Blue Crab

Commercial; $25

Current Version: 4.9.10 (July 28, 2008) / 1.0.1 "Lite" (January 30, 2008)

Limit Point Software produces Blue Crab, a "high-performance crawler for intranets and the Internet" that allows you to index Web content in a manner similar to the way the big search engines do it.

Version 4.9.10 includes the following enhancements:

• The login username and password in the Batch Download window are now saved (with the password saved to the Keychain) then restored whenever the window or program are re-opened.

A Lite version of the software (part of Limit Point's all-in-one utility pack) is also available. This is essentially a stripped down version of Blue Crab that you use to download websites. It was created for those who don't need all the bells and whistles of Blue Crab, derived from its "Quick Grabber" feature.

Camino

Open source; $0

Current Version: 1.0.4 (March 8, 2007) / 1.6.3 (August 8, 2008)

Camino (formerly Chimera) is an interesting beast. Basically, it's a streamlined version of the Mozilla web browser for Mac OS X, but with a twist: the back-end of the program utilizes Mac OS X's UNIX layer (including the Berkeley Standard Distribution networking stack) for speed and stability, and the front end (the user interface) is programmed using Cocoa, Mac OS X's object oriented programming interface.

What's the point? Speed - blazing speed. Camino is generally as fast as any Windows browser at loading individual pages - and that's a real treat. Camino is only a browser (no mail and news capabilities), yet that adds to its elegance and efficiency. Because the core code is based upon Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine, it behaves smoothly and maturely. As of version 1.0 and many, many years of development and "pre-1.0" status, it also has finally gained most of the preference-setting capabilities that users expect from a mature web browser (with some hidden preferences, to boot).

Version 1.6.3 is available for Mac OS X 10.3 and later, making many enhancements, including:

• Upgraded to version 1.8.1.16 of the Mozilla Gecko rendering engine, which includes several critical security and stability fixes.

The release notes further explain the items that are new.

(Version 1.0.4 remains available for Mac OS X 10.2.)

Camino was the first Gecko-based browser to run natively on Intel-based Macs, and I recommend that users of these Macs take the program out for a spin to see how it performs.

Why don't I make Camino a Drew's Pick? Well, principally because I think it's still lacking in some of Firefox's key configurability and extensibility, and I feel that there are still a few rough edges in its performance (for instance, Caming sometimes slows down when loading multiple tabs at once, and at least some key speed optimizations that have made it into Firefox - such as smoother support for the "general.smoothScroll" preference - remain to be optimized in Camino). That said, I'm keeping an eye on it; stay tuned...

ContentBarrier

Commercial; $59.95

Current Version: "X4" (10.4.4) (October 26, 2007)

Intego, Inc. produces the ContentBarrier Internet content filtering software for parents. The "Classic" Mac OS version is no longer available for purchase, although updaters are still available for download (see below).

Features include:

• Multiple users - if you have several children, you can adjust the settings for their age and maturity
• Multiple levels of protection
• Pre-determined categories for safe and easy content filtering
• Limit Internet access by day and time
• Anti-predator function to block predatory language in chat sessions
• Keep a detailed log of each user's Internet sessions
• Traffic data recorded for an overview of Internet use
• Automatic updates with Intego's NetUpdate function
• Password protection to prevent unauthorized users from changing program settings
• Automatic e-mail notification of certain events

Version "X4" (10.4) introduced the following new features:

• New interface
• New assistant simplifies user configuration
• Overview screen shows all user settings
• Blocks streaming media
• Blocks peer-to-peer software
• Blocks chats and e-mail
• Application blocking
• Start and stop time limits from the Intego menu
• More protocols filtered for total protection
• Instant authorization for blocked sites
• Compatible with Intel-based Macs
• Updates via NetUpdate X4
• User manual in the Help menu
• Add user photos for easy recognition and configuration
• Optimized for Tiger

Version 10.4.4 adds/changes the following:

• This release includes minor bug fixes and insures compatibility with the next major release of Mac OS X.

DansGuardian

See text.

Current Version: 2.8.0 (July 27, 2004)

DansGuardian is an award winning web content filtering proxy for Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS X, HP-UX, and Solaris that uses Squid to do all the fetching. It filters using multiple methods. These methods include URL and domain filtering, content phrase filtering, PICS filtering, MIME filtering, file extension filtering, POST limiting. The content phrase filtering will check for pages that contain profanities and phrases often associated with pornography and other undesirable content. The POST filtering allows you to block or limit web upload. The URL and domain filtering is able to handle huge lists and is significantly faster than squidGuard. The filtering has configurable domain, user and source ip exception lists. SSL Tunneling is supported. The configurable logging produces a log in an easy to read format which has the option to only log the text-based pages, thus significantly reducing redundant information such as every image on a page. Pretty much all parts of DansGuardian are configurable thus giving the end administrator user total control over what is filtered and not some third-party company.

DansGuardian 2 is:

• free for non-commercial use
• not free for installation by 3rd parties charging for installation or support
• not free for commercial use
• licensed under the GPL

Daydreamer

Shareware; $20

Current Version: 2.1.2 (July 2, 2007)

Daydreamer is a useful Webcam application that allows you to continuously display pictures stored at a particular web address and track them for updates.

Daydreamer author Donald E. Carlile puts it best: "Perhaps you want to keep track of the weather or freeway conditions. Or maybe you just like satellite pictures. There are many changing pictures that are pointed to by unchanging URLs on the Internet. Of course, you can use a web browser to view the pictures, but it's a pain to keep refreshing the picture, and it's overkill to use a big footprint web browser to view a little picture. That's where Daydreamer comes in. Daydreamer will display a picture pointed to by a URL and update it as often as you like. Daydreamer will handle several pictures at once. What's more, you can have Daydreamer make time lapse movies of the URL picture, adding a new frame to a movie each time the picture is refreshed. Daydreamer is AppleScript-able, which adds to its versatility. With sample scripts provided with the distribution, you can view slide shows of picture folders on your computer, or even make those slide shows into QuickTime movies."

