Shiira Project
Users of Windows don’t have much choice when it comes to web browsers. They invariably start using Internet Explorer since it’s there already when they switch on. Increasingly though, they’re discovering Internet Explorer is rubbish and that there are alternatives such as Firefox (if you haven’t made the switch, do your bit for humanity and do so). For Mac users, it’s a bit different. Mac’s come with Safari installed, but there’s also Firefox, Camino, Flock, Opera and Shiira. All of them are excellent web browsers, each offering similar features. But some are faster than others and with all this choice, how does one know one is using the right offering.
Today, Safari stalled on me for the hundredth time this week. Oh yes, it does happen on Macs sometimes. The difference though between stalls on Macs and stalls on Windows machines is that a stall on a Windows machine is a painful affair whereby the programme having the problem decides to bring everything else down with it. On a Mac, you just click ‘Force Quit’ on the problem programme and it quickly does so. Safari has been causing me a few problems lately, so this afternoon, I’ve been playing with one of the alternatives. Shiira.
Upon opening Shiira, you immediately notice how great the interface looks. All the others browsers look good, but Shiira is something else. Obviously, great care has been taken on this and it shows. Opening the app and browsing around is fast. I’m using a Core 2 Duo iMac, so most things are pretty quick, but Shiira is noticably so. Tabbed browsing is naturally the way things are done these days, and in Shiira, you have the option of using regular tabs at the top of the window, or using the PageDock at the bottom. I found no benefit to using the PageDock and found it took up quite a lot of space so I’ve since switched to using the tabs. It’s nice though to have the choice. Incidently, if space for browsing is you thing (and it is mine), you’ll agree with me the the Full Screen browser is brilliant.
Browsing full screen is a unique experience and one I thoughly enjoyed. It completely changes the way you look at the websites you visit regularly. The interface is again, lovely. The developers could quite easily have been lazy and made slight alterations to the regular interface for use in full screen mode, but instead, they created a great minimalist looking toolbar (see above).
If you’re in the market for a new browser, I can’t recommend Shiira enough. It doesn’t have the expandability of Firefox or Camino or the features of Opera (which some may call bloat), but if all you want to do is browse the internet using a beautiful interface, than Shiira’s capability, speed and price tag (£0.00) will be exactly what you’re looking for.
