iRider version 2.2 final release
Posted by Daniel Fleshbourne on 24 September 2004 - 12:25 · 23 comments & 2848 views
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Full name: Daniel Fleshbourne
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(3 replies)
#1 Posted by RufioPan on 24 Sep 2004 - 13:19
- I have to say, the Surf-Ahead feature seems like a very interesting idea! Could end up being as cool a feature as Type Ahead Find!
One thing that turns me off from it though: is it just me, or does it seem like this browser uses the IE rendering engine? -
#1.1 Posted by Autumnmist on 24 Sep 2004 - 13:22
- Surf Ahead is not exactly new to this "browser"... and I suspect there is also a Firefox extension with this sort of functionality. And unless they've forked Firefox, it must be an IE-based browser with all of the vulnerabilities inherent in that.
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#1.2 Posted by psykil on 24 Sep 2004 - 16:05
- there's at least 3 FF extensions i've seen so far that give you preview thumbnails, but only of google searches. and as far as I can tell, this is an independant browser - not based off the IE core or Mozilla.
http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,64216,00.html -
#1.3 Posted by kennect on 25 Sep 2004 - 20:38
- iRider uses Windows components to implement some functionality. It is NOT vulnerable to the more serious IE security holes. (We frankly feel it's a shame when people unfairly penalize us -- a Microsoft competitor -- for Microsoft's troubles.)
QUOTE Surf Ahead is not exactly new to this "browser"...
Look closer: you can select multiple links -- dozens or even hundreds -- open them all at once, and flip through them instantly as they download. You can even do this with bookmarks in several ways.
You can also Surf-Ahead forms, javascript links, etc., and it works right, unlike most browsers. Doing this with forms is especially useful:
http://www.irider.com/irider/SSFormFunctionality.htm
There are many more features that go way beyond tabbed browsing, and I hope people will take time to get the subtleties.
Dave
Wymea Bay
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(1 reply)
#2 Posted by Galley on 24 Sep 2004 - 14:59
- Surf-Ahead? So how is that different from middle-clicking in Opera to load links in a new background tab?
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#2.1 Posted by kennect on 25 Sep 2004 - 20:58
- You can select multiple links and open them all at once, and flip through them instantly as they download, and do this with bookmarks in several ways. The Page List of thumbnails lets you do work with hundreds of pages this way, while Opera starts to get very awkward after opening more than a couple of dozen tabs.
So, for example, you could open all the photos for the movie "Hero", and flip through them with no waiting (not just quickly, but instantly):
http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&id=1808404384&cf=pstills
You can then pin photos you want to save, then bookmark them all at once.
You can do this sort of thing with multiple sites or pages simultaneously without getting lost. You can also quickly close all the pages you opened without closing those belonging to other sites (say, if you have neowin.com and some other pages open in other tabs).
The pages opened in iRider are presented in an organized map and are navigable instantly using Back/Forward, a Next Page button, and a Parent button, where the tabs in Opera or other browsers are islands with no relationship to each other, shown as a row of arbitrarily ordered tabs that shrink to conceal even their titles as you open more.
You can also open javascript links this way, where with Opera, opening a javascript link into a new tab results in a blank page or an error.
Dave
Wymea Bay
(an iRider Developer)
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#3 Posted by [C-F] Lee on 24 Sep 2004 - 16:06
- Ah cool. Thanks!
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(4 replies)
#4 Posted by pctuk on 24 Sep 2004 - 16:37
- Looks quite cool.
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#4.1 Posted by groingo2 on 24 Sep 2004 - 17:13
- Lacks in ad stopping and banner removal, innundates with advertising stuff even with SP2 and blocking on high.
Also lacks in basic capability to turn certain functions on and off like Active X, Scripting etc as well as the ability to taylor the desktop or move buttons.
Pass. -
#4.2 Posted by pctuk on 24 Sep 2004 - 18:18
- It'd be good if Firefox were to incorporate some of its features - especially the vertical list of websites with previews which looks quite handy.
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#4.3 Posted by groingo2 on 24 Sep 2004 - 22:14
- If I remember right, the verticle lists and previews are also in the Phaseout Browser.
I just kept getting hit with adds with no way to turn off short of running a third party ad blocker, that was the most aggrivating thing. -
#4.4 Posted by kennect on 25 Sep 2004 - 21:00
QUOTE Lacks in ad stopping and banner removal, innundates with advertising stuff even with SP2 and blocking on high
iRider makes pop-ups as innocuous as magazine ads without blocking them, solving several problems with pop-up blocking:
-- Pop-ups that you really need don't get blocked. Mozilla even has a warning about this problem.
-- You don't need to spend time configuring a blocker or turning it on and off to get it to do the right thing on each particular site.
-- Free websites may survive and stay free because their ads don't get blocked. Of course obnoxious ads deserve to be blocked, but the whole point of iRider's approach is to make pop-ups innocuous. Some people prefer to block all advertising, but it's unreasonable to block ads on free websites and expect them to remain free.
-- When pop-ups aren't being blocked, free websites are less likely to adopt even more obnoxious types of ads, such as layer ads that appear within a page and overlap content that are much harder to block reliably and which are becoming a new nuisance on the web.
QUOTE Also lacks in basic capability to turn certain functions on and off like Active X, Scripting etc
This can be done in a Security settings dialog. Of course, the whole paranoia about ActiveX is silly: even pre-SP2, a dialog appears before any ActiveX downloads, and users who foolishly download an ActiveX control from a sleazy website shouldn't be surprised when there's trouble. Flash, Quicktime and other components are also ActiveX, and they can be useful sometimes. SP2 now cautions novice users about ActiveX more effectively.
