When we were selling it, it made enough money from its tens of thousands of direct sales to continue to pay for its development and support. But we feel it has the potential to reach a much wider audience as a free application than we did when we were charging for it.
So OmniWeb is still being developed, we've just decided to make it free. You can see what's coming in the next version under development by watching its daily "sneaky peek" builds at <http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omniweb/d...>.
Jonathan Bailey
· 9 months ago
I have to be a bit honest here and say that this has me confused. If OmniWeb was a positve cash flow product, why stop active work on it? Granted, by your own admission in the blog post, development has been slow, but it doesn't make any sense to stop profiting from it and slow down development further.
The post says the following: "No. We aren’t ruling out future updates at all, and we’re keeping our options open. We have lots of ideas for what we’d like to add to these products, and it’s possible that at some point we’ll have more resources to allocate to them."
That makes it seem, to me, that the product is not under any active development, something verified by the Mashable article, which said "which are not currently under active development."
To find out that there are new versions, including a beta release today, is surprising.
Getting back to my point, there is nothing wrong with a niche browser finding a niche audience and making a profit. Though the temptation to open it up in hopes it finds a wider audience is great, I have to wonder about how large of an audience it will find with the knowledge that it isn't under active development.
OmniWeb is a great browser and I do love it, the announcement it was free lifted my sprits and the related one that it was no longer under active development was a real downer.
I am beginning to wonder if maybe this is more of a misunderstanding/miscommunication. I want to see OmniWeb succeed, but it sounds like, from what you say, it was succeeding just fine. Other than the potential for the larger audience, was there anything that prompted this decision?
Greg Titus
· 9 months ago
"If OmniWeb was a positve cash flow product, why stop active work on it?"
(I work at Omni.) Because we have too many successful products and too few resources to continue development full-speed on all of them. And finding the right people to hire takes a long time.
So it wasn't that OmniWeb wasn't positive cash flow, the problem was that a lot of the other things we are doing are a lot more cash-flow positive, and we came to the conclusion that we needed to put more resources into those things.
This leaves OmniWeb in kind of a hobby-esque place at the moment. We all still use OmniWeb, and we all still want better web browsing, but the fact is, other apps are higher priority for the time being. And the pricing change (to free for OmniWeb aand for 3 of our other apps) just reflects that reprioritization.
Bradley Wright
· 9 months ago
I feel OmniWeb's most prominent features aren't the gimmicky tabs on the side (which I never liked), they're the awesome site-specific preferences (including ad-blocking), and excellent (and still to be replicated) history search via location bar. No browser even gets close to these, they haven't yet been replicated in any plugin I've seen, and I'd be using OmniFocus to this day if the WebKit caught up with Safari 4.
PS: I paid for a license and haven't regretted it.
Jonathan Bailey
· 9 months ago
You're probably right in terms of usability but if you read the literature on their site it's all about the tab tray. I will say that I did like the tab tray feature, The history search was/is cool but Safari seems to have caught up with it for the most part with the new beta and it isn't a feature I used a great deal on the best of days. I lean more on Diigo, Evernote, etc. to find links of interest.
The site specific preferences had a similar problem, a very useful feature, but not one I used heavily either. It ended up being something I liked but felt I could live without.
I probably wouldn't have regretted buying a license, but still ended up not doing it. Considering some of the other crap I HAVE bought, it does seem odd. Still, I wanted to write this to try to put some perspective on it for me at the very least.
Jon Glass
· 6 months ago
Jonathan- (my name too, btw), It's odd what one comes across, while searching the internet. I'm a bit late to this parade (three months late, in fact), but I found this post while searching other information, and just had to post. ;-)
I've been using Omniweb almost exclusively since 5.4. Like you, I played with the demos and then the betas, constantly upgrading, but not paying, but finally, one day, I realized that Omni was the browser for me, and worth my money, so I paid, and put the others on the "shelf." I use most of Omniweb's unique features regularly, and the ones I use the least, I use no less than once a week.
