engine. Something no other browser on the Mac has yet accomplished.
Grant.