Camino (web browser)

Last updated
Camino
Developer(s) The Camino Project
Initial releaseFebruary 13, 2002;22 years ago (2002-02-13)
Final release
2.1.2 [1]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg / 14 March 2012;12 years ago (14 March 2012)
Written in Objective-C Cocoa
Operating system macOS
Available inMultilingual[ which? ]
Type Web browser
Feed reader
License MPL 1.1/ GPL 2.0/ LGPL 2.1 tri-license
Website caminobrowser.org

Camino (from the Spanish word camino meaning "path") is a discontinued free, open source, GUI-based Web browser based on Mozilla's Gecko layout engine and specifically designed for the OS X operating system. In place of an XUL-based user interface used by most Mozilla-based applications, Camino used Mac-native Cocoa APIs. On May 30, 2013, the Camino Project announced that the browser is no longer being developed. [2]

Contents

As Camino's aim was to integrate as well as possible with OS X, it used the Aqua user interface and integrated a number of OS X services and features such as the Keychain for password management and Bonjour for scanning available bookmarks across the local network. Other notable features included an integrated pop-up blocker and ad blocker, and tabbed browsing that included an overview feature allowing tabs to be viewed all at once as pages. [3] [4]

The browser was developed by the Camino Project, a community organization. Mike Pinkerton had been the technical lead of the Camino project since Dave Hyatt moved to the Safari team at Apple Inc. in mid-2002.

History

Camino (web browser)
Camino timeline [5]
VersionDate
0.1February 13, 2002
0.2April 6, 2002
0.4July 24, 2002
0.5September 9, 2002
0.6November 5, 2002
0.7March 6, 2003
0.8June 25, 2004
1.0February 14, 2006
1.5June 5, 2007
1.6April 17, 2008
2.0November 18, 2009
2.0.7March 22, 2011
2.0.8September 9, 2011
2.0.9September 14, 2011
2.1November 29, 2011

In late 2001, Mike Pinkerton and Vidur Apparao started a project within Netscape to prove that Gecko could be embedded in a Cocoa application. In early 2002 Dave Hyatt, one of the co-creators of Firefox (then called Phoenix), joined the team and built Chimera, a small, lightweight browser wrapper, around their work. [6] "Chimera" is a mythological beast with parts taken from various animals and as the new browser represented an early example of Carbon/C++ code interacting with Cocoa/Objective-C code, the name must have seemed apt.

The first downloadable build of Chimera 0.1 was released on February 13, 2002. The early releases became popular due to their fast page-loading speeds (as compared with then-dominant Mac browser, Microsoft's Internet Explorer version 5 or OmniGroup's OmniWeb, which then used the Cocoa text system as its rendering engine).

Hyatt was hired by Apple Computer in mid-2002 to start work on what would become Safari. Meanwhile, the Chimera developers got a small team together within Netscape, with dedicated development and QA, to put together a Netscape-branded technology preview for the January 2003 Macworld Conference. However, two days before the show, AOL management decided to abandon the entire project. Despite this setback, a skeleton crew of QA and developers released Camino 0.7 on March 3, 2003. [6]

The name was changed from Chimera to Camino for legal reasons. Because of its roots in Greek mythology, Chimera has been a popular choice of name for hypermedia systems.[ citation needed ] One of the first graphical web browsers was called Chimera, [7] and researchers at the University of California, Irvine, have also developed a complete hypermedia system of the same name. [8] Camino is Spanish for "path" or "road" (as in El Camino Real, aka the Royal Road), and the name was chosen to continue the "Navigator" motif. [6] [9]

While version 0.7 was primarily a Netscape-driven release kept afloat at the end by open source, version 0.8 was, according to lead developer Pinkerton, "a triumph of open source and open process. People from all around the world helped with patches, QA, bug triage, localization, artwork, and evangelism." [6]

In March 2005, Camino's Web site was moved from the Mozilla Foundation's domain mozilla.org to the Camino Project's domain caminobrowser.org. [10]

In September 2005, Pinkerton accepted a position at Google where he worked closely with Google's Firefox team and continued to work on Camino during his "twenty percent" time.

Camino 1.0, released on February 14, 2006, was the first browser of the Mozilla family to appear as a universal binary, thanks largely to the efforts of Mark Mentovai, another of the Camino developers.

