It wasn't until last night that I finally got around to installing Mozilla's Camino web browser on my MacBook (version 1.0.4). I've been seeing it mentioned more frequently, so it's been on my mind. Given my increasing frustration over Firefox lockups and dirty quits, it's a perfect time to make Camino my default browser, at least on a trial basis.
I like the idea of Camino being more of a "true" OS X application, but I confess that Firefox's lack of "Mac-ness" never really phased me. Integration with keychain? That's nice...I guess. But in my work I am often forced to use client-provided laptops, and it's a big time saver to copy my Firefox passwords -- along with all other settings -- to theses Windows machines. Cross-platform support is one of the big reasons I use Firefox.
I'm also a little nervous about Camino's lack of customization options. To be fair, a better way to say it is that Firefox is outrageously customizable and Camino is reasonably customizable. I'm not a manic consumer of Firefox extensions, but I do have my favorites. And I love being able to add search engines to the search control; I'd be more willing to use Safari if it had this feature. Nevertheless, I'm willing to give Camino a chance; it does for example, have integrated "annoynace blocking", which I accomplish in Firefox through extensions.
I imported my Firefox bookmarks easily. I was a little surprised, given their common heritage, that Camino didn't provide an option for importing other settings from Firefox, especially passwords.
The first feature that I love: multi-tab bookmarks. A single click on my Camino bookmark bar now populates the window with four tabs containing my favorite websites.
The first feature that I hate: hovering over My Yahoo! news headlines doesn't float an abstract of the story. This could be a deal-breaker.
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