Does anyone remember Camino? I didn’t think so. There was a time when Mac-using Mozilla fans would use Camino (Originally called Chimera), but today’s climate is very different. WebKit-based browsers have taken a strong foothold, and there seems to be a thinning of the herd in terms of alternate browsers. “Team Gecko” seems to have moved much more of their focus on Firefox.
As the folks at Mozilla work on their Gecko rendering engine, it is clear that Firefox is their number one priority. That’s very understandable when you look at how popular it is. Being completely fair, Firefox has become much better at fitting in with Mac OS X. There was a time when the Firefox team wanted a standard look and feel on every platform, and that clearly ended up being the wrong path. During that time, Camino was a better experience on the Mac when compared to Firefox. As it stands now, there is much less of a gap.
One of the biggest selling points of Firefox has been their add-ons. While you can extend the functionality of Camino, it isn’t truly compatible with the Firefox methodology. Along with that, it just doesn’t receive the same love and attention the bigger products like Thunderbird get. The last saving grace for Camino, in my eyes, is the integration with OS X’s Keychain password manager. Being able to use one single password manager on your computer is wonderful, and it is only a matter of time until the Firefox team sees that.
Do you use Camino? If so, please comment on this post, and let us know why you remain loyal to a back-burner browser. Maybe you know something that the rest of us don’t.
