8 ms·

iCab: Alternative Browser for macOS

167 points by kaptain 6y ago

rgovostes 6y ago
Anyone remember the “Make iCab Smile” campaign? The UI featured a little smiley face in the corner that would change to a frown if there were too many HTML validation errors.
- arkanciscan 6y ago
  OMG right in the nostalgia!
- dhoerl 6y ago
  I remember!
captn3m0 6y ago
Apparently it switched to Webkit a while back.
- superdisk 6y ago
  Why does this keep happening? Browsers sell their soul to just be another coat of paint on top of WebKit. I honestly don't get it. If you're working on a web browser as a personal or open source project, switching to WebKit is basically just replacing the entire project that you've worked on, and then writing your name on WebKit. There's not much more to a browser than a rendering engine. There really isn't a killer feature that Chrome won't just absorb anwyay. So why on earth would you decide to throw away your years of effort, and solely try to differentiate yourself based on slight variations in how your back button looks or your bookmarks work!?
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    Presumably because doing anything else is just impossible in this day and age. There are only two-and-a-half actively-maintained rendering engines in existence: Gecko, and Chromium/Webkit. There's a reason for that. A single person isn't going to be able to maintain their own.
    - userbinator 6y ago
      There's also Netsurf, Dillo, as well as Links and the rest of the text-based ones. The monopoly should definitely be fought.
      - alexisread 6y ago
        I think the main problem is that the DOM and javascript are just too large for one person / small team to maintain, so you get feature lag. I'm hoping webassembly and canvas are a small enough target to overcome this, but if we were to look at what could have been, Scheme and something like Tk would've been better
      - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
        Are those actually usable as a primary/only browser in 2020? Unfortunately, I think the best way to fight the monopoly at this point is to use Firefox. As bad as 2½ browsers is, I'd much rather have 2½ than 1½. (On desktop, webkit is also fine, they need marketshare there. Anything that isn't Chromium.)
        tapoxi 6y ago
        I still don't understand the "fight the monopoly" argument. Should I use Windows Server or FreeBSD to fight the "Linux dominance" monopoly?
        Wowfunhappy 6y ago
        The problem is that, the web isn't really an open standard if there's only one implementation of the standard. The standard just becomes "whatever works in Chromium". It also gives Google the power to unilaterally add or remove anything from the standard as they think will benefit Google. Sure, Microsoft or Brave could choose not to go along with the change, but Microsoft doesn't want to spend resources maintaining a fork, so they're much more likely go go along with whatever Google does.
    - NaOH 6y ago
  - dclusin 6y ago
    I think Adblock is a feature that disproves that hypothesis. If google continues to neuter ad blocking as they have with the changes to plugin architecture then it will open itself up to competition. Things outside the web rendering engine also prevent more widespread adoption of alternative browsers as well. Google's WildVine DRM is an example. That doesn't ship with chromium.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Chrome doesn’t use WebKit anymore. Perhaps you’re thinking of Blink?
    - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
      Blink is a WebKit fork, so I could see a reasonable person clumping them together when complaining about monoculture. I suppose it really depends on the degree to which they've diverged; I personally suspect that being led by Google vs Apple does actually make a difference, especially around privacy and anti-tracking issues.
  - tomxor 6y ago
    Modern HTML rendering engines are much much harder than you think, switching to webKit is a way to prevent obsolescence for any browser that doesn't have a huge team of devs behind it.
    - asveikau 6y ago
      Is this space really evolving that much anymore though? I don't follow this field; what's been going on in web standards lately? Seems like lately, from a user perspective, the current emphasis is mostly on doing the same things faster. So an indie browser developer probably won't get JS JIT down as well as a megacorp, but is that it? It seems to me like if you are standards compliant as of 5 years ago there shouldn't be a lot to do today.
      - rched 6y ago
        I can understand why it might seem that way but it is actually evolving very quickly. Probably faster than any other time in history. There are a few things driving this evolution but I think the most important one is a desire to make the web a competitive platform for most types of software. This means lower level APIs, deeper integration with OS, and yes a large focus on performance. 3D graphics, offline support, push notifications, file system access, animation, Bluetooth, and more are all recent areas of focus for browsers. Web browsers really are becoming similar to operating systems in scope.
        arcticbull 6y ago