Daydreamer 2.1.2 adds/changes the following:

• Greatly improves memory performance.

GURL Watcher

Commercial; $19.95

Current Version: 1.0.1 (May 24, 2002) / 2.1.1 (October 24, 2005)

Quicomm produces GURL Watcher, a system that can be used by parents to monitor the web pages that their children have visited.

Version 1.0.1 - the latest release for "Classic" Mac OS - Added seconds to URL capture time and made a Preferences file (for easier updating).

Version 2.1.1 - the latest release for Mac OS X - is a bug fix release; GURL Watcher can now be force quit from the GURL Watcher Setup application by simply turning it off once, then again using the "Turn Off" button (that is click the "Turn Off" button twice, with a slight pause between clicks). This will eliminate some "hanging" problems which can be experienced if a SMTP server is not currently available and you want to immediately terminate the background application.

iCab

Shareware; $25

Current Version: 3.0.5 (January 1, 2008) / 4.1.1 (May 5, 2008)

iCab is a feature-packed browser that does just about everything that Netscape Communicator and MSIE do (except for email and Usenet news), while offering a legion of features that aren't supported by many other browsers, such as:

• Filtering advertising banners and much more - iCab can block undesirable images, it can also prevent pop-up windows containing advertising from opening automatically. It is very easy to modify these filters. Simply control-click on any image you wish to block in the future. Also many other settings can be automatically configured based on the URL of the page you're visiting, so you can have individual browser settings for different web site.
• Kiosk mode - While in Kiosk mode, iCab will cover the whole screen and all other applications are blocked. The Kiosk mode is the ideal environment when the computer is accessing a public place (like fairs, exhibitions, hotels etc.) where users should be able to obtain information, yet prevent any external access to your system. Additionally, the access can be restricted to certain pages (even refusing referrals, if you choose).
• Error protocol (Smiley) - iCab records all HTML errors of Web pages. A smiley-face will indicate if the HTML code is OK (has no HTML errors, or hazards). In such sites, the smiley face will be green (and smiling). Errors make the smiling face red and sad. By clicking the red smileys, iCab will open a window where all the errors are identified with a small description. At http://validator.w3.org/ you can also test web pages using the official validator of the W3C.
• Portable web archives - HTML pages can be stored in a compact ZIP-file, including all images of the page. The advantage of the ZIP format is that you can use it under DOS/Windows, Unix/Linux -and nearly all other operating systems as well. The ZIP archive uses highly efficient compression, to save hard disk space.
• Download manager - HTML pages can be downloaded automatically. This allows you to access the content off-line at your convenience, without having to go online again. The download specifications are highly configurable: The path/depth of downloaded files can be configured to get (only) the specified file, all linked files, all html, all images, all files on the same site, or even all linked files from all external linked sites. Additionally, you can exclude any specific file type(s)
• Link manager - When selecting this handy menu utility, a convenient split window opens with all page links identified and listed on the left side. Pick any link, and the respective site appears on the right side of the window. Using the link manager you can comfortably search through long lists of links (for example the result of a search engine) without the need to open any new windows. This way you can avoid sites you do not wish to visit, or information sources which are not be useful to you.
• Source code manager - When selecting this handy menu utility, the source code of a page will be displayed in any (chosen) editor, or directly in iCab. iCab can automatically reload and re-display the entire page whenever the HTML code is saved in the editor. You can easily access all files which are used in the current page from a list, where the files are sorted by type (images, HTML code, CSS code, JavaScript code, etc)
• No system extensions - iCab doesn't install any system extensions, does not create any "invisible files", and iCab doesn't modify the system or any system settings.
• Open web page in new window or tabs - With this command, a link can be opened in a new window or a new tab. New windows and tabs can be also opened in the background so that the main page remains on top and can be read first. When you are finished with the main page you can switch to the underlying pages, which will be fully loaded.
• Highly configurable - iCab is highly configurable. You can configure which Cookies should be accepted and which should be rejected. You can select which menu items are displayed in the contextual menu. Utilizing Apple "Text-to-Speech", web pages can be read aloud.

iCab supports Java, JavaScript/ECMAScript, plug-ins, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). It also prints Web pages with more intelligence than either of the "big boys," providing not only a feature-filled print preview, but allowing the proper printout of backgrounds and transparent graphics. It is - without a doubt - the most customizable and flexible browser available for the Mac. iCab's only down sides are its rendering speed (it's just not as fast as IE or Netscape) its incomplete/slightly buggy Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) support, which does continue to get better with each release.

iCab 4.0.0 was completely rewritten and is now based on Cocoa instead of Carbon. It is much faster than iCab 3, has a polished user interface, and includes some new features. iCab 4 is available as Universal Binary for all PowerPC and Intel Macs running Mac OS X 10.3.9 or newer. Version 4.1.1 makes the following additional changes:

• The GUI is now available in French as well, and the help files in English.
• The Tab Overview is a feature similar to Exposé but for Tabs.
• Support for Geo Tagged web pages.
• The automatic form fill out feature has some more options.
• The contextual menu can now be opened without the need to hold down the control key even with a single-button mouse.
• Many other improvements
• Many bugfixes

iCab 3.0.5 is only recommended if you're still using an older version of Mac OS X (older than 10.3.9) or if your still using the "Classic" Mac OS. When using a Mac with G4, G5 or Intel processor and Mac OS X 10.3.x or newer, the Universal Binary version should be used instead of the PowerPC version.

iCamMaster

Shareware; $15

Current Version: 1.9.5 (March 18, 2002) / 2.0 (April 19, 2007)

Webcams are fun, but they can get cumbersome and dreary if viewed from a regular web browser. iCamMaster is a very nice program that has been specially designed to browse Web cams all over the world from an easy-to-browse and attractive, flexible interface. Included are addresses to over 1000 Web cams; you can add as many of your own as you like, and it automatically alerts you whenever new cams are available (nice). iCamMaster requires OS 8 or later, and only runs on Power Macintoshes.

