Could be the best new browser since Firefox 1.0.
by AC - permalink
First things first: Orca 1.0 RC3 is incredibly stable for what it is - Avant Browser's UI grafted onto the Gecko engine. That's especially impressive considering this is basically being coded by one guy, and testing has been limited to a single forum thread. A few other notes and thoughts:
Big chunks of code seem to have been lifted directly from Avant Browser, including the bookmarks system. Orca imports Internet Explorer favorites and Links (analogous to Firefox's Bookmarks toolbar items), and uses AB's manager. Which means it can't import bookmarks from Fx, Opera, or anything else except IE. Big problem there.
With minor tweaks, the preferences interface is identical to AB's as well. Hopefully this will be overhauled in the future, as the prefwindow has always been one of Avant's weakest points. It's cluttered and haphazardly organized.
Orca uses AB's kickass little customizable tab controls toolbar. It's one of my all-time favorite browser UI elements, but it still can't be placed on the tab bar itself.
The integrated RSS viewer is solid. Much better than Opera's mail-based reader, but not yet as good as the Sage extension for Firefox.
Built-in adblocking is iffy. There's a solid wildcarded blacklist in place, but AB's context-menu option for adding an image/address to the blacklist is missing. Not a deal-killer, but irritating.
The various toolbars can be rearranged and resized as easily as IE's, but they tend to be jumpy and don't always hold position when the window is maximized/restored. Still a lot more stable than Maxthon, but not as solid as Firefox in that respect. At this early stage in Orca's development, it's the price paid for all that layout flexibility.
Orca is a cool name. And the artwork is nice - but not as good as SeaMonkey's. You can't fight the awesome power of the brine shrimp, Anderson. I'm sorry, but it just can't be done. Hopefully that reads somewhat ironic.
by AC - permalink
First things first: Orca 1.0 RC3 is incredibly stable for what it is - Avant Browser's UI grafted onto the Gecko engine. That's especially impressive considering this is basically being coded by one guy, and testing has been limited to a single forum thread. A few other notes and thoughts:
Big chunks of code seem to have been lifted directly from Avant Browser, including the bookmarks system. Orca imports Internet Explorer favorites and Links (analogous to Firefox's Bookmarks toolbar items), and uses AB's manager. Which means it can't import bookmarks from Fx, Opera, or anything else except IE. Big problem there.
With minor tweaks, the preferences interface is identical to AB's as well. Hopefully this will be overhauled in the future, as the prefwindow has always been one of Avant's weakest points. It's cluttered and haphazardly organized.
Orca uses AB's kickass little customizable tab controls toolbar. It's one of my all-time favorite browser UI elements, but it still can't be placed on the tab bar itself.
The integrated RSS viewer is solid. Much better than Opera's mail-based reader, but not yet as good as the Sage extension for Firefox.
Built-in adblocking is iffy. There's a solid wildcarded blacklist in place, but AB's context-menu option for adding an image/address to the blacklist is missing. Not a deal-killer, but irritating.
The various toolbars can be rearranged and resized as easily as IE's, but they tend to be jumpy and don't always hold position when the window is maximized/restored. Still a lot more stable than Maxthon, but not as solid as Firefox in that respect. At this early stage in Orca's development, it's the price paid for all that layout flexibility.
Orca is a cool name. And the artwork is nice - but not as good as SeaMonkey's. You can't fight the awesome power of the brine shrimp, Anderson. I'm sorry, but it just can't be done. Hopefully that reads somewhat ironic.
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