        That sounds awful haha.
        asveikau 6y ago
        There are a small number of people pushing that, but where is the adoption, and is the web at large really inaccesible without it? One example, I see a lot of websites offering to send me push notifications, and I always click no. A browser could not implement that feature and I would not notice, in fact it would be an improvement in experience.
  - evmar 6y ago
    Back when Chrome was based on WebKit, my recollection is that WebKit was vaguely half the code. The other half was all the stuff that browsers do that's easy to overlook -- the network stack, process management, 2d graphics engine, cookie management, the URL bar, v8, extensions, etc. And these pieces are the very things that Chrome differentiated and succeeded based on. (WebKit on Mac includes more of these things, but many of them rely on Mac-specific implementations, which weren't as useful for a browser that is primarily used on Windows.)
  - 1over137 6y ago
    OTOH, you could look at it like using NSTextView. A basic building block that you add cool stuff atop.
  - totorovirus 6y ago
    I think modern browsers could be a baseline for network based OS in couple of years to come. It is really complex and has zillion features that not many developers know exactly know
    - SllX 6y ago
      Networking is already first class on most operating systems worth naming, even the ones without a good browser. A modern browser as a basis for the Shell/userland of an operating system is essentially Chrome OS with a difference in user experience that’s about as different as the set of features from browser to browser. A lean userland might be desirable, but even operating systems with lean out of the box userlands usually have a package manger that can quickly expand the base of software available to you on the system. And speaking of package managers, the stuff going on with Nix and Guix is a lot more interesting than reinventions of Chrome OS. Check them out, the system can be about as lean or thick as you like depending on how you configure it.
  - t0astbread 6y ago
    As important as politics and implementation diversity are, if I were to take on the monumental task of developing my own browser I would rather focus on improvements that are actually manageable and useful to me as an independent dev or small team. Browsers are more than just webviews with tabs and a lot of potential in the non-core parts is left unexplored by the major players. And it's not like you're throwing away any effort. A browser isn't automatically worthless "just" because it's built on WebKit the same way an operating system isn't worthless "just" because it's built on Linux.
  - neurostimulant 6y ago
    Is it really possible for a single developer to maintain feature parity with Chrome and Firefox (or even webkit)? If you're a single developer maintaining your own browser, you must choose between maintaining your own incomplete engine that lacks many html5 features the users want, or adopt blink/webkit/gecko and instantly gain feature parity with mainstream browsers.
pcr910303 6y ago
I personally use iCab for using the internet on classic Mac OS machines. Very useful, as it’s the most recent browser supporting them. Other than that, I’m not usre if this is worth the effort on usual machines... I would recommend Safari instead.
- LeoPanthera 6y ago
  How does iCab compare to Classilla? Which itself is very out of date. https://www.floodgap.com/software/classilla/ https://www.floodgap.com/software/classilla/
  - kalleboo 6y ago
    Classilla handles modern pages better, but iCab has better performance/memory usage
    - wolco 6y ago
      That's how you would describe the Lynx browser or curl. Way better performance and memory usage but much lower ability to handle modern pages.
- toufiii 6y ago
  Can you build things on it? Btw any reliable estimate on their current # of users and their geographic locations?
arkanciscan 6y ago
I used to use this in college before I switched to Camino!
- snapetom 6y ago
  Oh my God, I loved Camino so much! The browser scene for the Mac in the early Aught's was such a mess. Netscape was bloated, slow as hell, and wasn't keeping up with standards. IE was great, but you were always suspicious of MS's agenda. Safari was still a bit rough and lacked a lot of features. Camino was snappy, clean, and had very good standards compliance. Such a great little browser!
  - nathancahill 6y ago
    Camino was great. Got the whole family on it before eventually migrating them to Firefox around FF4.
  - Arsenije 6y ago
    Do you remember Shiira? :)
    - brigandish 6y ago
      Nostalgic! Very fast and interesting, and I like the style of it. I used that and Camino but Omniweb was my favourite browser. Had features I wish other browsers had now, and if they do it's not as easy, the interface was great. I actually paid for it. Sad that there's not much to choose from nowadays.
    - snapetom 6y ago
      I couldn't remember the name, but I looked it up and remembered the browser. I did try it out! It was nice, but wasn't enough to peel me away from Camino.
  - mhd 6y ago
