Updated iBrowse Web Browser Released for AmigaOS 3.x (ibrowse-dev.net) 21
Mike Bouma (Slashdot reader #85,252) writes: The IBrowse Team announced the commercial release of IBrowse 2.5 for AmigaOS 3.x (68k) and an improved PPC native AmigaOS 4.x version.
IBrowse was the most popular Amiga web browser of the 1990s when it pioneered advanced features such as tabbed web browsing.
"After many years in the making, development has been on a roller coaster since IBrowse 2.4, with challenging personal, technical and commercial issues complicating the release schedule," reads the announcement on the iBrowse site.
"However, we are extremely happy to finally make this new version available to all the valued users who have been waiting so patiently."
IBrowse was the most popular Amiga web browser of the 1990s when it pioneered advanced features such as tabbed web browsing.
"After many years in the making, development has been on a roller coaster since IBrowse 2.4, with challenging personal, technical and commercial issues complicating the release schedule," reads the announcement on the iBrowse site.
"However, we are extremely happy to finally make this new version available to all the valued users who have been waiting so patiently."
US$ 59.99???? (Score:2)
What an ripoff!
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Not if you have a job incel.
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The going market rate for a web browser is $0, what makes this worth $59.99?
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From an ad company? From an OS company?
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Yes, from an ad company, from an os company, from a hardware/os company, as well as from the mozilla foundation, from opera and from the various parties who build their own variants based on the open source browser engines. All of these browsers cost $0.
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With ads.
The "foundation" is getting money from?
The "hardware/os company" can afford to give away hours of work for free as they have "hardware" to sell.
Having "open source" do the work for "free"?
Software can also be paid for with money. No ads needed. No "foundation".
Paying for great software.
Re: US$ 59.99???? (Score:1)
Mozilla earn most money from Google searches but I guess not enough people use Google from iBrowse to make them a lot of money ..
Re: US$ 59.99???? (Score:1)
The existence of it for some.
It's not a mass market product. It's support I guess.
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The going market rate for a web browser is $0, what makes this worth $59.99?
That'e the going rate on the Amiga? I don't think so. The Amiga is littered with free browsers that are discontinued. If you still run a niche platform then you should support new software because it is so damn rare. If you insist on only using free to buy software then you will end up with nothing to use.
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"If you still run a niche platform then you should support new software because it is so damn rare."
oh please, the amiga is about the only retro computing platform where they dare ask these silly prices for their software, any other retro platform just gets software because, hey, it is 100% a hobby and totally useless except for the fun factor involved.
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Believe it or not, some folks are still using their Amiga (2000, 3000, 4000) for business applications. For me personally, I still use mine for MIDI (Bars and Pipes Professional) however I don't connect mine to the Internet and don't need this browser.
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yes, well, there is always somebody...
every week some crazy story pops up; a garage still using c64's, a school running heating system on an Amiga, a publisher pressing machine running on Atari, the latest last week was some bakery using a c64.
these are so rare they make the news.
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Who is the target market though? IBrowse 2.5 is basically the same browser as 2.4 from back in 2003, and even then it was quite dated. It doesn't support most of HTML 5, and support for older versions is incomplete. The Javascript engine struggles with the huge libraries many sites use now, and doesn't support many features implemented in the past ~17 years.
So it's not something you would generally use for day-to-day browsing. I still use 2.4 to access Aminet and a few other sites when I need to download st
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Everything great about the Amiga is antithetical to security. The lack of memory protection is often a bane, but people have also done all kinds of cute tricks with it. I've used at least three different multiuser systems for the Amiga, and all of them were terrible (though MUFS was a good effort, if fragile.) The more modern stuff you try to do with it, the more trouble you will have. It makes more sense to buy the new Pi and stick it inside your Ami's case (alongside what's there, mind, not in replacement
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> 2.4 from back in 2003
IBrowse 2.4 was released in December 2006.
> It doesn't support most of HTML 5
That's planned for IBrowse 3.0.
IBrowse team: "During IBrowse 2.4 development, some of IBrowse had already been ported to OS4 on the separate IBrowse 3.0 development branch. After the 2.4 release, it was decided to bring forward an OS4 native version before IBrowse 3.0... Hence IBrowse 2.5 was born. "
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There are likely to be only a few thousand users at best, so the advertising and personal data harvesting models used by other browser makers won't work.
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Never change, Amiga scene (Score:2)
For some reason, Amiga coders like to charge way too much for newly developed software. It's kind of sad how the machine that had such a strong open source ethos early on (before "open source" was even a defined term) has turned into such a cesspool of money grubbers.
They should at least open source the old BCPL version of the OS (so basically 1.x).
Why it matters (Score:2)
This browser still runs on old 68020 computers and is very fast on more modern hardware. Developing software for this small user base still costs much time and effort.
The "free" and more capable web browsers of which a few open source ones are available for AmigaOS4 will never run (or at least with enough performance) on the classic-line of 68k Amiga computers. Many Amigans are therefor still eagerly awaiting the planned IBrowse 3.0. And sales are needed to make this big step feasible.
Having a version for A