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BTW, maybe we should get that icon updated... :-/

There are no alternatives to Adobe software, commercial or otherwise (especially after their acquisition of Macromedia). They're decent at what they do, but I use the software more because nothing else offers their features.

Serious cons: all Adobe software is extremely buggy, very memory hungry and pretty slow (relatively speaking).

Illustrator doesn't deal well with even simple artwork once you have a lot of layers (80 layers on my 1GB PB G4 1.5GHz was painful). You have to be very careful when clicking stuff to prevent the sluggish interface from producing completely unexpected results and ruining your work.

There are MANY wish-list items for Illustrator - too many to ever list in a comment field. The #1 has to be the desire for an Interface overhaul. All Adobe applications are stuck with mid-90's interfaces still.

Illustrator is MUCH better than Photoshop as a tool for every kind of Web graphic. It produces better gradients, better rasterizing than Photoshop import/place, much better font handling, etc. Oh, another wish is for this "suite" of applications to actually start sharing some common code for doing the same work.

Adobe is saying that the main priority for the next release of Illustrator (CS3) will be: Bringing back the usability and speed of Illustrator 8!
Now...that would be something to wish for, right?
I could purchase Illustrator CS3 only for this "feature"... This shows how desperate I am. :-)

Yeah, more speed would be great. Plus, the icon needs to but updated on this site!

Okay this was probably one of the very first programs that I used on my Mac Classic. I loved it and still do... to a point. It needs a serious refresh. Adobe, if your reading this, you need to put a lot more effort into Illustrator - many of the annoyances that I see every day have been hanging around for version after version.

Anyone on this thread complaining about hour-long launch speeds should definitely check out LineForm. Sure it doesn't have as many features as Illustrator, nor the 'industry standard' label, but definitely refreshing when you want to design a logo or something like that.

I actually don't use any of the CS3 versions. I am still on CS2 and see no reason to upgrade as of yet.

I think it a bit weird that in order for me to say I use a certain app, it must be the most recent version of that program.

Actually, you're just saying you use adobe illustrator, and we're saying cs3 is the latest version :) We've pondered adding version in use support for iusethis, but we're afraid of complicating the interface.

What's with the box instead of the app icon? : |

This should be called Adobe Illustrator and combined with the other one

Agree, it's UI is a little ugly, however since the 5.5 beta has been knocking around, it's hard to ignore this browser much longer. Will I pay for a it when it comes out? No. Paying for a browser at this point is nonsense.

5.5 is seriously an awesome browser and the fact that they are still working on it is great news. I don't know if I will pay the price they are asking for but who knows if I depend onthose features then maybe ... they have worked on a great product and do deserve some return on it.

I used to use Omniweb and also bought a license for it. But then a bit more than a year ago it just had too many incompatibilities with sites i just had to use on a regular basis. so i made the switch to Safari. but not with 5.5 beta 1 out I made the switch back, and a happy surfer again. the tabbed browsing in Omniweb is amazing, i just love the icons. Plus i don't think the UI is ugly, looks way better than Firefox and Camino. The site prefs are great, and i love the idea of the workspaces. Now what would really help is if Inquisitor would work with OmniWeb.

Omniweb 5.5 Beta 1 makes me glad I paid for the license back with 5.1. It is faster than any othr browser on my Macbook. The Tabs take some getting used to if you are used to Safari type ones but once you get used to them they are awesome.

The only thing that bugs me about it is the lack of support for seperate RSS readers like Vienna.

it is definitly not the fatest, but it is elegant.

Ever since 5.5 OW is my default browser again. Great UI, great features, I'm happy again that I bought the upgrade vor OW 5, I had my doubts during the 5.1 period, now everythings great again.

a few responses to "diggin_it"'s post (not so much for this poster, but more of a counterpoint for the users who may be turned off after his/her post):