Version 1.9.5 - the latest version for "Classic" Mac OS - adds/changes the following:

• New option to display last modified date in local time instead of GMT.
• Torn off cams info (url,email, icq) can be edited.

Version 2.0 - the latest version for Mac OS X, and the first new non-beta release in over two and a half years - adds/changes the following:

• iCamMaster is now Universal Binary. Runs natively on both on PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs.
• Setting a cam as desktop picture now works on Mac OS X.
• Minor bugs fixed.
• New low registration price US$ 15.
• New since beta 1: Check Cams Window allows to check availability or outdated cams.
• New since beta 1: Cosmetic changes in the browser window.
• New since beta 1: Now dragging a webcam clip shows a translucent picture of the webcam instead of its frame.
• New since beta 1: Cosmetic changes in the Preferences dialog box.
• New since beta 1: Now its possible to select a notification sound for changes in NewCams or TopCams.
• New since beta 1: All oudated (more than one month) or unavailable bundled cams have been removed.
• New since beta 1: Fixed Printing.

Lynx

Open source; $0

Current Version: 2.8.5d16 (June 2, 2003) / 2.8.6 (June 7, 2007)

Lynx is a text-based Web browser that has its origins in the UNIX and DOS command-line worlds. Unlike the "Classic" Mac OS port MacLynx, this implementation of Lynx is kept relatively current, as it's simply a straight port to OS X's UNIX layer ("Darwin"). If you're a Web site developer, you should download this now so that you can dee how effectively your site designs "degrade" in the absence of imagery, styled text, scripting, and all of the other window dressing that graphical browsers bring to the table. But even mere mortals should have a copy of Lynx at hand to do no-nonsense browsing when time is of the essence.

Version 2.8.5d16 is the latest pre-built Mac OS X version of Lynx that is available with built-in SSL support; version 2.8.6d11 is the first "double-clickable" version of Lynx available for Mac OS X, but it doesn't provide SSL support.

Microsoft Internet Explorer

Freeware

Current Version: 5.1.7 / 5.2.3

Note: In accordance with published support lifecycle policies, Microsoft will end support for Internet Explorer for Mac on December 31st, 2005, and will provide no further security or performance updates. Additionally, as of January 31st, 2006, Internet Explorer for the Mac will no longer be available for download from Microsoft. Microsoft recommendeds that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple's Safari.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 had the distinction of being the most important piece of Macintosh Internet software that went nearly two years without an update. The good part was that it also shared the distinction of being the only piece of Macintosh Internet software that didn't need an update. IE 5 was quite thoroughly tested and tweaked before it was released, and while not completely perfect (what browser is?), it has worked remarkably smoothly since its release in March 2000.

The focus of the onslaught of recent (early to mid 2002) releases has been to make IE "much lighter on its feet, with plenty of bug fixes and impressive new stability and versatility," according to Microsoft. The most noticeable changes have been subtle:

• There are several new color schemes for the interface.
• There is a new preference panel called "Interface Extras" that allows you to control several aspects of the software's behavior, such as how the address bar behaves when you click into it.
• There is a new splash screen and "About" dialog box that match the Office X look and feel.
• Support for NTLM version 2 authentication.
• Support for Quartz font smoothing in Mac OS X.

Versions 5.1.7 (for "Classic" Mac OS) and 5.2.3 (for Mac OS X) provide all the latest security and performance enhancements (including the above) for Internet Explorer. These versions also enhance browser compatibility for users who work on a network with secure authentication or with proxy servers, and they will be the final versions of Internet Explorer for Mac OS and Mac OS X, respectively.

Most everything else is as it should be: left well-enough alone. The browser works quite smoothly, and the best features remain intact:

• A speedy rendering engine.
• An auction manager that lets you track your active auctions without actually having to visit the auction Web sites or wait for notification emails to be sent to you.
• A "scrapbook" that lets you save individual pages (frames, text, pictures, and all) for later, on- or off-line viewing.
• A very nice print preview capability.
• Forms Auto Fill.
• Self-repairing install.
• Very good support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and DHTML scripting.

Interesting historical tidbit: with all the bells and whistles in version 5.x, version 4.5 was actually in some ways a more significant release. The features it added (Print Preview, Forms Auto Fill, self-repairing install) were ground-breaking, and - although they are tweaked in 5.x - they owe their true heritage to version 4.5. The version 5.x series has been a highly successful exercise in refinement, which is refreshing in a world of daily bugfix updates.

IE's offline browsing and page saving capabilities are considerably more sophisticated than anything Netscape has ever offered. The ability to email links to friends or co-workers with a simple click of the mouse is a feature I once used several times a day.

But while IE was once "the browser of choice" on the Macintosh platform, it is no longer. As of mid 2003, Microsoft has pulled the plug on future development of this once- groundbreaking product. In the face of great browsers such as Mozilla (including Camino and Firefox) and Safari, that's not the awful news that it once would have been.

Mozilla

Open source; $0

Final Version: 1.7.13 (April 27, 2006) / 1.2.1 (December 3, 2002)

Mozilla was the original name for Netscape Navigator, back when it was first being developed in 1994 by Marc Andreesen and his friends from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA - the people who developed Mosaic, the world's first graphical web browser). The name was supposed to imply a supercharged, "Godzilla" version of Mosaic; Mozilla was forced to change its name to Netscape when the people at NCSA threatened to sue over trademark infringement. Behind the scenes, though, Netscape Navigator and Communicator have always been known as Mozilla; type "about:mozilla" into the "Location" field of any version of those browsers and you'll see evidence of that.

In the early 21st century, with the "Mosaic"-inspired name no longer an issue, Mozilla became the name of the open source project upon which the Netscape series of browsers was based. Continuously developed by programmers around the world rather than by just a handful at a large corporation, it changed constantly, and improved all the time.

