Just saw this tantalizing link for what's billed as yet another browser coming for the Nokia N800:

http://www.intomobile.com/2007/08/03...okia-n800.html

Woah, THREE browsers for the N800. I'm not complaining.

Heh, I know maybe 20 people that use Safari. The other couple thousand computers use some version of Firefox, or the old assed Exploder.

Well technically Safari is based on Webkit... this new OWB browser is not based on Safari at all, although it has some commonality with Safari due to also being based on Webkit.

And there is already a WebKit project underway for the N800, making OWB the second attempt at WebKit and the fourth browser on Maemo (excluding Lynx!)

Unfortunately it appears the guy(s) behind OWB forked from the main WebKit trunk several months ago and have no plans to merge back into the trunk any time soon, meaning they are pretty much on their own and no longer benefiting from any ongoing improvements to the main WebKit branch.

The approach taken by the OWB developer(s) seems somewhat ill advised to say the least. Maybe they'll eventually release something in the future, but I'm not sure anyone will be interested as we already have Opera, Mozilla and WebKit projects. This is a great shame as the energies of the OWB developers would be better spent on the existing WebKit for Maemo development rather than going their own way and not contributing back into WebKit.

Maybe this is a stupid question, but WHY would somebody want to have a Safari/Webkit browser if there is already Mozilla available?

BTW, this is no rant, this is a serious question. I love Safari. 5 times as fast as Mozilla on the Mac. But Mozilla is running fine (well, also slow, but good) on the N800, so why again another browser?

Ton.

Mozilla running fine?! Maybe you're in some closed beta testing group with some new and improved built. With all the 'internal errors' and bugs introduced in Opera (!) ocurring AND the slow feel, you can hardly call it 'good'. Enough reason to want something better, if not another browser.

[QUOTE=Frankowitz;65700With all the 'internal errors' and bugs introduced in Opera (!) ocurring AND the slow feel, you can hardly call it 'good'.[/QUOTE]

Remember that the version you and i have are early betas? That's what you get when you install not-yet-ready products. If you have problems, file problem reports. That will make the product better. Waiting for another browser doesn't.
For me, personally, the Mozilla browser version that we have now works way better than Opera.

Ton.

Because KHTML is the most standards compliant renderer while also being very light... One reason I was highly annoyed that Maemo is Gtk based instead of QT/KDE.

Also remember that Nokia also has their own Webkit/KHTML browser being worked on.

I know it's beta, but don't tell me I can't critisize because it's beta when you call it 'fine' and 'good' when it's beta! Remember, a coin always has two sides...
Reporting problems that are mainstream and allready in the bugtracker is useless.

For me, personally, it doesn't (yet).

I applaud the new browser initiatives, including MicroB -- but I still use Opera because to me it works better, except for some very specific incompatible sites where I'm forced to switch to MicroB. Still, it can only get better.