An OmniWeb alternative for Lion?
 

While investigating a subtle problem with 1Password 3.8.2 and OmniWeb 5.11, I found a note in the AgileBits forums about no 1Password support for OmniWeb on Lion, which led me to the [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=21670"]"1Password extension and Lion"[/URL] topic in this forum. (I'll be upgrading to Lion as soon as one key app makes the move.)

Although I did my own password management before 1Password, I can't imagine day-to-day use of a browser without the 1Password keyboard shortcut helping me login at various sites, especially those where I have numerous logins (e.g., Google accounts for many support clients).

I also can't imagine day-to-day use of a browser without OmniWeb's key features: Workspaces!!!, tab drawer, ad blocking, site-specific preferences, browser spoofing, ...

Google helped me discover SafariStand, a Safari extension that appears to offer an OmniWeb-like tab drawer and workspaces. I haven't tried it yet.

I imagine others share my desire for an OmniWeb-like experience on Lion. Let's use this topic to collect possibilities and real world experiences.

-- Ward

P.S. Upon re-reading this I realized I must make clear that I've been a committed fan of OmniWeb since 4.0.5 in November 2001. I also know that The Omni Group and AgileBits must focus their resources. So we're unlikely to see OmniWeb and 1Password on Lion any time soon.

At the moment I haven't got any plans to upgrade to Lion and I have quite a bit of software that won't work on it and also due to the fact that to a certain extent lion is looking like its going towards iOS which I personally wouldn't want.
So I was wondering what problems you are having with OmniWeb and Lion? Also I don't use 1Password as I'm not worried about having a central focus for web log-ins. Instead I use password software on my MacBook and HTC phone that contain the details as well as personal log in details for various other things in my life.
If OmniWeb worked OK in Lion could you not find something similar to use in place of 1Password?
I have dabbled with OmniWeb in the past but recently Safari has been getting worse and worse and I changed to OW and persuaded many other mac user to do the same.

The 1Password app has (in Snow Leopard and earlier) very tight integration with OmniWeb (and Safari), which makes it almost painless to have hundreds of different usernames and passwords. There's an extra button in the toolbar that gets it to do its magic, and it stuffs the username/password/other details into the browser directly so that even an active keylogger would not be able to steal them. Unfortunately, the Apple-provided mechanism used for OmniWeb and older versions of Safari to do 1Password's bidding has been removed from Lion, and converting OmniWeb to use the Safari extension architecture is more work than can be economically justified. This leaves lovers of OmniWeb and 1Password in the difficult spot of deciding whether OmniWeb's features are more important than super-convenient password management, or if they should try to find a way to emulate OmniWeb's features in Safari or Firefox. Or just never move to Lion, although that isn't a practical long-term choice.

I don't think things are helped with a lot of these software programmes now that Apple won't let third party plug-ins be used anymore.
I have seen around the web a number of developers saying they weren't going to continue beyond Snow Leopard for that very reason.
In fact, as a result of that, I know of at least three people that have uninstalled Lion and gone back to Snow Leopard.

You might want to check this out. There are some 1Password alternatives there that you may or may not already have checked out that might do the same job for you and allow you to continue to use OmniWeb.
[url]http://alternativeto.net/software/1password/[/url]
Last Pass seems to be quite a popular one to use. I might even have a closer look at it myself now.

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;101101]Unfortunately, the Apple-provided mechanism used for OmniWeb and older versions of Safari to do 1Password's bidding has been removed from Lion.[/QUOTE]

The reality is more subtle than this. Please see this post in the related thread: [url]http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?p=101341#post101341[/url]

Agile [U]can[/U] make the extension work on Lion. They have chosen not to do so yet, so it's important you let them know you want it. That will give them business reasons to consider it.

Has everyone forgotten the existence of Apple's own built in password manager - Keychain? We did without 1Password for years using Keychain only and it's still there and works well. Just: Preferences -> Form Autofill Preferences -> Prompt to save usernames and passwords and you're connected to Keychain. Not quite as convenient as 1Password and doesn't have all the extras but it's good enough.