Today, however, Mozilla is no longer under development, at least under the "Mozilla" moniker. The primary components of Mozilla - its web browser and email/Usenet client - were broken off into separate, optimized development efforts, known respectively as Firefox and Thunderbird. The combined application suite has, as of early 2006, been reincarnated as SeaMonkey, which I will be adding to the Orchard soon.

Nonetheless, I include Mozilla here for historic purposes, since people will still find it useful and functional for some time, and it represents one of the only opportunities for users of "Classic" Mac OS to access a more modern browser that is largely compatible with today's more advanced web standards.

While Mozilla 1.7.13 was a minor update to Mozilla 1.7 that added some security and stability fixes, version 1.7 made a huge number of feature and performance enhancements. The online release notes have the whole picture.

Mozilla is fast (once it's loaded, which can still take a while) at rendering web pages. Mozilla is a breath of fresh air, and while the interface elements seem a little slow compared to other browsers, pages render remarkably quickly. This latest release is more than worthy of your daily use. Two of my many criteria for determining a browser's usefulness are: 1) how long I keep it open for browsing before quitting out in frustration; and 2) how long it keeps itself open before crashing. Mozilla wins on both fronts. Download it and try it for yourself; I suspect you'll be pleasantly surprised.

FYI: If you use OS X and like Mozilla - but don't like the way it looks - you should proceed, posthaste, to download the Pinstripe Theme for Mozilla, which lets the browser breathe through a beautiful Aqua interface, just like all of your favorite OS X apps. Mozilla's just not complete without it.

Mozilla 1.7 requires a Mac OS X later to run (version 1.2.1 was the last "official" release for OS 9, although the Web and Mail Communicator Project has a modified, unofficial release of version 1.3.1 available for OS 9), and it comes with optionally-installable news, email, and IRC (yes, IRC; Mozilla includes an incomplete IRC client called "Chatzilla" rather than AOL Instant Messenger) components. The mail and news clients are surprisingly well thought-out and pleasant to use, although I will probably always maintain that it is better to use separate, dedicated email and newsreading software rather than taking a "swiss army knife" approach; the separate tools are still superior at what they do. (Personal note: this is why I actually use Firefox for my regular browsing rather than the combined Mozilla suite...for email, I use Eudora.)

Muffin

Current Version: 0.9.3a (April 4, 2000)

Muffin is an interesting beast. It's one of the few Java applications that I list on the Orchard (if I were to include every Java application that had useful Internet capability, I would never have time to maintain this site), and while its functionality is useful for users of all levels, installing and getting it up and running - while not difficult for experienced Mac users - is not for the faint of heart.

Basically, though, I include it here because it provides incredibly useful functionality that is not really provided by any other free Macintosh software.

Briefly, Muffin is a World Wide Web "filtering system" that acts as a proxy server to filter out content to your own specifications. It can be used to filter any or all of the following:

• animations
• cookies
• Java applets
• JavaScripts
• referer response information

 . . . and a whole lot more. Its core features include:

• Written entirely in Java. Requires JDK 1.1
• Runs on Unix, Windows 95/NT, and Macintosh.
• Freely available under the GNU General Public License.
• Support for HTTP/0.9, HTTP/1.0, HTTP/1.1, and SSL (https).
• Graphical user interface and command-line interface.
• Remote admin interface using HTML forms.
• Includes several filters which can remove cookies, kill GIF animations, remove advertisements, add/remove/modify arbitrary HTML tags (like blink), remove Java applets and JavaScript, user-agent spoofing, rewrite URLs, and much more.
• View all HTTP headers to aid in CGI development and debugging.
• Users can write their own filters in Java using the provided filter interfaces.

Figuring out how to run Muffin on Classic Mac OS from the instructions on its Web site is needlessly intimidating. To save you the trouble, I've written a simplified set of instructions here:

To use Muffin, you'll need the following downloads (all free):

1. Mac OS Runtime for Java (otherwise known as "MRJ" and available on the Orchard's Helper apps page).
2. Apple's MRJ Software Development Kit.
3. The muffin.jar Java archive (control-click and save to disk if you have trouble with this link).

Once you have the two Apple MRJ products installed, you'll need to:

1. Place the muffin.jar file into the place where you want it to reside permanently.
2. Drag muffin.jar onto the JBindery application (located in the MRJ SDK folder under Tools | Application Builders | JBindery).
3. Enter "org.doit.muffin.Main" in the Class name: field, then click on the Classpath icon to make sure that the muffin.jar file is in the class path.
4. Finally, using the File menu select Save As... to give it a name and save it as an application. That's it!

By the way: you'll never have to do this again; now, you'll be able to double-click on the applet whenever you want to use Muffin (but you'll have to be online for it to run).

In order to use Muffin, you'll have to configure your Web browser's proxy settings (dig around your browser's preferences to find this) to point to Muffin so that it can intervene between you and the Web (which is exactly what a proxy server does). This is accomplished by setting your proxy server address to 127.0.0.1 (the magic "loopback" IP address that points to your own machine) and using port 51966.

Sit back, configure Muffin from its "Edit" menu, and you'll be ready to roll! It uses about 6-7 MB of RAM when running, and has excellent performance under MRJ 2.2.

For more information on Muffin, including documentation, visit the Muffin Web site.

Netscape

Freeware

Current Version: 9.0.0.6 (February 21, 2008)

Please note: As of February, 2008, Netscape will once again be discontinued. This time, however, it will be discontinued for all platforms, and support for all versions, past and present, will be discontinued as well. See Tom Drapeau's blog post for more information.

Once the universal choice for browsing the web, Netscape's presence today has been marginalized by many other browsers, largely due to the stagnant 4.x series that introduced little innovation, and to the 6.x series, which merely showed amateurish promise.

Netscape 9 is a bundled Web browser / authoring environment / email / newsreader / instant messenger offering based upon the Mozilla project's browser and renderer work.

