Camino 2.1 Mac web browser released

After more than a year of development, the Camino Project has released version 2.1 of its open source web browser for Mac OS X. Like Firefox 3.6.x and Thunderbird 3.1.x, the new Camino update is based on version 1.9.2 of Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine. This improves JavaScript performance and compatibility with web standards, while also addressing several security vulnerabilities; however, specific details of which vulnerabilities have been closed are not provided.

The autocomplete function in the location bar has been completely "overhauled", allowing users to search both their bookmarks and history by matching results against page titles and URLs. The update also includes the ability to hide the status bar (View > Hide Status Bar), and a new offline mode that can be accessed using the new "Work Offline" and "Go Online" menu items under the Camino menu.

Camino 2.1 on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Certain insecure or incompatible versions of common plug-ins will be automatically disabled. Other changes to plug-in support include an "Internet Plug-Ins" folder as well as a new hidden preference for disabling specific plug-ins. The developers also note that Camino no longer includes a Java plug-in. Users who need to run Java applets are advised to install Java Plug-In 2 or the Java Embedding Plugin.

In a blog post, Camino Team Coordinator Samuel Sidler says that version 2.1 is currently available in six languages: Dutch, English (US), French, Italian, Japanese and Swedish – Chinese (Simplified), Norwegian and Spanish will be added "in the near future". Users interested in helping to translate Camino 2.1 are asked to visit the Camino Localization Project web page for more information.

More details about the major update, including a list of known issues, can be found in the release notes, in the change log and on the features page. Camino 2.1 is available to download for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger or later from the project's web site. Existing users can upgrade using the built-in update tool by selecting the Camino menu and "Check for Updates". Previous 2.0.x versions are no longer supported.

The Camino Project is almost as old as Firefox; the main difference is that the user interface is based on Cocoa instead of XUL to better tailor Camino to the Mac operating system. Source code for Camino is released under the MPL/LGPL/GPL tri-licence.

(crve)