alert: new browser found
http://www.elementsoftware.co.uk/
element browser uses the gecko 1.9.1 trunk and written in .net
like hao's versions, the devs of element have decided to completely eliminate xul but instead of sane lua they opted for crazy .net. like all geckos that use native widgets the browser is a fast loader and responsive however the heavily skinned .net interface is almost as bad as xul when it comes to memory management sans the leaks.
element is littered with redraw bugs and it gets so bad that redraws seep into the page content requiring frequent minimise/restore to be able to see the websites properly
one of it's nifty features is a website dock which looks and acts like mac's dock with social websites as shortcuts..clicking on them opens the website in what is supposedly a kiosk mode (web app). which was funny because facebook treated the browser as a mobile browser and kept redirecting it to m.facebook.. the browser also has a weird useragent which even though it's gecko it has no mention of gecko or build and states as mozilla compatible like tridents.. a huge mistake since it will constantly be served trident bug-infested soup that the gecko won't be able to digest.
there is no way to change skins and you're stuck with the dreamy blue theme even though there's a link to 'add more skins' in preferences which sends to element website but there were no skins ..just 'widgets' which are glorified bookmarklets however then need to bee installed through msi installer
it was interesting to check how they handled ssl errors and invalid certs since they don't rely on pippki and chrome and gunter, you will be shocked... they have completely removed all redirection for invalid certs..that means everything is allowed access on secure pages whether it's a bad cert or not..they don't check it,.. how does gecko respond to that? not very well..and it brought the browser down several times which is nothing new because it seems to enjoy crashing so much that it asks to restore the session before it actually crashes and not after running after a crash..it's like it anticipates the crash and expects it.
to check out how they have removed the js redirection i went to the chrome folder and there was a clear readme there that said..chrome files have no affect whatsoever on element browser..what a surprise
another quirk was the address bar, you can type in it but you cannot copy any url from it or paste to it and there's no context menu..just weird.
this browser needs a lot of polishing. they really need to reconsider the interface and remove all skinning..the google look isn't working for them and unlike objective=c, .net becomes very resource hungry with skins and with the removal of ssl checking and js redirection; element browser is a financial disaster waiting to happen-for the end-user ofcourse..stay clear.