The primary components of Netscape and Mozilla - both the web browser and email/Usenet client - were broken off into separate, optimized development efforts, known respectively as Firefox and Thunderbird. The combined application suite has, as of early 2006, been reincarnated as SeaMonkey, which I will be adding to the Orchard soon.

In its older (7.x) incarnations, Netscape represents one of the few remaining opportunities for users of "Classic" Mac OS to access a more modern browser that is largely compatible with today's more advanced web standards. Version 7.02 was the final release for "Classic" Mac OS, and it remains available, below.

Version 9 is available for Mac OS X 10.2 and later, represents the first new release of Netscape for the Mac in over three years. It's a universal binary, and it offers the following:

• Visual Refresh - Netscape Navigator 9's theme has been updated to save screen-space and leave more room for the websites you visit.
• URL Correction - Navigator 9 will automatically correct common typos in URLs. For example, if you accidentally type googlecom, Navigator will fix it be to google.com. The browser will watch for nearly 30 different types of common mistakes and correct them for you (asking you to confirm, if you choose to enable confirmation).
• News Menu and Sidebar - The latest news is built right into the browser, under the News menu. Provided by Netscape.com, you can customize the menu to only contain the news sections you want to monitor. You can also open the News sidebar to always keep an eye on what's happening.
• Link Pad - The Link Pad is a new sidebar feature that allows you to save links/URLs that you want to visit later without cluttering your bookmarks. Just drag a link over the Link Pad status bar icon and drop it to save it in the Link Pad. By default, clicking on an item in the Link Pad will open it in the browser and remove it from the list, saving you the step of deleting it.
• News Tracker - The Netscape Tracker sidebar lets you monitor breaking news as it happens, via Netscape.com.
• In-browser voting - Share your opinions with the world! The icons in the Navigator address bar let you share interesting stories you find and vote on stories shared by others.
• Extension Compatibility - Navigator 9 shares an architecture with the latest Mozilla technologies; as such, Navigator 9 will let you install extensions that are compatible with Firefox 2.
• Sidebar Mini Browser - You've always been able to have bookmarks open in the sidebar, but we've improved this functionality and extended it to all links, not just bookmarks. Additionally, we've added a navigation toolbar to the sidebar for even easier split-screened browsing. Just right-click on a link and select "Open Link in Sidebar" to get started!
• Restart Netcape - A smalll but oft-requested feature: you can now restart Navigator (and keep your current tabs intact) by selecting "Restart Navigator" from the File menu.
• Resizeable Textarea - Drag the bottom-right corners of text fields in forms to add more typing space.
• Tab History - Opening a link in a new tab will give the new tab the same history as the source tab for a more seamless tabbed browsing experience.
• OPML Support - Netscape Navigator supports importing and exporting your bookmarks in OPML, a popular format for sharing lists of newsfeeds.
• Throbber - By popular demand, the Netscape 7-style throbber is back. Click on it any time to visit Netscape.com.
• Combined Stop/Reload button - To save space in your toolbar, we've combined the stop and reload buttons. Because you never need both at the same time, the toolbar will only show the relevant half of the pair.
• Friends' Activity Sidebar - If you are a member at Netscape.com, you can keep tabs on what your friends find interesting. This sidebar lets you view your friends latest votes, comments, and story submissions.
• Sitemail Notification - This icon will sport an exclamation point when you have new Netscape.com sitemail messages waiting for you.
• Since Navigator 9 is based on the newest Mozilla technologies, there are additional features in Navigator 9 that were not available in Netscape Browser 8.x. You can read about those new features in these release notes from Mozilla.

Version 9.0.0.6 adds/changes the following:

• Security Fixes - These security fixes included in Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.12 have been included in Netscape Navigator 9.0.0.6.
• Migration - An add-on has been included in this version to help users migrate to either Flock or Firefox
• WeatherBug - The WeatherBug add-on has been removed from this version of Navigator.

Netscape 9 is as fast at loading and viewing/navigating pages than just about any browser available for the Mac - even though the interface elements are somewhat clunkier. Even so, Netscape Communicator 4 (updated on 8/20/2002 to version 4.8) is still available (see below) for those who might prefer its quirks.

I have chosen not to review the non-browser components of this release, but I generally recommend people use separate, dedicated email and newsreading software (although the email component has gotten rave reviews in many publications). The Swiss army knife approach just doesn't cut it for me (pun very much intended) when it's not a matter of my pockets feeling bulky.

OmniWeb

Commercial; $29.95

Current Version: 5.7 (April 10, 2008)

OmniWeb was the first Web browser for Mac OS X / Mac OS X Server. It's fully-featured, with a gorgeous interface. Recent versions of OmniWeb (4.5 and later) employ Safari's HTML rendering engine for improved rendering performance and functionality.

Version 5.7 adds/changes the following:

• OmniWeb is now based on the WebKit stability branch roughly equivalent to the version used by Safari 3.0. (Updating to the version of WebKit in use by Safari 3.1 is in the works.)
• On first launch your favicon database location will be set to our custom default. Favicons may initially disappear, but should now persist between launches/restarts once repopulated.
• Use Leopard's new code signing technology to sign OmniWeb, so you can be prompted just once to give OmniWeb access to your keychain (rather than being prompted each time you download a new version).
• Images blocked by ad-blocking and then loaded, will no longer show the blocked image badge.
• Refetching in the source view will once again refetch the page's source content from the server, rather than just reverting to the content from the corresponding browser window.
• Pages with framesets should now draw properly.
• Some blocked content (such as Flash plugins) were getting their "blocked image" placeholder drawn in the lower left-hand corner of the window.
• Ad blocking should no longer prevent Javascript redirects.
• License files will no longer be created with the "execute" permission enabled. (The files were never actually executable.)
• We now display these release notes on launch if they've changed since they were last viewed.
• Most toolbar icons have been updated for Leopard.
• JavaScript will no longer show the toolbar if it's normally hidden.
• When downloads are in progress, OmniWeb will now prompt to ask whether you want to quit or continue downloading.
• The Load All Images button in the status bar should now display for blocked content on the current page. When pressed it should load blocked content and disappear
• Added "Mail Contents of This Page" to the File menu. (Also renamed the neighboring "Send Link" menu item to "Mail Link to This Page".)
• Added checkbox in the Display preference panel to decide whether to display PDF's inline, or download.
• When Software Update finds an update with the same major version as the currently licensed application (e.g. OmniWeb 5.x), it should now correctly indicate that the update price is free.
• The license window will no longer continue to display "No license available" after a license is added.
• Updated Chinese, French, Italian and Japanese localizations.
• Fixed an issue where drop-down menus in the preferences were changing their widths inappropriately, making localized versions hard to read.
• General localization tidying.
• When Pressing the Back button while viewing a PDF should actually take you back now.
• While viewing PDFs, the download button available on the HUD display will now download the PDF to your default location.
• PDFs should now always get the proper context menu.
• Fixed a crash triggered by attempting to undo after closing a tab or loading another page in the current tab. (Each tab now has its own independent undo stack, and the undo stack is cleared each time a tab loads a page.)
• Fixed a crash sometimes seen when closing tabs (which could also happened when restoring a workspace from a snapshot or quitting).
• Reduce OmniWeb's memory footprint and CPU usage by only rendering tab thumbnails when they're needed rather than rendering a thumbnail every time a page updates whether or not it's currently being displayed anywhere.
• Worked around a bug on PowerPC's running 10.5 which sometimes caused a hang when manually checking for updates.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when using Load All Images.

Despite rave reviews in other places, all I can say is: even given all the new features, I find OmniWeb slightly underwhelming. Site-by-site preferences - which may be OmniWeb 5's most useful feature - really demonstrate that serious problems with the Web itself are the larger issue . . . in short, if one site behaves so profoundly differently from other sites that my browser settings need changing, there's no good reason for me to visit that site. Since most of OmniWeb 5's other new features exist in (or are capable of being closely or completely emulated with) other browsers, it is hard to recommend OmniWeb despite the fact that it's an otherwise unobjectionable - and attractive-looking - piece of software.

That aside, if there is one single feature that makes OmniWeb worth its $29.95 price tag, it has to be its genuine (yet still a bit buggy) ability to check web sites for updates, on both a scheduled and manually-instantiated basis. Other software claims to do this, but OmniWeb just does a better job of it, and the bugs in the current implementation - while they are not show stoppers - are actively being addressed.

Opera

Freeware

Current Version: 9.52 (August 20, 2008)

Opera, the browser that has been a favorite of PC users for years, has finally arrived on the Macintosh in recent years. Similar in scope to Mozilla, Opera includes not just a web browser, but an email client and Usenet newsreader as well. Both of these are quite capable, and worth a look if you prefer an all-in-one application to suit the bulk of your Internet communication needs.

Version 9.52 - available for Mac OS X only - makes the following changes from version 9.51:

• Added several improvements to the icons and skin
• Added a bookmark path to autocompleted bookmarks in the address bar to better distinguish them from visited pages
• Added a Help button to "Engine Init() Failed" error message on start-up to inform users about a problem
• Fixed an issue where "Mark all as read" in Opera Mail would also mark as read some mails not visible in the current view
• Fixed the creation of the POP AOL/aim.com account
• Fixed a problem with POP accounts where message bodies were not downloaded
• Added work-arounds for problems with various POP servers
• Fixed mail appearance when Opera is installed in a folder with a "#" character in its name
• Fixed a problem that could occur when opening mail notification popups on a secondary monitor
• Fixed a problem connecting to online.no
• Fixed a problem updating signature when switching accounts
• Fixed a problem where UI would not update after unsubscribing an IMAP folder
• Fixed an issue where IRC would disconnect users without informing them
• Fixed an issue with history navigation: an iframe with document.write is not added to history anymore
• window.close() now functions after invoking a context menu - now also works in widgets
• Fixed a URL encoding issue: javascript: URLs
• Fixed an issue with lists not displaying correctly when text is rendering in RTL
• Fixed a problem where content blocker adds a generalized block rule when using the Details button
• Sites can no longer change framed content on other sites: see our advisory
• Fixed an issue that could allow cross-site scripting, as reported by Chris Weber of Casaba Security: details will be disclosed at a later date
• Prevented insecure pages from showing incorrect security information, as reported by Lars Kleinschmidt: see our advisory
• Feed links can no longer link to local files: see our advisory
• Feed subscription can no longer cause the wrong page address to be displayed: see our advisory
• Fixed a problem where Gmail would not load
• Fixed the opening of files in external applications when disk cache is off
• Fixed an issue with low quality on YouTube video previews
• Embedded YouTube videos should work more often now without having to reload
• Fixed RealPlayer on BBC
• Fixed a small memory leak in the BitTorrent code
• Fixed some translation errors

The online release notes have much more detail about these new features. I would daresay that, as of the 9.0 release, Opera has become a browser that is worthy of attention on the Mac once and for all. It's quite stable, capable and customizable, and it renders pages very well - on a par with Safari and Firefox. Its breakthrough feature remains its ability to magnify and reduce pages (graphics and all) to just about any size of your choice, which is a real boon for those with disabilities. Its RSS reader is much more thoroughly developed than that in Safari and Firefox as well. Be sure to come back here again for more thorough review soon.

Opera is entirely free, eschewing the built-in advertising that was once its hallmark. Competition in the browser space is a good thing for Mac users. Let's hope that Opera can shake up the Mac browser world in a big way.

PageSucker

Shareware; $10

Current Version: 3.2

PageSucker is a small utility written in Java that allows entire Web page hierarchies to be downloaded automatically. The pages will thereby be modified in such a way that they can then be viewed off-line (even after copying them to a CD-ROM or the like). Mac OS X users can download the archive below and execute the "PageSuckerClasses.jar" file directly from the command line (see the "Read Me"file included in the download for more information).

