[Wilson]

Well folks, after a long time of being a both paid and free user of; IMHO, the best web browser for OS X, it would appear that after months and months of empty promises and back burner busy work, I think we all can assume Omniweb is in fact defunct. The Big Guns have won.

Having been around the net before there was one, and been around much longer than most of you have been alive, I find it increasingly depressing that the Web is being transformed into all things portable. "Smart Phone" types or demographics if you will. As an owner of an iPad and not a smart phone, I have yet to find one single web browser that will function properly on any websites with some level of normalcy. Chrome based variants, Mercury, iCab, Opera, Puffin, and that awful Safari, and many others not worth mentioning, that can't do flash, have trouble with xml and consistently crash with any website that uses Java. Is this what we've allowed to happen?

With Mac OS X beginning to ride off into the sunset, or certainly the way of iOS, it doesn't leave much promise for us users that use the web for Research, News, Comments, etc. We have been given browsers like Chromium, Opera, FireFox and its Gecko based variants; (Sea Monkey, Camino, Etc.) and yet again that awful Safari and the now unsupported speedster but weird, iCab. The Mozilla Foundation is keen on building an iOS or Android based comparable platform, so it shows where there headed. FireFox will soon go away too and so will Opera, and the rest of them.

Omniweb was an oasis in a sea of mediocrity. It has been my browser of choice for two reasons for over 10 years. Predictability and reliability. It was with out a doubt a workhorse. Sure, it didn't have a website dedicated to plug-ins that may or may not work, but it would catch the majority of dumb ads on websites. Even though it was based on WebKit, it certainly didn't act like it. I watched the changes come through as this little company continued to improve their products and move forward. Times change and unfortunately Omniweb and Mac OS X are not part of the future. I guess myself and other people like me will begin to disappear from the web entirely unless we're willing to embrace Smart phones and tablets with below average performance as a abysmal replacement.

To all the members of The Omni Group: My Humble thank you for years of a fun, reliable web browser and the other products you have developed over the years that you have provided.

To Mattias and others on this forum: Thanks for being you, offering tweaks, ideas and adding to the experience of Omniweb, and Camino. It was fun!

The next chapter of the Web known loosely as Web 2.0 is certainly on the move. What will it be and how will it be embraced? And how will companies like OmniGroup be part of it? For the first time in my technological life, I feel like technology is leaving me and others behind, and were not better for it.

Wilson, Out...