    Camino was awesome, one feature that I missed when I had to switch away from it was that its download list actually noticed when the files weren't there anymore (it's the small things that add up). I even had a short look on how hard it would be to use the shell for a more modern engine, but it seems deeply entrenched in the Mozilla codebase, which is basically a dungeon full of undead, dragons and rust monsters.
deca6cda37d0 6y ago
I can't believe it still exists!
- toufiii 6y ago
  Agreed! Have you ever built anything on it? Like extensions or plugin of some sort
toufiii 6y ago
Good to see iCab is still around. For reals, kudos for perseverance!
peterburkimsher 6y ago
I recognise it from Mac OS 9 days, and downloaded it to try it again now. Something I miss from Safari on Mac OS 10.9 was seeing full names in the tab bar. iCab, Chrome, and Firefox all shrink tabs down to their favicon. Old versions of Safari would show the whole name, and if there wasn't space, it would overflow into a dropdown list on the right. Yes, you probably can accuse me of opening too many tabs, but I have an amusing anecdote about how I recovered some front-end dev work from tab source when our DigitalOcean server crashed a few weeks ago.
- lukevp 6y ago
  What workflow could you have that your dev work on a DO server would be lost if you didn’t have the html in your browser? Are you direct editing apps on a DO server with no source control?
- jasdfijsflj 6y ago
  Firefox overflows the tabs when there are too many. You can set the minimum width to higher if you want to have it overflow sooner.
bhauer 6y ago
I remember Cab for the TT and Falcon. I had not realized it went on to become a Mac browser. A shame, in a way, that the web is now so complex that alternative browsers are ever more marginalized.
alpb 6y ago
Anyone remember the browsers that made you small amounts of money per hour for using them to surf the web?
- codegladiator 6y ago
  Brave?
  - pzumk 6y ago
    I use Brave but I have completely disabled the Rewards.
    - LeoPanthera 6y ago
      Without the cryptocurrency bloat, isn't it just Chrome+AdBlock?
      - 101404 6y ago
        Chrome + AdBlock + NoScript - Google + Sync without Account
- ac29 6y ago
  AllAdvantage? (probably showing my age here) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage
  - marpstar 6y ago
    I forgot all about this... blast from the AOL past.
- wolco 6y ago
  Or offered free internet while showing a banner below. Or those spin wheel / lotto websites where you would get a limited amount of plays daily but would win real money. Then they send you a real 4 dollar check/cheque. I wonder what happened to company behind the punch the monkey banner. Those were the days people thought we would all be working and living through the internet (perhaps in second life style) soon and buying everything. Ironicly 20 years later we are being forced to life this way.
maguay 6y ago
iCab Mobile is also one of the only truly unique iOS browsers. Was the only way to reliably download multiple files for years on iOS, and today still is the closest to having browser add-ons in iOS. Supported uploading files long before Safari too. Its custom zoom levels made many web apps usable on the original non-pro iPad screen sizes as you could fake a higher resolution screen (and you could change your user agent if websites refused to show their desktop version). You can tweak iCab's interface quite a bit too, which makes it a great way to make an internet appliance of sorts to show a single website without having extra toolbars and stuff. It's not my default browser, but is a great tool to keep around!
- fmakunbound 6y ago
  Aren’t all browsers on iOS using WebKit by Apple decree? I mean the ones you get via AppStore, at least.
  - emayljames 6y ago
    That is correct. It means that as a web dev, you can only use IOS for testing webkit.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - maguay 6y ago
    Yup, still Webkit, still essentially Safari in a wrapper. iCab just built a more powerful wrapper than most.
  - shp0ngle 6y ago
    iCab on desktop uses WebKit anyway...
- Cockbrand 6y ago
  iCab is my main browser on iOS, I love the configurability and the plethora of features. Safari has caught up quite a bit, but iCab is still the best IMHO.
Eugeleo 6y ago
Wow, I helped translate this (well, the iOS version) into Czech many many years ago! I’m glad it still exists, the author — Alex, if I remember right — is very friendly and a great developer. It was my first “freelance” project; I didn’t even expect him to pay, I just liked his browser and wanted to feel like a grown man (was 14 at the time). But he insisted he’ll pay me; it was the first money I ever made. Ah, good memories. If the author sees this: Good luck!
- kome 6y ago
  wholesome story! :)
Kwpolska 6y ago
Why are all the screenshots on this page from 2007, and use 10.5 Leopard, if the browser doesn’t even support it anymore? Oh, because the actual user interface did not change since then. A print button? The entire browser chrome over two times as large as Safari’s or Firefox’s? I don’t see the point in using iCab in 2020, let alone paying $10 for it.
onetom 6y ago
This browser seems more customizable to me: https://next.atlas.engineer/ https://next.atlas.engineer/ Based on iCab's homepage, it's unclear why would I want to use it really.