• "Worst Browser" : you can't seriously say that IE/Mac, which has been out of development for years, and sketchy standards support is better than a program with solid standards support and active development?
• Ugly: that's rather subjective, but if you don't like the interface/icons, why not head over to hicksdesign.co.uk and download Jon Hick's alternative OmniWeb "skin"? I run it, and now Omniweb looks more like safari... well, safari with a unified toolbar.
• Slow to start up: Speed is always a relative thing, but OmniWeb only takes a second to load on my system, while FireFox, for example, takes about 30 seconds (to be fair, my copy of FireFox has heaps of extensions slowing it down... but most of those are there to match default OmniWeb functionality). When people talk about "faster than Safari" they are generally referring to page rendering time, and I have to say as someone who develops for the web, I can definitely see the difference (as I'm constantly reloading pages I'm working on). Older versions did have serious speed issues, but since 5.5 I haven't encountered anything similar.
• Has no extensions: what, pray tell, would you want added? I guess you answer that later, so I'll address it there.
••"extensions [are] standard with this generation of browsers": So far, the only Mac browser with "extensions" is FireFox. Camino and safari have a few plugins, but they generally deal with preferences and are more appropriately "hacks" due to the non-standard methods in which they must access the browser (such as Input Managers and SIMBL). And as I've mentioned before, most of the extensions/hacks I've run on FireFox/Safari/etc have been to mimic pre-existing OmniWeb features. I'm not downplaying how great the extensibility of FireFox is... I'd love to see all the browsers I use allow such flexibility in a standardised way.
• Cost money: Oh damn, 30 bucks for a solid program. How dare a company try to pay its bills and employees by charging for software?! IE (windows) and Safari are free because they are part of an OS package and any programming expense can be recouped in the price of the OS or other software. FireFox/Camino = open source and part of a foundation. Programming costs are lower when people are donating time (yes I realise they have paid employees, but they also have finical backing). Opera used to be just as pricey, but they've obviously made a shift in their business model and are garnering income in another way.
• Tab Browsing: Yes, firefox can do it with an extension, but the implementation and visual effect is hardly as nice. Oh, and everytime you add a feature-based extension, you are adding to the RAM firefox requires. And frankly, only Shiira's latest beta releases even have thumbnail based tabs (older versions had a feature called tab exposé, which is pretty cool, but not the same thing). OmniWeb has had this feature since at least 2004.
• Featureless: Umm... you're kidding, right?
•• "No RSS": uh, no, it supports RSS. Even has a little icon in the statusbar to tell you when a site has a feed, features in browser RSS management (much like FireFox). I will agree that I'd rather be able to define in the prefs that RSS links get forwarded to my standalone RSS reader, but copying a url isn't exactly hard.
•• "No Bittorrent": okay. Get a bit-torrent client. Xtorrent is quite nice. Wait... what browser comes with out of the box bittorrent support? Firefox requires an extension. Okay, Opera does. Eh... I'd rather not bundle all those tasks together, but hey... to each his own.
•• "No Spellcheck": Seriously... you're kidding right? I'm typing this in OmniWeb right now and it's telling me I misspelled "Spellcheck." It works exactly the same way Spellcheck does in Safari.
•• "Anything Flashy": Because, of course, those thumbnail tabs aren't flashy. And smooth, well thought out transitions (not the garish flipping page transition stuff of Shiira) in user interface widgets certainly aren't flashy. Wait, are you saying you want flashing lights and whirling dervishes? I'd much rather have useful features like site specific preferences, Workspaces, built in ad blocking, saved sessions and customisable search engines, thanks.

I guess you won't use OmniWeb, and frankly there is no convincing a person who jumps in blindly to reviewing/slamming something without even really paying attention. As Mac users, we all got a bit pissed off by the recent article from the lawyer who berated his PowerMac because of the differences in Microsoft apps, and whined about the absence of features that were right in front of him the whole time. Let's not do the same when we review an app, unabashedly trashing it with little more than a cursory glance at it.

What OmniWeb offers (and well worth the asking price) is a well thought out application that works effortlessly in a mac oriented workflow. Yes Firefox has all those extensions (and the bugs to prove it!), but can be fiddly accessing all those features. Clearing cache and history, accessing RSS and site specific preferences is intuitive and low on clicks.

I'm a serial browser user, but I always come back to OmniWeb.

Check out what the most extensive list of mac browsers has to say about OmniWeb - http://darrel.knutson.com/mac/www/browsers.html

Id like to apologize for my quick judgment. It was unacceptable for me to bash omniweb without taking a more thorough survey of its features. I've deleted my last post against it, and while I still don't like it a lot, I think I've forfitted my right to pass judgment on this particular app.

Anyone undecided about what browser to use should read 'gbb's comments about 'diggn_it's views, but also go check out 'diggn_it's views on Firefox. You will definitely get a good idea about the pros and cons of each.

Long live OmniWeb, long live Firefox.