Rocky road ahead for the new Camino?

The Camino project was launched by Mozilla to embrace everything that Macs are loved for – elegance, functionality and simplicity. The aim was to design the ultimate Mac internet browser fitting for a machine of its calibre. Version 1.0.4 has just been released although it seems the developers have got a long way to go before they reach their lofty aims.

Despite being released to address stability and security issues, it seems many users have found it actually less stable than previous releases. Various disgruntled users on Digg suggest that version 1.1 Alpha was the last stable release whilst others complain of disappearing bookmarks and regular crashes.

However, its clear that the project has a lot of potential. Many users praise the speed that it can load webpages compared to Safari and even Firefox. The Gecko engine its based on also gives it a WYSIWYG editing capability for websites making it popular with many developers.

One of the most annoying aspects of Camino remains the fact that there are few options for customisation. Compared to Firefox with its hundreds of plugins, Camino users have to do with what they get. However, there is an unofficial website called PimpMyCamino which features a host of cool plugins and add-ons to beef it up. Another cool add-on to check out is CamiTools which is gradually adding more and more functionality to this still fledgling browser.