167 points by kaptain 6y ago

Anyone remember the “Make iCab Smile” campaign? The UI featured a little smiley face in the corner that would change to a frown if there were too many HTML validation errors.

arkanciscan 6y ago
OMG right in the nostalgia!
dhoerl 6y ago
I remember!

captn3m0 6y ago

Apparently it switched to Webkit a while back.

superdisk 6y ago
Why does this keep happening? Browsers sell their soul to just be another coat of paint on top of WebKit. I honestly don't get it. If you're working on a web browser as a personal or open source project, switching to WebKit is basically just replacing the entire project that you've worked on, and then writing your name on WebKit. There's not much more to a browser than a rendering engine. There really isn't a killer feature that Chrome won't just absorb anwyay. So why on earth would you decide to throw away your years of effort, and solely try to differentiate yourself based on slight variations in how your back button looks or your bookmarks work!?
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  Presumably because doing anything else is just impossible in this day and age. There are only two-and-a-half actively-maintained rendering engines in existence: Gecko, and Chromium/Webkit. There's a reason for that. A single person isn't going to be able to maintain their own.
  - userbinator 6y ago
    There's also Netsurf, Dillo, as well as Links and the rest of the text-based ones. The monopoly should definitely be fought.
    - alexisread 6y ago
      I think the main problem is that the DOM and javascript are just too large for one person / small team to maintain, so you get feature lag. I'm hoping webassembly and canvas are a small enough target to overcome this, but if we were to look at what could have been, Scheme and something like Tk would've been better
    - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
      Are those actually usable as a primary/only browser in 2020? Unfortunately, I think the best way to fight the monopoly at this point is to use Firefox. As bad as 2½ browsers is, I'd much rather have 2½ than 1½. (On desktop, webkit is also fine, they need marketshare there. Anything that isn't Chromium.)
      - tapoxi 6y ago
        I still don't understand the "fight the monopoly" argument. Should I use Windows Server or FreeBSD to fight the "Linux dominance" monopoly?
        Wowfunhappy 6y ago
        The problem is that, the web isn't really an open standard if there's only one implementation of the standard. The standard just becomes "whatever works in Chromium". It also gives Google the power to unilaterally add or remove anything from the standard as they think will benefit Google. Sure, Microsoft or Brave could choose not to go along with the change, but Microsoft doesn't want to spend resources maintaining a fork, so they're much more likely go go along with whatever Google does.
  - NaOH 6y ago
- dclusin 6y ago
  I think Adblock is a feature that disproves that hypothesis. If google continues to neuter ad blocking as they have with the changes to plugin architecture then it will open itself up to competition. Things outside the web rendering engine also prevent more widespread adoption of alternative browsers as well. Google's WildVine DRM is an example. That doesn't ship with chromium.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Chrome doesn’t use WebKit anymore. Perhaps you’re thinking of Blink?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    Blink is a WebKit fork, so I could see a reasonable person clumping them together when complaining about monoculture. I suppose it really depends on the degree to which they've diverged; I personally suspect that being led by Google vs Apple does actually make a difference, especially around privacy and anti-tracking issues.
- tomxor 6y ago
  Modern HTML rendering engines are much much harder than you think, switching to webKit is a way to prevent obsolescence for any browser that doesn't have a huge team of devs behind it.
  - asveikau 6y ago
    Is this space really evolving that much anymore though? I don't follow this field; what's been going on in web standards lately? Seems like lately, from a user perspective, the current emphasis is mostly on doing the same things faster. So an indie browser developer probably won't get JS JIT down as well as a megacorp, but is that it? It seems to me like if you are standards compliant as of 5 years ago there shouldn't be a lot to do today.
    - rched 6y ago
      I can understand why it might seem that way but it is actually evolving very quickly. Probably faster than any other time in history. There are a few things driving this evolution but I think the most important one is a desire to make the web a competitive platform for most types of software. This means lower level APIs, deeper integration with OS, and yes a large focus on performance. 3D graphics, offline support, push notifications, file system access, animation, Bluetooth, and more are all recent areas of focus for browsers. Web browsers really are becoming similar to operating systems in scope.
      - arcticbull 6y ago
        That sounds awful haha.
      - asveikau 6y ago
        There are a small number of people pushing that, but where is the adoption, and is the web at large really inaccesible without it? One example, I see a lot of websites offering to send me push notifications, and I always click no. A browser could not implement that feature and I would not notice, in fact it would be an improvement in experience.
- evmar 6y ago
  Back when Chrome was based on WebKit, my recollection is that WebKit was vaguely half the code. The other half was all the stuff that browsers do that's easy to overlook -- the network stack, process management, 2d graphics engine, cookie management, the URL bar, v8, extensions, etc. And these pieces are the very things that Chrome differentiated and succeeded based on. (WebKit on Mac includes more of these things, but many of them rely on Mac-specific implementations, which weren't as useful for a browser that is primarily used on Windows.)
- 1over137 6y ago
  OTOH, you could look at it like using NSTextView. A basic building block that you add cool stuff atop.
- totorovirus 6y ago
  I think modern browsers could be a baseline for network based OS in couple of years to come. It is really complex and has zillion features that not many developers know exactly know
  - SllX 6y ago
    Networking is already first class on most operating systems worth naming, even the ones without a good browser. A modern browser as a basis for the Shell/userland of an operating system is essentially Chrome OS with a difference in user experience that’s about as different as the set of features from browser to browser. A lean userland might be desirable, but even operating systems with lean out of the box userlands usually have a package manger that can quickly expand the base of software available to you on the system. And speaking of package managers, the stuff going on with Nix and Guix is a lot more interesting than reinventions of Chrome OS. Check them out, the system can be about as lean or thick as you like depending on how you configure it.
- t0astbread 6y ago
  As important as politics and implementation diversity are, if I were to take on the monumental task of developing my own browser I would rather focus on improvements that are actually manageable and useful to me as an independent dev or small team. Browsers are more than just webviews with tabs and a lot of potential in the non-core parts is left unexplored by the major players. And it's not like you're throwing away any effort. A browser isn't automatically worthless "just" because it's built on WebKit the same way an operating system isn't worthless "just" because it's built on Linux.
- neurostimulant 6y ago
  Is it really possible for a single developer to maintain feature parity with Chrome and Firefox (or even webkit)? If you're a single developer maintaining your own browser, you must choose between maintaining your own incomplete engine that lacks many html5 features the users want, or adopt blink/webkit/gecko and instantly gain feature parity with mainstream browsers.

