bookit 3.7.1 Review

There are many decent web browsers for Mac OS X such as OmniWeb (see review), Safari, FireFox, Camino, and Opera. Each browser offers a slightly different feature set and as expected, some browsers perform certain tasks better than others. As a result, it is often desirable to move between browsers on a daily basis; e.g., you may use OmniWeb most of the time, but Safari for a few pages, and FireFox for some others. Having your bookmarks remain consistent between all your browsers is virtually impossible to achieve by hand since there are several file formats in use - that's where a tool such as bookit steps up to the plate.

Bookit merges all your bookmarks and allows you to manage them within its interface and sync them with all your browsers. Alternately, if you have one master browser which you use most of the time and manage your bookmarks with, bookit will read them in and allow you to overwrite the bookmarks of your other browsers with the master browser's bookmarks. Other features include an optional global bookmarks menu extra and dock menu. Nearly every web browser for OS X is supported.

• By everyday software.
• download (demo)
• screenshot

OmniWeb 5.5 Review

A "power user's" web browser which hails from the NeXT glory days but has been thoroughly updated for Tiger. Useful features include resizable graphical tabs, collections of windows and tabs called workspaces, and preferences customizable on a site by site basis. Web browsing is a fast and pleasant experience since the rendering core is shared with Safari.

The joy of using this browser is in discovering all the finishing touches that have been put in. For example, to duplicate a given tab, hold down the option key and drag the tab in the vertical tab drawer (akin to copying files in the Finder). When relaunching the browser, the previous workspace is restored including all windows, tabs, and scroll positions, enabling you to pick up browsing right where you left off. Begin typing in a window and matching links are highlighted; hit return, and the selected link is followed. ⇧⌘ (shift command) F jumps to the web search field which defaults to Google, but is completely customizable.

Other interesting features include searchable and sync-able bookmarks, RSS feed support, speech recognition, HTML source code editor, ad blocking, ability to send a workspace to another user, and form fill. The peace of mind attained by using this browser will make you forget you had to pay for it! A free demo is available.

• By The Omni Group.
• download (demo)
• screenshot