Hail an iCab -- We generally don't comment on preview releases of software in TidBITS, but we'll make an exception for iCab, a new Web browser from a German programming team led by Alexander Clauss and derived from a project for Atari systems. Available for PowerPC-based Macs, iCab features svelte system requirements, needing under 2 MB of disk space, less than 2 MB of RAM (with Virtual Memory or RAM Doubler; 4 MB without), and System 7.5 or higher. But that's just the beginning: iCab offers support for HTML 4.0, Java applets via Apple's Macintosh Runtime for Java (see TidBITS-467), sound and music via QuickTime, and support for contextual menus and Mac OS 8.5 features like Navigation Services - all with sprightly performance. iCab also offers features missing in the gorillas of the Web browsing world, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator (see TidBITS-465), including HTML error checking; a search feature that can hunt through local files, current Web pages, or send queries to remote search engines; connection logging; password and cookie management; and a sure-to-be-controversial image filter that can be used to block Web advertisements.

<http://db.tidbits.com/article/05282>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/05255>

iCab is a little rough around the edges - it often wraps text oddly, doesn't yet support JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets, or browser plug-ins (so far as I can determine), seems to have trouble with some HTML forms, and isn't particularly stable on my Macs - but neither are any other Web browsers. Preview releases of iCab that should run through mid-April are available in German and (just recently) English; each is about an 800K download. The final version of iCab should be shareware priced at about U.S. $30. [GD]

<http://www.icab.de/>
<http://www.icab.de/iCab_US.sit>