I suspect that what you have done in your comments, is project your own needs and desires for a browser onto the entire market. Omni may not have been compelling for you, but for a good number of people, it _is_ compelling. Also, I've been delighted to see Omniweb getting a fair number of updates in the months since they made it free. I have decided to stick with 5.9.1, due to Webkit issues in Gmail, but the sneaky peaks are fun to play with. ;-) I wouldn't give up on Omniweb just yet.
Since I suspect you will ask, I'll try to tell you what about OW compels me to use it.
1. Tabs. I do so much prefer the tabs on the side. For one, they are always a consistent size, and not dynamically changing all the time, causing me to accidently close a tab I merely meant to click on (as happens to me all the time in Safari and Firefox, and all the rest--I can't believe this doesn't irritate other people like it does me). Also, I can see more on the screen than with top-tabs (and if I turn off the icons, I can get a _huge_ number on-screen)
2. The flexibility of the tabs, moving, double-click to open in a new window, drag tabs between windows, etc. OK, most other browsers have added these features--but Omni had it first. ;-)
3. Workspaces. I have workspaces for certain kinds of works and subjects. It's great! I use this far too much. ;-)
4. Site-specific preferences. Granted, this one may seem silly at first, but I have a couple web sites, where I have set their downloads to other, specific locations. Also, I prefer a couple web sites to show me all their ads, and others, none. I have also added/changed the CSS for a couple sites I frequent. All of this is possible _only_ in Omniweb, and Omni makes it quite brainless to implement. I may not use all the site-specific preferences for the bulk of my pages, but when I have it, it is a great blessing. :-) Trust me, once you start using it, and seeing the potential, you will find more and more uses for it--at least I did.
5. Built-in source editing, and a gorgeous item inspector. Love 'em! Don't use them as often as the other features, but when I need them, they are life-savers.
6. And one feature I am using currently, and use so much, I forgot it was a feature. ;-) Popping out text entry fields into a separate window. You get used to that, and forget it may not be normal. ;-)
So, as you can see, there are compelling reasons for some/many people. :-) BTW, the "crashing" issue for Omni--not so much a show stopper as I originally thought. 5.9 is very stable, and besides that, Omni crashes as elegantly as you could hope a program to crash. Relaunch, and you are right where you left off. I don't remember ever losing work due to an Omni crash, yet other browsers frequently have let me down on that front--and yes, as you said, they _all_ crash. :-)
Well, that's my .02‹ worth (a little inflated, maybe)
-Jon
sven
· 6 months ago
I fully agree. I even forced myself to try Safari 4 for some time, but I couldn't stand the barely readable tabs. OmniWebs sidebar is a major advantage, because it scales much better when it comes to a large number of tabs.
Also, nice write-up on the other features. I hope somehow the development continues we're not forced to switch ;)
Jon Glass
· 6 months ago
It seems that Omnigroup is keeping up with bugs, and also trying to keep the technology at the latest (Webkit, etc.), but they even added a new , albeit weird feature with 5.9.2--Gopher support! I don't think they will be abandoning us any time soon.
All Comments
So OmniWeb is still being developed, we've just decided to make it free. You can see what's coming in the next version under development by watching its daily "sneaky peek" builds at <http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omniweb/d...>.
The post says the following: "No. We aren’t ruling out future updates at all, and we’re keeping our options open. We have lots of ideas for what we’d like to add to these products, and it’s possible that at some point we’ll have more resources to allocate to them."
That makes it seem, to me, that the product is not under any active development, something verified by the Mashable article, which said "which are not currently under active development."
To find out that there are new versions, including a beta release today, is surprising.
Getting back to my point, there is nothing wrong with a niche browser finding a niche audience and making a profit. Though the temptation to open it up in hopes it finds a wider audience is great, I have to wonder about how large of an audience it will find with the knowledge that it isn't under active development.
OmniWeb is a great browser and I do love it, the announcement it was free lifted my sprits and the related one that it was no longer under active development was a real downer.
I am beginning to wonder if maybe this is more of a misunderstanding/miscommunication. I want to see OmniWeb succeed, but it sounds like, from what you say, it was succeeding just fine. Other than the potential for the larger audience, was there anything that prompted this decision?
