iCab goes WebKit

Via Gus Mueller's web site, I just found out that iCab has switched to WebKit.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. I loved iCab when it came out, it was the best, and most noticeably fastest Mac browser out there for a while, but then it kind of stagnated. I hope this will mean a new lease on life for the little browser that could. On the other hand, it's the death of one of the last rendering engines. There's pretty much only WebKit (nee KDE's KHTML), Gecko (from Netscape Navigator/Mozilla) and the IE engine (based off of the trusty old Mosaic source base). I think there's a few smaller ones still out there, but both OmniWeb and iCab, the last Mac-only engines, have now been effectively absorbed into the mothership.

Not sure I like that monoculture, though I hope Alexandre Clauss and the Omni folks will now be contributing to WebKit and improving life for all of us.

Reader Comments: (RSS Feed)

Jonathan Johnson writes: Don't forget Opera. There are hardcore fans on the desktop, albeit few and far between. However, it's a booming mobile/embedded browser.

Ahruman writes: Well, there’s Opera. OK, so its market share is smaller than IE 5’s. But hey, people have heard of it.

Uli Kusterer replies: ★ Good point. Opera. That one had slipped my mind at that moment.

Jeff writes: Yes, Opera seems to slip through most peoples perception cracks, perhaps because (unlike IE, Safari and Firefox), it doesn't seem to feature in anyones 'exploit of the week' lists Has there ever been an Opera-only exploit?

Dan writes: Makes me wonder what will happen to the code. iCab even ran on 68k macs. Ought to be able to whip up some kind of build for some smartphone.

David writes: and iCab (now) can run nicely on webkit nightlies - giving you that 100/100 Acid3 feeling ;) (Click on my name for the launcher app.)

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