Two Good Things · 22 August 2001
I’m increasingly fond of iCab, the Macintosh web browser that isn’t as fast as Opera (which still has a long way to go), isn’t as smartly designed as Internet Exploiter (or anywhere near as sluggish), and which lacks the searchingly unnecessary features and drunken wobbliness of Netscape four point whatever. Now that iCab is getting better at rendering style sheet formatting, and – with a few exceptions – is compliant with HTML 4.0 (it will even bark at you when pages are non-compliant), it’s become default hereabouts.
Deep down in its preferences, iCab has one of the best browser features ever imagined: conditional JavaScript filtering, through which one may disallow certain scripting trickery. Set it to block scripts that open windows, for example, and it’s no more popups, pop-unders, stupid X10 cameras, “a word from our sponsor.” Huzzah!
Another most excellent thing is a free contextual menu plugin that Dictionary.com provides, which will send any word you control-click on – no matter what application you’re in – to a lookup at dictionary.com, thesaurus.com, google, or something called Amazon in your preferred browser. Suave.
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