Version 3.2 adds CSS stylesheet support, options to delete empty or incompletely downloaded files, and makes lots of bug fixes.

Site licenses are available for $300.

Paparazzi!

Donationware

Current Version: 0.4.3 (May 23 ,2006)

Paparazzi! is a small utility for Mac OS X that makes screenshots of entire web pages without the need to scroll and take multiple screenshots that need to be pasted together. This is especially useful for web developers and for artists who need to create graphical representations of web pages when a printed version of a web page won't do.

Version 0.4.3 adds/changes the following:

• Paparazzi! is now a Universal binary! Woohoo!
• Disabled the disk cache completely, as we always want the most recent copy of the page.

Pop-Up Zapper

Shareware; $10

Current Version: 2.04 / 2.67 (January 26, 2004)

Pop-Up Zapper is a shareware application from none other than the famed Ricardo Batista, author of the freeware "Extensions Manager" that eventually found its way into the official Mac OS releases. Pop-Up Zapper helps you by "zapping" away annoying pop-up windows as you surf the web with Internet Explorer (sorry, Netscape users). Pop-Up Zapper is available in two versions: Pop-Up Zapper for Mac OS X and Pop-Up Zapper Lite for Mac OS 8.5 - 9.

Pop-Up Zapper watches the work of your web browser. When the program identifies a pop-up window, it closes it - just as you would - except quite a bit faster. Using Pop-Up Zapper for OS X, most of the time you will see a window flash open and then close on your screen. It moves quickly, however, so may not notice it at all. You can look at Pop-Up Zapper's counter on its Dock icon to see that it is working. With Pop-Up Zapper Lite for OS 8.5 - 9, the process is completely transparent. You will never even see the pop-up window.

You can run Pop-Up Zapper in evaluation mode for 5 days only, at which point it requires a license to continue working. For registered users, Pop-Up Zapper can also update its own data automatically and can notify you when the application has been updated with new features.

Privoxy

Open source; $0

Current Version: 3.0.8 (February 11, 2008)

From the Privoxy web site: "Privoxy is a web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for protecting privacy, modifying web page content, managing cookies, controlling access, and removing ads, banners, pop-ups and other obnoxious Internet junk. Privoxy has a very flexible configuration and can be customized to suit individual needs and tastes. Privoxy has application for both stand-alone systems and multi-user networks." Privoxy is freeware, released under the GNU General Public License.

Version 3.0.8 (the latest Mac OS X release, and the first since November 2006) adds/changes the following:

• Added zlib support to filter content with gzip and deflate encoding.
• Dedicated filters and actions are used for header filtering. "filter-client-headers" and "filter-client-headers" are no longer supported, use server-header-filter{} and client-header-filter{} instead.
• Tags can be used to change actions based on HTTP headers.
• New server-header filter: less-download-windows.
• New client-header taggers: css-requests, image-requests, client-ip-address, http-method, allow-post, complete-url, user-agent and privoxy-control.
• New server-header taggers: content-type and privoxy-control.
• The forward-override{} action allows to change the forwarding settings through the action files, for example based on client headers like the User-Agent, or the request origin.
• Socks errors are no longer handled by the CGI page for DNS resolution failures.
• CGI pages use favicons to signal whether they are error or control pages. This is useful if you rely heavily on browser tabs.
• The show-url-info CGI page shows the forwarding settings.
• "Crunch!" log messages (used when Privoxy answers requests by itself) now also contain the reason.
• Allow to rewrite the request destination behind the client's back.
• Fix socks requests on big-endian platforms.
• Fixes possible deadlocks and crashes on OpenBSD.
• The CGI action editor allows to edit actionfiles with previously forbidden characters like dots.
• New trust entries are saved with a comment that contains the trusted referring URL.
• Filter descriptions are HTML encoded automatically.
• New config option "split-large-forms" to work around a browser bug that caused IE6 and IE7 to ignore the Submit button on the edit-actions-for-url CGI page.
• New config option "allow-cgi-request-crunching" to allow requests for Privoxy's CGI pages to be blocked, redirected or (un)trusted like ordinary requests.
• Empty filter files no longer interrupt the filtering process prematurely and are correctly listed on the show-status CGI page.
• New config option "accept-intercepted-requests" to combine Privoxy with any packet filter to build an intercepting proxy for HTTP/1.1 requests (and for HTTP/1.0 requests with Host header set).
• Fast-redirects{} catch redirects to https URLs as well.
• Redirect{s@foo@bar@} can be used to redirect to a rewritten version of the original URL.
• Trap unsupported gopher proxy requests.
• Fixed a bug in the User Manual delivery on Windows (mingw32 only). Images now show up correctly and HTML pages are no longer padded with garbage data.
• Fixed several minor memory leaks, most of them discovered with Valgrind.
• Only unlink the pidfile if it's actually used.
• Retries after connection problems with forced requests aren't blocked again.
• On Unix SIGABRT causes a core dump as expected and is no longer treated as normal shutdown signal.
• The "access denied" CGI page is more descriptive and allows retries to circumvent the referrer check.
• Updated PCRS to handle unexpected PCRE errors properly. Fixed crashes that could occur if Privoxy was build with external PCRE versions newer than Privoxy's internal one.
• Fixed crashes with null bytes in PCRS replacement strings.
• Fixed crashes with header time randomization on mingw32.
• The CGI style sheet is no longer delivered if the referring page isn't a Privoxy CGI page. This prevents a JavaScript-based Privoxy detection "attack". Note that detecting Privoxy is still possible through other ways and Privoxy was never intended to be invisible anyway.
• Added support for AmigaOS 4, fixed build for AmigaOS 3.x.
• The show-url-info CGI page displays a warning if Privoxy is currently toggled off.
• The show-status CGI page suppresses the edit button for action files if Privoxy has no write access.
• Most CGI error pages react properly to HEAD requests.
• Requests with RFC 3253 HTTP methods (used by Subversion) are accepted.
• New config option "templdir" to change the location of the CGI templates to make sure customized templates aren't "updated".
• Better handling of "HTTP/1.1 100 Continue" responses.
• The background of the PNG pattern is transparent.
• Fixed XML syntax errors caused by banners-by-size and banners-by-url.
• Fixed crashes and possible action file corruptions when lines containing hashes are written through the CGI editor.
• Supports dynamic filters which can contain variables.
• Supports tags to change the actions based on client or server headers.
• Incorrect actions are logged before program termination.
• The "actionsfile" syntax in the configuration file is consistent with the rest of the configuration options and requires the whole file name. This is an incompatible change, if you use an old configuration file you might have to append ".action" to your "actionsfile" directives.
• With the configuration file option "enforce-blocks" the "go there anyway" mechanism can be disabled without recompiling Privoxy.
• More precise error messages in case of incorrect acl syntax.
• Logs a warning if filtering is enabled but impossible due to lack of zlib support or use of the prevent-compression action.
• Less noisy handling of Cookie:" and "Connection:" headers.
• Improved error messages in case of connection problems.
• Fix a command-line-parsing bug that was introduced before 3.0.5 beta and caused Privoxy to treat the last argument as configuration file if no configuration file was specified.
• Treat unknown command line options as fatal errors instead of silently ignoring them.
• Use string functions with length checks more often.
• Don't log CONNECT requests twice.
• Allow to log the source address for ACL-related connection drops.
• Don't ignore applying filters if the server didn't specify a Content-Type.
• Rejected CONNECT requests are logged with log level info (enabled by default) and the reason for the block.
• New command line option "--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname" to intialize the resolver library before chroot'ing. On some systems this reduces the number of files that must be copied into the chroot tree.
• Fix a long-standing memory corruption bug that could cause Privoxy to overwrite a single byte in memory it didn't explicitly allocate (but that probably was allocated anyway due to bucket size).
• Send template-based CGI pages as HTTP/1.1 unless the client asked for HTTP/1.0.
• Let the first line in connection established responses end in \r\n as required by RFC1945.
• If no log file has been specified, disable logging instead of logging to stderr.
• Don't block stderr when in daemon mode.
• Ignore missing zero-chunks when filtering chunk-encoded content. Earlier Privoxy versions would buffer and then forward the content unmodified which caused some browsers to simply show empty pages.
• Fix double free in cgi_edit_actions_list(). Reported by Venustech AD-LAB.
• The code to add X-Forwarded-For headers has been removed.
• Fixed trustfile feature which previously didn't work without FEATURE_TOGGLE.
• Minor code clean-ups, filter and action file updates.

