Freeloader Friday Download of the Week
Specialized Browsers
Thankfully, a new breed of integrated browsers make is easier to dedicate light, fast browsers to different purposes, be they browsing, email, file management or more.
For the fans of full-screen work, this is a great way to go. This browser turns your desktop into a browser - controlled by a menu item. For those looking for an immersive web experience, this is it. Don't be scared, the website is in Japanese. All you need to know is where the download link is.
This browser takes a different angle at desktop integration. DeskBrowse features a full-scree mode but also works out of a fly-out shelf on the side of your screen. This choice is great for quick access to web applications like Gmail. Like most of this week's picks, this browser is based on Apple's WebKit (the rendering engine in Safari).
Sunrise is fast, with a sleek interface and smart use of transparency. It supports quick save-to-pdf and graphical (screen shot based) bookmarks. It looks and feels sharp with live page scaling. Sunrise is also a WebKit browser.
Shiira also makes use of transparency, but ditched the drop-down menus and panes for floating transparent windows for bookmarks and more. The browser includes support for tabs. There's even an alternative button set here. The most recent version requires Tiger, but a Panther version is our there too.
This pick is primarily a jukebox, but I've included it here because of its cleaver browser integration. Songbird is build on Firefox's XUL platform and as such includes the Gecko rendering engine. The multimedia capability on Songbird scans webpages for playable music and video files and lists them in a pane for quick access.
Songbird also supports extensions that enable iPod support and more. The player supports a long list of file types and shows a lot f promise for the future. This browser/media player is the app of choice for MySpace/indie band fans.
The Mac has a ton of great free browsers that offer interesting integration possibilities. There's sure to be a specialized browser to fit your needs out there.
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