Camino 2.0, released on November 18, 2009, introduced many new interface features to the browser including movable tabs and tab preview. It was the first Camino release to be Acid2-compliant. [11]

With the release of Camino 2.1 in 2011, the developers announced plans to transition to WebKit for future versions, as Mozilla had dropped support for Gecko embedding. [12]

The final release was 2.1.2 released on March 14, 2012. [13]

On May 30, 2013, Stuart Morgan announced on Camino Blog that Camino had reached its end and was no longer being developed. [14]

Standards compliance

Camino 2.0, released on November 18, 2009, introduced many new interface features to the browser including moveable tabs and tab preview. It was the first Camino release to be Acid2-compliant.

The final release (2.1.2) scores a 99/100 on the Acid3 test.

Camino's HTML5 support via the HTML5 test standards testbed is limited.

Multilingual support

Camino 2.1.2 is available in the following languages:

Version compatibility

OS X versionLatest version Gecko release
v10.1 0.8.51.7.6 [15]
v10.2.8 1.0.61.8.0.13 [16]
v10.3.0 1.5.51.8.1.12 [17]
v10.3.9 1.6.111.8.1.24 [18]
v10.4 2.1.21.9.2.28 [19]
v10.5
v10.6
v10.7
v10.8

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galeon</span> Discontinued web browser

Galeon is a discontinued Gecko-based web browser that was created by Marco Pesenti Gritti with the goal of delivering a consistent browsing experience to GNOME desktop environment. It gained some popularity in the early 2000s due to its speed, flexibility in configuration and features.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">K-Meleon</span> Lightweight web browser for Microsoft Windows

K-Meleon is a free and open-source, lightweight web browser for Microsoft Windows. It uses the native Windows API to create its user interface. Early versions of K-Meleon rendered web pages with Gecko, Mozilla's browser layout engine, which Mozilla's browser Firefox and its email client Thunderbird also use. K-Meleon became a popular Windows browser and was available as an optional default browser in Europe via BrowserChoice.eu. K-Meleon continued to use Gecko for several years after Mozilla deprecated embedding it. Current versions of K-Meleon use the Goanna layout engine, a fork of Gecko created for the browser Pale Moon.

Gecko is a browser engine developed by Mozilla. It is used in the Firefox browser, the Thunderbird email client, and many other projects.

XUL, which stands for XML User Interface Language, is a user interface markup language developed by Mozilla. XUL is an XML dialect for writing graphical user interfaces, enabling developers to write user interface elements in a manner similar to web pages.

This is a comparison of both historical and current web browsers based on developer, engine, platform(s), releases, license, and cost.

David Hyatt is an American software engineer and a Shadowrun game expansion author. Employed by Apple starting in 2002, he was part of the Safari web browser and WebKit framework development team. He also helped develop the HTML 5, XBL, and XUL specifications.

Mike "Pink" Pinkerton is an American software engineer who is known for his work on the Mozilla browsers. He lectures on Development of Open Source Software at George Washington University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Netscape Browser</span> Internet browser

Netscape Browser is the eighth major release of the Netscape series of web browsers, now all discontinued. It was published by AOL, but developed by Mercurial Communications, and originally released for Windows on May 19, 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minimo</span> Mobile mozilla web browser

Minimo was a project to create a version of the Mozilla web browser for small devices like personal digital assistants and mobile phones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SeaMonkey</span> Internet suite

SeaMonkey is a free and open-source Internet suite. It is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite, based on the same source code, which itself grew out of Netscape Communicator and formed the base of Netscape 6 and Netscape 7.

Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI) is a deprecated application programming interface (API) for web browser plugins, initially developed for Netscape Navigator 2.0 in 1995 and subsequently adopted by other browsers.

The history of the Mozilla Application Suite began with the release of the source code of the Netscape suite as an open source project. Going through years of hard work, Mozilla 1.0 was eventually released on June 5, 2002. Its backend code base, most notably the Gecko layout engine, has become the foundation of a number of applications based on Mozilla, including the Mozilla Foundation's flagship product Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird. While the suite is no longer a formal Mozilla product, its development and maintenance is continued as the SeaMonkey community project.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mozilla Application Suite</span> Discontinued Internet suite

The Mozilla Application Suite is a discontinued cross-platform integrated Internet suite. Its development was initiated by Netscape Communications Corporation, before their acquisition by AOL. It was based on the source code of Netscape Communicator. The development was spearheaded by the Mozilla Organization from 1998 to 2003, and by the Mozilla Foundation from 2003 to 2006.

