iBrowse Evaluation

The iBrowse evaluation version has been released recently, and as such, we've decided to give you a run down. Vapor have yet to release a free evaluation version of Voyager, so I don't know how much they compare. This means that I'll probably end up comparing it to Voyager 2.95, which we reviewed last issue.

And I have to say, iBrowse compares very favourably. The dithering routines are the best I've ever seen, anywhere, in anything! Even on my shoddy little 16 colour Hires:Laced screenmode, it displays photos as if they ARE photos (apart from the person with Green arms, but I can excuse that

It seems to have speeded up a lot too, and it has Javascript support, which brings it nearly up to date. Somehow, I never imagined Amiga browsers getting Javascript support. Not because it was too hard to implement, or because the Amiga wasn't able to cope with it, but just because I never saw it fitting in the with the whole Amiga 'Environment'.

But it does, and it seems to work fine for the sites I've looked at, which is a good thing. The entire settins panel has been given a whole makeover in this version, and it's a lot easier to use than the last versions. It uses a nice Listview MUI Class (ListTree) which makes a nice change to normal Listviews. Only trouble is, it's not wide enough to fit my window font in it.

Moving back to the browser itself, you can now select the text on the page, and much easier than Voyager 2.95 too. The only problem being with bold and italic text, where some of the highlight is left behind, but that's not such a major thing. Also, on closer inspection of the bundled iBrowse pages, it seems iBrowse can now scale graphics on the fly, so specifying width and height tags in the <IMG> tag, you can scale the image. Good stuff.

iBrowse can spoof as Mozilla, meaning that some sites will allow iBrowse to access them. Mozilla (essentially Netscape) is the only thing it can spoof as though. Wouldn't it be good if it could also spoof as Micro$oft IE? I'd quite like to see it try and handle the Microsoft site (not a criticism of iBrowse - a criticism of the Microsoft site)

Anyway, if you haven't already got one of the new updated browsers, don't. We hope to be able to look at Voyager 3 next time, then you can decide what you buy

Anyway, the scores...

Supplier: HiSoft Systems

Comment: Fast, Slick and Brilliant

Score: 93%

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