Have you used Camino? If so, what's it like?

December 18, 2004 12:30 PM

Has anyone had experience with Camino? Does it make use of OS X services? I love Firefox, but I also love the "Make Stickie from Selection." Can both these great tastes taste great together?
posted by OmieWise to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

Yes, Camino does make use of OS X services (including said sticky note service).
posted by alana at 12:36 PM on December 18, 2004

The problem with Camino, though, is that it's kind of hopelessly behind. There's no extensions architecture, the rendering engine is behind, and it just kind of feels "not quite done". I applaud the effort, there just don't seem to be enough committed developers on the project.

With that said, Camino does support things like Rendezvous, the OS X address book and services. I do know that there is an effort underway to "aqua-ize" firefox for the 1.1 release, sometime in early 2005. You might consider submitting a bug report to help make Firefox just that much better.
posted by jimray at 1:12 PM on December 18, 2004

Posting from Camino. Used in from the days it was called Chimera, because when I downloaded it, it was "Holy @!#$" fast and the rendering was prettier than anything except OmniWeb.

But... it doesn't seem as competetive speed-wise lately, suffers from various little quirks. Firefox on OS X is still just a bit *more* quirky for me, so Camino is still where I get my Gecko-browsing goodness for the Mac. But... I imagine Firefox will catch up unless more committed developers get onboard with Camino.

And yes, "Make New Sticky" does indeed make a sticky from selection... though I'm more likely to select and then make a clipping on the desktop by dragging the selection there.
posted by weston at 2:12 PM on December 18, 2004

I liked Camino, but I share Jimray's opinions on it being a bit outmoded. it feels sort of like iCab, great, no frills browser, but that's the problem... it's got no frills.

I use Firefox exclusively now, and am very happy with it. lots of options, the in-toolbar customizable search, and the access to a multitude of extensions make it the best browser out there for the mac right now.
posted by getupandgo at 2:24 PM on December 18, 2004

I, too, have been using Camino since the Chimera days. And I love it. I have Firefox installed, but rarely use it.

I don't think that Camino is for people like jimray who basically want an aqua version of Firefox. The Camino philosophy is the same as the OS X philisophy: when you can, keep things simple. The preferences are stripped down, the interface is plain, and while it supports plugins, it doesn't have extensions. It was designed to simply browse the web while integrating with OS X, and it does that plenty well.

As far as Camino being behind with the renderer, that is just plain false. Taking a look at the user agent for various browsers:

Firefox 1.0: Gecko/20041107
Camino 0.8.2: Gecko/20041201
Camino nightly: Gecko/20041214

As you can see, the Camino release has a version of the rendering agent almost a month newer than Firefox.
posted by sbutler at 2:42 PM on December 18, 2004

Now that we seem to have an answer, can one of you Macfolks explain "Make New Sticky" to this WinXP user?
posted by billsaysthis at 5:48 PM on December 18, 2004

In Safari and most OS X apps I just select some text -- eg, your question -- and with a keystroke I get a sticky note which persists on the desktop until I decide to get rid of it.


posted by Wolfdog at 6:40 PM on December 18, 2004

Another Camino fan here. Every now and then, I take other browsers for a spin, but I always find myself coming back to Camino. Also, you might find this Arstechnica review interesting.
posted by invisible ink at 6:57 PM on December 18, 2004

Thanks Wolfdog.
posted by billsaysthis at 7:07 PM on December 18, 2004

I had been using Safari for a long time as Firefox was too buggy and Camino didn't seem to add anything for me over Safari. Eventually Safari started to get real slow and I realized that it only allowed for one-level of bookmark bar items, everything past what would fit on one line was dropped into a pull-down menu. The slowness of Safari and the multiple lines of bookmark bar bookmarks made me switch to Camino. I haven't looked back. Firefox now seems more stable and I like the idea of plug-ins but I cannot live without the multiple line bookmark bar items. If Firefox had that I'd switch but until it does, I'm a Camino user.
posted by pwb503 at 3:19 PM on December 19, 2004