It doesn't work for managing passwords on my iPad and iPod touch...

wow, this REALLY sucks. I just switched back to OmniWeb about 2-3 months ago and have been digging it. I upgraded to Lion this morning, and just went to login to a site requiring 1password and noticed it ain't there. Googled and found this thread.

I'm in mourning.

Giving up 1password is simply not an option for me. I hate to do it, but if Omniweb can't support this, then I can't stay with Omniweb.

damn.

ok, just got done getting Google Chrome set back up, getting 1Password working with it in Lion, etc...

by the way, I went to the 1Password blog to see what they say about no longer supporting various browsers like OW. Yes, they could still do it now but they say that those hooks are going away so it makes no sense to dedicate development resources to providing a solution that is temporary. If true, I can completely understand that. They assert the issue is that these other browsers are not creating proper hooks on their end to allow this new framework to function.

I don't say this happily as I'm a huge fan of OmniGroup and own most of their products and use OmniFocus on my Mac and iPhone daily. But after switching back to Chrome, there is no question it's a much faster browser and I'm having less memory issues and less spinning beachballs. And that is what is so frustrating. If there's a more beautiful, function-rich browser than OmniWeb I've yet to see it. I LOVE the look and feel of the app, but the performance has grown long in the tooth and it obviously does not have the API structure to be viable going forward as currently constructed.

I'd be thrilled to see OmniGroup invest some resources into this app, and if they returned it to a paid app and brought it current so its performance was comparable to Chrome and I could use 1Password again, I'd pay $20 easily to use it.

But as it stands, I've got no choice but to walk away from this app. Hope I get to come back to it some day.

Please let us pay for OmniWeb
 

[QUOTE=rmathes;104234]I'd be thrilled to see OmniGroup invest some resources into this app, and if they returned it to a paid app and brought it current so its performance was comparable to Chrome and I could use 1Password again, I'd pay $20 easily to use it.[/QUOTE]
I gladly paid for OmniWeb in its earlier days, when most browsers were free. And I was not alone.

When OmniWeb became free, that was the beginning of its end. Please, Omni Group, give us the opportunity to pay you for our favorite browser so that you can afford to bring it back to life.

-- Ward

[QUOTE=Ward;104249]I gladly paid for OmniWeb in its earlier days, when most browsers were free. And I was not alone.

When OmniWeb became free, that was the beginning of its end. Please, Omni Group, give us the opportunity to pay you for our favorite browser so that you can afford to bring it back to life.

-- Ward[/QUOTE]


amen.

I paid for it, too, and would gladly do so again to get the aesthetics and the functionality brought up to current performance and 3rd party integration. No question about it.

[QUOTE=Ward;101075]
Google helped me discover SafariStand, a Safari extension that appears to offer an OmniWeb-like tab drawer and workspaces. I haven't tried it yet.[/quote]

Just installed it to take a brief look. I can't really find anything that looks like a substitute for workspaces, but maybe I just haven't explored it enough yet. Maybe somebody else can fill us in here?

Apart from that I would like to put myself on the list of people who would be ready to pay for OmniWeb if this could lead to allocation of sufficient resources to keep the product up to date and have bugs fixed in acceptable time frames. Problem is that there's hardly any alternative yet...

[QUOTE=mbert;104283]Just installed it to take a brief look. I can't really find anything that looks like a substitute for workspaces, but maybe I just haven't explored it enough yet. Maybe somebody else can fill us in here?
[/QUOTE]

Replying to myself: it seems like after a complete rewrite these features are not yet implemented (again) in the software.

Just posted about LastPass and OmniWeb under Lion in the "Recent 1Password versions no longer working on OmniWeb" thread. The combination works quite well using LastPass bookmarklets.