pcr910303 6y ago

I personally use iCab for using the internet on classic Mac OS machines. Very useful, as it’s the most recent browser supporting them. Other than that, I’m not usre if this is worth the effort on usual machines... I would recommend Safari instead.

LeoPanthera 6y ago
How does iCab compare to Classilla? Which itself is very out of date. https://www.floodgap.com/software/classilla/ https://www.floodgap.com/software/classilla/
- kalleboo 6y ago
  Classilla handles modern pages better, but iCab has better performance/memory usage
  - wolco 6y ago
    That's how you would describe the Lynx browser or curl. Way better performance and memory usage but much lower ability to handle modern pages.
toufiii 6y ago
Can you build things on it? Btw any reliable estimate on their current # of users and their geographic locations?

arkanciscan 6y ago

I used to use this in college before I switched to Camino!

snapetom 6y ago
Oh my God, I loved Camino so much! The browser scene for the Mac in the early Aught's was such a mess. Netscape was bloated, slow as hell, and wasn't keeping up with standards. IE was great, but you were always suspicious of MS's agenda. Safari was still a bit rough and lacked a lot of features. Camino was snappy, clean, and had very good standards compliance. Such a great little browser!
- nathancahill 6y ago
  Camino was great. Got the whole family on it before eventually migrating them to Firefox around FF4.
- Arsenije 6y ago
  Do you remember Shiira? :)
  - brigandish 6y ago
    Nostalgic! Very fast and interesting, and I like the style of it. I used that and Camino but Omniweb was my favourite browser. Had features I wish other browsers had now, and if they do it's not as easy, the interface was great. I actually paid for it. Sad that there's not much to choose from nowadays.
  - snapetom 6y ago
    I couldn't remember the name, but I looked it up and remembered the browser. I did try it out! It was nice, but wasn't enough to peel me away from Camino.
- mhd 6y ago
  Camino was awesome, one feature that I missed when I had to switch away from it was that its download list actually noticed when the files weren't there anymore (it's the small things that add up). I even had a short look on how hard it would be to use the shell for a more modern engine, but it seems deeply entrenched in the Mozilla codebase, which is basically a dungeon full of undead, dragons and rust monsters.