This is a timeline of web browsers from 1990 to the present. Prior to browsers, many technologies and systems existed for information viewing and transmission. For an in-depth history of earlier web browsers, see the web browser article.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Firefox 3.0</span> Web Browser

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 is a version of the Firefox web browser released on June 17, 2008, by the Mozilla Corporation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Netscape (web browser)</span> Family of web browsers

The Netscape web browser is the general name for a series of web browsers formerly produced by Netscape Communications Corporation, which eventually became a subsidiary of AOL. The original browser was once the dominant browser in terms of usage share, but as a result of the first browser war, it lost virtually all of its share to Internet Explorer due to Microsoft's anti-competitive bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows.

Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, with only minor exceptions. The community is supported institutionally by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation and its tax-paying subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Servo (software)</span> Experimental browser engine

Servo is an experimental browser engine designed to take advantage of the memory safety properties and concurrency features of the Rust programming language. It seeks to create a highly parallel environment, in which rendering, layout, HTML parsing, image decoding, and other engine components are handled by fine-grained, isolated tasks. It also makes use of GPU acceleration to render web pages quickly and smoothly.

The project that became Firefox today began as an experimental branch of the Mozilla Suite called m/b. Firefox retains the cross-platform nature of the original Mozilla browser, using the XUL user interface markup language. The use of XUL makes it possible to extend the browser's capabilities through the use of extensions and themes. The development and installation processes of these add-ons raised security concerns, and with the release of Firefox 0.9, the Mozilla Foundation opened a Mozilla Update website containing "approved" themes and extensions. The use of XUL sets Firefox apart from other browsers, including other projects based on Mozilla's Gecko layout engine and most other browsers, which use interfaces native to their respective platforms. Many of these projects started before Firefox, and probably served as inspiration.

References

  1. "Camino 2.1.2 Release Notes".
  2. Camino reaches its end. Camino reaches its end (2013-05-30). Retrieved on 2013-05-30.
  3. "What makes Camino special?". Archived from the original on 2016-09-08. Retrieved 2010-07-25.
  4. Camino 2.0 adds Tab Overview, improved annoyance blocking | E-Mail & Internet | MacUser. Macworld. Retrieved on 2010-11-11.
  5. "Camino - Download - Releases". Camino. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Bangeman, Eric (2004-09-22). "Interview with Camino Project head Mike Pinkerton". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2011-12-28.
  7. Chimera Archived 2001-04-05 at the Wayback Machine
  8. "Chimera 2.0". Archived from the original on 2010-06-11. Retrieved 2003-01-05.
  9. Camino. Documentation. FAQ
  10. Sidler, Samuel. "Welcome to the New Camino Project Website!". Camino. Blog.
  11. Camino. Releases. 2.0. The Camino Project (2009-11-18). Retrieved on 2010-11-11.
  12. Foresman, Chris (April 1, 2011). "WebKit best option for Camino as Mozilla drops Gecko embedding". Ars Technica. Condé Nast. Retrieved October 4, 2012.
  13. Camino. Blog. 2012 Archives. The Camino Project (2012-02-22). Retrieved on 2012-02-24.
  14. Camino. Blog. 2013 Archives. "Camino Reaches Its End" (2013-05-30). Retrieved on 2013-05-30.
  15. Camino. Releases. 0.8.5. Caminobrowser.org (2006-04-25). Retrieved on 2010-11-11.
  16. Camino. Releases. 1.0.6. Caminobrowser.org (2007-08-30). Retrieved on 2010-11-11.
  17. Camino. Releases. 1.5.5. Caminobrowser.org (2008-02-07). Retrieved on 2010-11-11.
  18. Camino. Releases. 1.6.11. Caminobrowser.org (2010-03-15). Retrieved on 2010-11-11.
  19. Camino. Releases. 2.1.2. Caminobrowser.org (2012-03-14). Retrieved on 2012-10-04.