The online release notes have more details.

Shiira

Open source; $0

Current Version: 1.2.2 (March 15, 2006) / 2.2 (July 23, 2007)

Shiira, like OmniWeb, is a web browser based on Apple's "Web Kit" and written in Cocoa. The goal of the Shiira Project is to create a browser that is better and more useful than Safari. Shiira has some beautiful and truly unique user interface features; pictures tell the story better than words do. All source code used is publicly available.

Version 2.2 adds the following:

• Twelve localized resources were integrated.

Previous version 1.2.2 remains available.

Simon

Commercial; see text.

Current Version: 2.4.1 (June 24, 2008)

Dejal Systems, LLC produces Simon, a web site monitoring tool for Mac OS X. It checks sites for changes or failures, and notifies you via e-mail, sound, speech, or other means. You can use it to track updated sites, and to alert you when an important site goes down or recovers.

Version 2.4.1 makes the following changes:

• Fixed a bug with building the session script for the Port plug-in.
• Fixed a bug where a server that returns binary data could cause a Port-based test to fail, with an exception logged in the Console. The binary data is now correctly recorded as hex values.
• Added a hidden preference to output debug information from the helper for the Port plug-in. It can be activated by entering "defaults write com.dejal.simon2 PortDebugMode YES" in Terminal.
• Also added a similar hidden preference for the Ping plug-in. Activate via "defaults write com.dejal.simon2 PingDebugMode YES" in Terminal.

Simon is available in a number of configurations, ranging in price from $29.95 ("Basic" license allowing up to 7 tests) to $195 ("Enterprise" license allowing unlimited tests). The online store offers full details.

SpeedManiac

Shareware; $29.95

Current Version: 1.7.1 (December 19, 2006)

Like Muffin, above, SpeedManiac is a World Wide Web "filtering system" that acts as a proxy server to filter out content to your own specifications. However, it's not written in Java; it's a native Mac OS X application that is much easier to set up and use. While it cannot filter the variety of things that Muffin can, it is capable of filtering graphics, selected sites, and Flash animations, which is good enough for mere mortals who might not have the time to master Muffin.

In order to use SpeedManiac, you'll have to configure your Web browser's proxy settings (dig around your browser's preferences to find this) to point to the program so that it can intervene between you and the Web (which is exactly what a proxy server does). Here's how you do that:

• Open the System Preferences.
• Click on the Network icon, select your usual connection method.
• Click on lock if required, and provide your password so that you can edit the settings here.
• Click on the Proxies tab.
• Check the box for HTTP Proxy, enter 127.0.0.1, enter 1080 for port.
• Click on the Apply Now button.

Version 1.7.1 adds/changes the following:

• If SmartCrashReports from Unsanity is available, register with it and use to report any crashes.
• Removed our favorite Shareware sites from the block ad list.
• If a connection fails, retry at least one more time.

SpeedManiac - which is written by Ricardo Batista, celebrated author of the Extensions Manager for the "Classic" Mac OS - is shareware, and works as a trial version for 15 days.

Subscriber

Shareware; $14.99

Current Version: 1.2b2 (April 30, 2008)

Subscriber is a relatively sophisiticated web page update checking utility that enables granularized checking of portions of web pages in a manner that most web browsers' built-in "subscribe" capabilities cannot. Subscriber allows you to disregard items of your choosing, such as dates, advertisements, and other items. It's probably the most sophisticated web pa