iCab
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| iCab | |
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 iCab 4.0.0 under Mac OS X 10.4.11 |
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| Developed by | Alexander Clauss |
| Initial release | February 17, 1999 |
| Stable release | 4.0.1 (February 17, 2008) [+/−] |
| Preview release | none (n/a) [+/−] |
| Written in | ? |
| OS | Mac OS 7.0.1–9.2.2, X |
| Available in | English and German |
| Genre | Web browser |
| License | Proprietary, $25/€25 |
| Website | http://www.icab.de |
iCab is a configurable web browser for the Macintosh by Alexander Clauss. On 1st January 2008, stable versions 3.0.5 and 4.0.0 were released. iCab 4 is rewritten in Cocoa, uses WebKit for its rendering engine, and requires Mac OS 10.3.9. iCab 3.0.5 is suitable for users of older versions of Mac OS, requiring only Mac OS 8.5. iCab 2.9.9 is still available for users of 68k Macs.
The following platforms are currently supported:
- Mac OS X / PowerPC and Intel (iCab 3 and 4)
- Mac OS 8.5–9.2.2 / PowerPC (iCab 2 and 3)
- Mac OS 7.6.1–9.2.2 / PowerPC (iCab 2)
- Mac OS 7.1–8.1 / 68k (iCab 2)
All versions are available for free download. However, some "Pro" features will be made available only for registered users; at present, registered users only benefit to access to beta versions and a lack of expiry date on older versions. iCab is the only browser being developed for Mac OS 9 and earlier, and is the only one available for 68k systems that features tabbed browsing. At the same time it is compatible with the latest hardware and system software.
iCab's proprietary rendering engine was often criticised for not supporting Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and the Document Object Model (DOM). In May 2005 the first public beta of iCab 3 was released with dramatically updated layout capabilities (including CSS2 support), although this version is not available for 680x0 Macs.
The iCab 3 series also has proper Unicode support, using ATSUI instead of the old WorldScript; this is the reason for iCab 3 requiring Mac OS 8.5 or later.
iCab 4 now uses WebKit which gives it the same rendering abilities as Apple's Safari browser.
[edit] Features
A useful feature of iCab is the Filter Manager (see also Filtering below). This embedded tool provides filtering of unwanted web-content (e.g. images, ads) but also allows for extra features. Current iCab comes with two filters (ads and video). Especially the YouTube video filter seems to be interesting as it adds a download link on all YouTube page views so you can easily download the videos.
One interesting feature of iCab is the iCab-Smiley. Depending on the validity of the HTML of the web site currently viewed, it will smile or look grim. Clicking on the smiley will bring up a list of any errors on the page, while shift-clicking it will activate an Easter egg. This feature was first seen in the same author's earlier web browser, CAB, for Atari TOS compatible computers. CAB is an acronym standing for 'Crystal Atari Browser' and was one of the few browsers available on this platform. iCab also boasts the following features:
- Tabbed browsing.
- JavaScript and CSS2 support.
- Multiple language support, including Arabic on older Macs (cannot display UTF-16 pages).
- Filtering:
- Sophisticated filtering out of images and plugin content (e.g. ads).
- Adjust rendering, network, JavaScript, and cookies settings for individual sites or types of pages.
- Kiosk mode: full screen display and access controls.
- Download manager:
- Allows the user start, stop, resume and review downloads.
- Maintains a download history.
- Supports downloading one page or a whole site (crawling) with many configuration options.
- Portable web archives: ability to save pages as a ZIP archive containing HTML and images.
- Acid2 test compliance.
- Very configurable print dialog.
- History window which can sort by title, last access date, or URL.
- Hotlist (bookmark) mechanism which can automatically or manually check for updates to bookmarked sites.
- Reload a single image on a page without needing to reload the whole page.
- Disable web "annoyances" such as animated GIFs and embedded sound files.
- Pretending to be another browser.
- Support for sessions (i.e. saving and then loading all open windows and tabs).
- Add any query (e.g., search engine, Wikipedia) to the toolbar search widget by point-and-click.
For several years after the discontinuation of the classic Mac OS, iCab was the only browser still being developed for it. Version 3.0.5, released this year, is the latest that will work with pre-OS X systems. The Mozilla website recommends it to Mac OS 9 users.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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