deca6cda37d0 6y ago

I can't believe it still exists!

toufiii 6y ago
Agreed! Have you ever built anything on it? Like extensions or plugin of some sort

toufiii 6y ago

Good to see iCab is still around. For reals, kudos for perseverance!

peterburkimsher 6y ago

I recognise it from Mac OS 9 days, and downloaded it to try it again now. Something I miss from Safari on Mac OS 10.9 was seeing full names in the tab bar. iCab, Chrome, and Firefox all shrink tabs down to their favicon. Old versions of Safari would show the whole name, and if there wasn't space, it would overflow into a dropdown list on the right. Yes, you probably can accuse me of opening too many tabs, but I have an amusing anecdote about how I recovered some front-end dev work from tab source when our DigitalOcean server crashed a few weeks ago.

lukevp 6y ago
What workflow could you have that your dev work on a DO server would be lost if you didn’t have the html in your browser? Are you direct editing apps on a DO server with no source control?
jasdfijsflj 6y ago
Firefox overflows the tabs when there are too many. You can set the minimum width to higher if you want to have it overflow sooner.

bhauer 6y ago

I remember Cab for the TT and Falcon. I had not realized it went on to become a Mac browser. A shame, in a way, that the web is now so complex that alternative browsers are ever more marginalized.

alpb 6y ago

Anyone remember the browsers that made you small amounts of money per hour for using them to surf the web?

codegladiator 6y ago
Brave?
- pzumk 6y ago
  I use Brave but I have completely disabled the Rewards.
  - LeoPanthera 6y ago
    Without the cryptocurrency bloat, isn't it just Chrome+AdBlock?
    - 101404 6y ago
      Chrome + AdBlock + NoScript - Google + Sync without Account
ac29 6y ago
AllAdvantage? (probably showing my age here) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage
- marpstar 6y ago
  I forgot all about this... blast from the AOL past.
wolco 6y ago
Or offered free internet while showing a banner below. Or those spin wheel / lotto websites where you would get a limited amount of plays daily but would win real money. Then they send you a real 4 dollar check/cheque. I wonder what happened to company behind the punch the monkey banner. Those were the days people thought we would all be working and living through the internet (perhaps in second life style) soon and buying everything. Ironicly 20 years later we are being forced to life this way.

maguay 6y ago

iCab Mobile is also one of the only truly unique iOS browsers. Was the only way to reliably download multiple files for years on iOS, and today still is the closest to having browser add-ons in iOS. Supported uploading files long before Safari too. Its custom zoom levels made many web apps usable on the original non-pro iPad screen sizes as you could fake a higher resolution screen (and you could change your user agent if websites refused to show their desktop version). You can tweak iCab's interface quite a bit too, which makes it a great way to make an internet appliance of sorts to show a single website without having extra toolbars and stuff. It's not my default browser, but is a great tool to keep around!

fmakunbound 6y ago
Aren’t all browsers on iOS using WebKit by Apple decree? I mean the ones you get via AppStore, at least.
- emayljames 6y ago
  That is correct. It means that as a web dev, you can only use IOS for testing webkit.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- maguay 6y ago
  Yup, still Webkit, still essentially Safari in a wrapper. iCab just built a more powerful wrapper than most.
- shp0ngle 6y ago
  iCab on desktop uses WebKit anyway...
Cockbrand 6y ago
iCab is my main browser on iOS, I love the configurability and the plethora of features. Safari has caught up quite a bit, but iCab is still the best IMHO.

Eugeleo 6y ago

Wow, I helped translate this (well, the iOS version) into Czech many many years ago! I’m glad it still exists, the author — Alex, if I remember right — is very friendly and a great developer. It was my first “freelance” project; I didn’t even expect him to pay, I just liked his browser and wanted to feel like a grown man (was 14 at the time). But he insisted he’ll pay me; it was the first money I ever made. Ah, good memories. If the author sees this: Good luck!

kome 6y ago
wholesome story! :)

Kwpolska 6y ago

Why are all the screenshots on this page from 2007, and use 10.5 Leopard, if the browser doesn’t even support it anymore? Oh, because the actual user interface did not change since then. A print button? The entire browser chrome over two times as large as Safari’s or Firefox’s? I don’t see the point in using iCab in 2020, let alone paying $10 for it.

onetom 6y ago

This browser seems more customizable to me: https://next.atlas.engineer/ https://next.atlas.engineer/ Based on iCab's homepage, it's unclear why would I want to use it really.