“What about OmniWeb? Won't somebody please think of OmniWeb?”
We have, I swear. As it turns out, developing a web browser is pretty time-consuming work, especially when there's a limited number of engineers available for the task. Oh, you can stamp your foot all you want and shout outside their doors that you want to release OmniWeb 5.5 RIGHT NOW, but it won't do you any good. Believe me, I've tried.
We're making progress, though. Currently OmniWeb 5.5, which is a Universal release using the latest version of WebKit (revision 12177 at the moment, although we're updating it to be based on r13269), is in private beta. Our plan is to open this up to a public beta in the next couple weeks, with the usual warnings in place (OmniWeb 5.5 beta is in flux, has known issues, may wrinkle your linen pants, etc).
With the WebKit update, 5.5 is meant to offer an improved browsing experience over 5.1x; better speed and compatibility are the main benefits in this newest release. We've also added a number of other fixes and updates, which you can peruse at your leisure here.
Hang in there, OmniWeb fans! We have not deserted you, we leave no browser behind.
Here's a peek at 5.5 (clickity-click for larger image), although there isn't a lot that looks different from 5.1. Note the unified toolbar, site-specific preferences for using your own style sheets to view websites, and the WebKit Web Inspector feature (currently not a default in OmniWeb).