Browsing is virtually impossible without scripting turned on, and it's safe if you've got your security settings right (and avoid sites like RussianGangter.ru).
QUOTE the ability to taylor the desktop
The Page List is far more functional than tabs in any tabbed browser.
Dave
Wymea Bay
(an iRider Developer)
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(5 replies)
#5 Posted by LordOfLA on 24 Sep 2004 - 22:34
- this is just another shell for internet explore which you can see by looking at its requirements. If you're going to pay for this you may as well pay for opera and get a much better browser.
Seriously people need to research these "new browser" claims a little more closley
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#5.1 Posted by groingo2 on 24 Sep 2004 - 23:21
- I bought Opera version 6 and 7 and don't plan buying any more Opera until Opera gets more WEB compliant (Not Standards compliant), would pay for Firefox before Opera and this latest IE shell, even free I'll PASS.
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#5.3 Posted by StuRReaL on 25 Sep 2004 - 16:14
- yeah exactly
they should say "another new UI for IE" or "another new UI for gecko" its only a new browser if its using a new layout engine -
#5.4 Posted by kennect on 25 Sep 2004 - 21:10
- I think Opera's better than Mozilla in many ways, but iRider can do many things that these browsers and many others can't.
Of course, some prefer tabbed browsing and other forms of punishment
http://www.irider.com/PagesVsTabs.htm
Dave
Wymea Bay
(an iRider Developer)
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#5.5 Posted by LordOfLA on 25 Sep 2004 - 21:56
- look how much space that takes up though hehehe
I'd much rather have thumbnail tooltips on my tabs than that mess
But in all seriousness, these new uis for IE are every bit as vulnerable as IE to the IE exploits out there, if you guys really want to be taken seriously you should make yourself a new rendering engine to put gecko, opera and khtml/safari to shame
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(1 reply)
#6 Posted by RottGutt on 25 Sep 2004 - 02:49
- It is pretty neat, but I would like to know if you can keep it from opening a new "page" on the left-hand pane every time you click a link. I like it when I right-click a link and it opens a new page, but I just want it to open the new page in the current window when I left-click a link. Is this possible?
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#6.1 Posted by kennect on 25 Sep 2004 - 21:00
- There are a couple of important reasons that iRider opens all pages as separate entries in its page list: spontaneity/speed, and consistency. One shouldn't look at the pages in iRider as being the same as tabs -- they're more like a Back/Forward menu on teutonic steroids.
There are many times while browsing when one can't predict when one will need to return to a given page. For example, you start a search and it's slow to finish, and/or you realize there are other variations you want to try. In iRider, just click Back instantly to the search form, leaving the first search running, and start other searches. Pages always download asynchronously, giving you complete freedom to move around as they download, even if you didn't anticipate doing so in advance. You can even use the Next Page button to return to any pages you left "pending." (And of course this happens even on fast connections, but is especially helpful on a slow connection.)
The Page List in iRider always presents pages in a consistent way, regardless of whether you opened them normally or using Surf-Ahead (i.e., like queuing into a new tab), and this helps one make sense of the sites and pages you've got open and make it much easier to move among them instantly using Back/Forward and other commands, or by riffling through pages with the mouse. One of the problems with ordinary tabbed browsing is that each tab is a world-within-a-world with its own Back/Forward history, and there are endless permutations of ways in which pages can be opened either intra-tab or into new tabs. This works alright for simple browsing tasks but degenerates quickly as you open more than a few tabs or do more complex browsing.
Dave
Wymea Bay
(an iRider Developer)
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(2 replies)
#7 Posted by StuRReaL on 25 Sep 2004 - 13:08
- hmmm interesting features, shame its an IE wrapper.
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#7.1 Posted by kennect on 25 Sep 2004 - 21:05
- Again, though iRider uses Windows components to implement some functionality, it's NOT vulnerable to the more serious IE security holes.
http://www.irider.com/irider/TNIESecurity04-07.htm
http://www.irider.com/irider/TNIEAddressSpoof.htm
Microsoft deserves some scorn (believe me, we have no love for them, nor do most developers who have to target Windows), but some of the knee-jerk IE criticism is irrational, especially when it's misapplied to Microsoft competitors.
Dave
Wymea Bay
(an iRider Developer)
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#7.2 Posted by LordOfLA on 25 Sep 2004 - 21:59
- okay well correcting my reply to your reply to my comment....*phew*
that still doesnt mean you have a better content rendering engine and you still fall fould of IE's poor and broken CSS support
We'll nail you to the wall on that one I suppose
you might get your average "just so long as I can see a webpage" person using this, but anyone who's worth their salt will not be using "just another IE wrapper"
(iRider may be used freely for 21 days after download, after which customers can purchase a key for continued use. Academic and non-profit discounts are available.)
iRider's patent-pending features let users browse, work with, and bookmark multiple pages and sites far more quickly and easily than any other browser. It goes far beyond the "tabbed browsing" features provided by many other browsers and is completely generalized for browsing multiple pages and sites.
iRider has been hailed widely in the press for true browsing innovation, by Wired magazine, PC Magazine's John Dvorak, TechTV, The Washington Post, ZDNet and many others.
Increasing dissatisfaction with the ubiquitous Microsoft Internet Explorer is spurring many people to consider alternatives, and iRider has gained many converts who are dissatisfied with the features of other alternative browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox and Opera. "It's very gratifying that so many people appreciate the innovations we've implemented in iRider," said Ken Broomfield, CTO, Wymea Bay. "We weren't satisfied with the modest incremental refinements seen in browsers over the last ten years and even in the newest browsers, so we've tried to take browsing to the next level," he said.