[QUOTE=rmathes;104234].If there's a more beautiful, function-rich browser than OmniWeb I've yet to see it. [/QUOTE] Well there isn't a more function equipt browser than OW on any platform. Perhaps iCab is the closest i've found but it is missing many of the things we love about OW; Sidebar Tabs, Workspaces, Autofill/AutoComplete (it has autofill but not as useful as OW's) etc. iCab however, does have many advanced features that OW lacks but often implemented in a manner that is not elegant like OW. Features such as site preferences go beyond what OW offers example being able to switch plugins off per site but it's very awkward to get to. iCab's filtering is more advanced and flexible than OW. iCab offers offline mode, kiosk mode and has a download manager which I have to say has supreme functionality.

I've spoken to Alexander Clauss and requested a sidebar for Tabs, he said he is interested in the idea for the future. Since his priority (unfortunately like too many other developers) is currently iOS (iCab mobile) this may take some time. Hopefully I can persuade him to implement Workspaces as well. The situation has long since been somewhat frustrating, OW has many features iCab needs, but the implementation of such functions that iCab does have in common with OW are perplexingly weird. On the other hand iCab has many functions I wished OW would implement but that is beyond reality now. The only hope I see is for OW users to convince Alexander to work on bringing OW features and implementations to iCab on the basis that OW users would shift to using iCab.

iCab doesn't have 1Password
 

If I leave OmniWeb for another browser, the only reason will be to continue having 1Password in my browser. The only browsers for 10.7 and beyond are Safari, Firefox and Chrome.

iCab without 1Password is not attractive. Here's the official word from Agile: [URL="http://support.agilebits.com/discussions/1password-38-for-mac-from-agilebits-website/12698-browser-plugins-support-for-icab"]browser plugins - support for iCab[/URL]

I've been perplexed about the usefulness of 1Password for years. Besides providing a portable database between platforms Mac/Windows, what exactly is it that 1Password does that OmniWeb doesn't already do?

For me OmniWeb will AutoFill any and every login username/password website in the Keychain. OmniWeb also saves ALL submitted forms for AutoFill. Additionally, OmniWeb always saves ALL form text and remembers up to 5000 phrases which it then uses for automatically completing any form on any site. This goes way beyond the capabilities of 1Password since the last time I tried is, some years ago.

So really the only thing I can think of that 1Password is useful for is having a portable database which could be used on a crappy Windows/Firefox machine for those dreadful circumstances where no Mac is available. I do understand the importance of this particular point. I've been in this situation as well where it could have been useful. However, I'd never trust any Windows machine (especially ones at a workplace that are monitored) to perform anything financially that required any level of security such as online banking, logging in to PayPal, Ebay or paying for anything else online for that matter. For logging into forums I have no concern but Windows and browsers, thats a big no no for me.

Keychain obviously is problematic in this situation but the last time I checked I couldn't get my Keychain data into 1Password for a start so that made it practically useless. Not to mention missing AutoComplete function like OW's and the awkwardness of the 'hack-in' approach 1Password used. Now I see 1Password as less useful due it dropping support for major browsers that we use.

What is missing?

1Password highlights
 

[QUOTE=Drayon;108253]I've been perplexed about the usefulness of 1Password for years. ... What is missing?[/QUOTE][LIST][*]Easy login save and recall[*]Multiple logins for sites, e.g., my work identity, my personal identify, my wife, my daughter, client A, client B, ...[*]Saving stock answers for forms, with fill-in & submit or just fill-in and complete manually, e.g., Apple Feedback forms[*]Single password database on my Mac Pro, MacBook, iPhone & iPad[*]Elegant password database view & edit, far superior to Keychain Access[/LIST]

[LIST][*]Secure and convenient storage of files in that same package.[*]Key-logger-resistant password entry. [*]Password generation and tracking.[*]1PasswordAnywhere for convenient use on other computers.[*]Dropbox syncing.[*]Tagging and categorization of items, including smart folders.[*]Access from Services menu.[/LIST]