14 DAY TRIAL // Mesa Dynamics LLC has released Stainless, a new and free web browser that supports some of the features found in Google's recently-launched Chrome. Sporting a unified address and search bar, draggable tabs between windows, and a private stealth browsing mode, Stainless can be tried out by anyone owning a Mac (Intel, PPC) with Mac OS X 10.5 installed.
When users first fire up Stainless, the following message greets them: “Thanks for downloading Stainless: a multi-process browser for OS X inspired by Google Chrome. Like Chrome, Stainless has tabs that can be dragged between windows, a unified address and search bar, and a private browsing mode.”
The developers urge users to keep in mind that, for the time being, Stainless is “really just a technology demo.” Therefore, the free web browser is missing several features you'd expect to find in a production-ready one, such as a download manager, a bookmarks manager, font and text handling, page search, view source, and others. And, while Stainless is at its first release for the Mac platform (version 0.1), it's also “likely to stay” just a technology demo. “Still, we think our multi-process solution is pretty cool; and we hope you think so, too,” the developers add.
No additional support is offered either, such as a help menu or documentation of any sort. Stainless is just another web browser you could use, should you have grown tired of all the “unnecessary” features popular web browsers like Safari and Firefox boast.
Some keyboard shortcuts apply, such as command + T to open a new tab, or command + W to close a tab and eventually the main window. By hitting command + R, Stainless provides the user with a “process manager,” just like Chrome.
If you were wondering why Mesa Dynamics has created yet-another-WebKit-browser, the company says it was "because building a multi-process browser for OS X was a cool way to leverage the multi-processing technology we developed for one of our products, Hypercube. Judging from Chromium's OS X Detailed Status page, the Mac version of Chrome will use a WebCore-rendered bitmap to pass between the browser and rendering processes." Mesa Dynamics explains on that "The strategy we use in Hypercube (and now Stainless) is far less impressive, but a whole lot easier to do and, thus, available today for your downloading pleasure."
All this being said, feel free to download Stainless, and try it out on your Mac today. Weighing in at just 1MB, the simple web browser requires Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or later. Stainless is a Universal Binary.