(I work at Omni.) Because we have too many successful products and too few resources to continue development full-speed on all of them. And finding the right people to hire takes a long time.
So it wasn't that OmniWeb wasn't positive cash flow, the problem was that a lot of the other things we are doing are a lot more cash-flow positive, and we came to the conclusion that we needed to put more resources into those things.
This leaves OmniWeb in kind of a hobby-esque place at the moment. We all still use OmniWeb, and we all still want better web browsing, but the fact is, other apps are higher priority for the time being. And the pricing change (to free for OmniWeb aand for 3 of our other apps) just reflects that reprioritization.
PS: I paid for a license and haven't regretted it.
The site specific preferences had a similar problem, a very useful feature, but not one I used heavily either. It ended up being something I liked but felt I could live without.
I probably wouldn't have regretted buying a license, but still ended up not doing it. Considering some of the other crap I HAVE bought, it does seem odd. Still, I wanted to write this to try to put some perspective on it for me at the very least.
(my name too, btw), It's odd what one comes across, while searching the internet. I'm a bit late to this parade (three months late, in fact), but I found this post while searching other information, and just had to post. ;-)
I've been using Omniweb almost exclusively since 5.4. Like you, I played with the demos and then the betas, constantly upgrading, but not paying, but finally, one day, I realized that Omni was the browser for me, and worth my money, so I paid, and put the others on the "shelf." I use most of Omniweb's unique features regularly, and the ones I use the least, I use no less than once a week.
I suspect that what you have done in your comments, is project your own needs and desires for a browser onto the entire market. Omni may not have been compelling for you, but for a good number of people, it _is_ compelling. Also, I've been delighted to see Omniweb getting a fair number of updates in the months since they made it free. I have decided to stick with 5.9.1, due to Webkit issues in Gmail, but the sneaky peaks are fun to play with. ;-) I wouldn't give up on Omniweb just yet.
Since I suspect you will ask, I'll try to tell you what about OW compels me to use it.
1. Tabs. I do so much prefer the tabs on the side. For one, they are always a consistent size, and not dynamically changing all the time, causing me to accidently close a tab I merely meant to click on (as happens to me all the time in Safari and Firefox, and all the rest--I can't believe this doesn't irritate other people like it does me). Also, I can see more on the screen than with top-tabs (and if I turn off the icons, I can get a _huge_ number on-screen)
2. The flexibility of the tabs, moving, double-click to open in a new window, drag tabs between windows, etc. OK, most other browsers have added these features--but Omni had it first. ;-)
3. Workspaces. I have workspaces for certain kinds of works and subjects. It's great! I use this far too much. ;-)
4. Site-specific preferences. Granted, this one may seem silly at first, but I have a couple web sites, where I have set their downloads to other, specific locations. Also, I prefer a couple web sites to show me all their ads, and others, none. I have also added/changed the CSS for a couple sites I frequent. All of this is possible _only_ in Omniweb, and Omni makes it quite brainless to implement. I may not use all the site-specific preferences for the bulk of my pages, but when I have it, it is a great blessing. :-) Trust me, once you start using it, and seeing the potential, you will find more and more uses for it--at least I did.
5. Built-in source editing, and a gorgeous item inspector. Love 'em! Don't use them as often as the other features, but when I need them, they are life-savers.
6. And one feature I am using currently, and use so much, I forgot it was a feature. ;-) Popping out text entry fields into a separate window. You get used to that, and forget it may not be normal. ;-)
So, as you can see, there are compelling reasons for some/many people. :-) BTW, the "crashing" issue for Omni--not so much a show stopper as I originally thought. 5.9 is very stable, and besides that, Omni crashes as elegantly as you could hope a program to crash. Relaunch, and you are right where you left off. I don't remember ever losing work due to an Omni crash, yet other browsers frequently have let me down on that front--and yes, as you said, they _all_ crash. :-)
Well, that's my .02‹ worth (a little inflated, maybe)
-Jon
Also, nice write-up on the other features. I hope somehow the development continues we're not forced to switch ;)
-Jon