Not strictly true. Both Chrome and Safari handle more than Poseidon, individually. They both use WebKit as their rendering engine true, however Chrome uses V8 for JavaScript and Safari uses JavaScriptCore. They also both handle history, caching and cookies them self, for example. Not saying Poseidon isn't cool, but it really is at most a repackaged IE, unless I missed something.

Changing the engine wouldn't make a difference, it would still be a browser shell... As said, our own engine is not an option ATM, at least not until I learn a more suffisticated language and convert Poseidon to it... And that will take years to properly design and implement, so that = not worthy...

History is easy to sepparate from IE, cookies and cache can be more difficult but still not impossible. All that can and will change in the future. Just wait for it...

Anyway, here are some new features of build 40:

1. Session lock

This allows you to set a password and lock the current session so only people who know the password can see what you're browsing. Can also be set to lock automatically after selected number of minutes of inactivity...

2. Crash restore

In case of a crash or unexpected termination of the program, Poseidon will allow you to re-open last viewed page upon next start.

3. Other improvements

Amongst this I present you more suffisticated dialogs and menus, additional color options and other minor enhancements.

So there you go, build 40 will be ready in a week with several improvements.

I know they can be seperated but in it's current state it isn't a browser so much, it's an IE shell. The line is fuzzy admitidly, but WebKit is only a layout engine, chromium-embedded (WebKit + V8 + other stuff) is more like the control this uses. This doesn't just use Trident (the layout engine), but uses a lot of other things from IE, including the JS engine and the glue code, history, cookies, cache and such.

I like it. Even though I'm not too much of a fan of the whole "metro" deal, I still think that this is a good idea, and pretty dang good so far.

Whats that for? Although it is unique and interesting, what would you be browsing that you don't want others to see

Others are great features, although not as unique.

Porn. I can't believe you had to ask.

Is that the only usage for that feature?

Not even close. I'd use it anytime I was stepping away from the computer. It's not about having something to hide, it's about privacy.

If you want that kind of privacy, wouldn't you lock your whole computer when leaving it?

I already do.

I think you still don't get the point; it will always be just a shell, no matter what... Using WebKit would make no difference. Now let's get over this engine thing for once and for all, please...

About session lock: as evangelikevin said, for general privacy like when you leave your computer with a web site open and you don't want others to see, you can lock it with a password. I don't care what other people do on the internet or what will they use this for, but it's an upcoming feature. You use it or you don't... Simple as that.

Maybe I'm saying it wrong. If you use WebKit and only WebKit and not chromium-embedded or such, it's more a browser than a shell. Hell if you add V8 sure it's kinda Chrome but you still have your own "glue".

Who cares if it IS a shell? It works better than vanilla IE and is much more stylish. So please, stop harping on about this because you seem to be the ONLY PERSON WHO CARES.

It's OK, I like to hear other peoples' opinions on this, but using a different engine is something I already said before that I won't discuss with anyone. Slight improvements using WebKit or Gecko, for example, would be nullified by the ammount of work I'd have to put into successfuly replacing the engine (update all the code)...

I can say from my personal expirience that it's slightly faster on startup than IE... Mostly because all the UI crap and useless features were removed.

As I said, history and other stuff will get sepparated from IE at a later point. So if this will make you happy, I now officialy declare this project an Internet Explorer UI replacement...

Obviously its a feature, and its a unique feature so its good. I was just pointing out its fairly useless if you think about it (but I guess some might find it useful). It'll also be interesting to see how you implemented the feature.





Well, if you read the first few pages there were a couple more people who mentioned that, so Ben's not the only person. But I agree that it doesn't need to be harped on about

As said, if you find it useful then you can use it, if not, then don't. The implementation itself is a kind of a secret though...

People asked what's the engine... But no one was nagging around about it. Anyone who explicitly hates Trident/IE may as well stay away from this topic and project.



Anyway, yesterday I fixed a lot of issues regarding the settings management, which has been FUBAR after build 36 or so... So all settings should now be loaded and saved properly by both, the dialog and the wizard. More on this subject when build 40 is released (tomorrow hopefuly)...

Waiting for build 40 then

I say it's definetly worth waiting for it. Just yesterday and today I fixed numerous bugs from settings management, tray icon and other areas. Here's a simplified list:

-Settings would not be saved after changing (both Wizard and Dialog)
-Settings would not be properly loaded (both Wizard and Dialog)
-Clicking on the OK button in the dialog would only close the dialog, but not save settings
-Checkboxes for tray icon options would not uncheck/disable eachother under valid conditions
-After clicking on the tray icon, the main window would remain minimized
-After right-clicking on the icon, the main window would show up if it's set to open on single-click
-The navigation and status bars will now show up when main window is re-opened from tray
-The status bar would still disapear despite placing the mouse cursor on it
-The main window would remain minimized after clicking on "Show Poseidon" from tray icon menu

And some other minor bugs... Remember, these are only bug fixes, I'm also working on a number of other cosmetic and code improvements, such as:

-Redesigned settings dialog, now features more icons and proper sorting
-Redesigned About dialog, now features only the logo, build string, date and time, update check, pre-release disclaimer and windows and IE versions. The rest has been moved to Credits dialog (see below)
-Added credits dialog, which features usernames from all the people that contributed to this project in anyway (quite a long list actually) and some copyright info...
-Expanded context menu stripts for Options and tray icon, they now feature more items (and their icons)
-Added context menu strip for the My Manager button, features links to each individual tab in My Manager
-Added 2 new color options, black and gray, the later now being the default scheme due to several requests
-Re-added the button for adding current page to favourites in the main window, which was added in build 36 but missing from build 39 for some reason
-Poseidon now checks for OS and IE versions, so it can no longer be run on computers with XP or IE8 and earlier.

These are minor improvements and new features, and finally here's a list of all major new features that are comming in future builds, some in build 40, others in 44, 47 and 50:

-Save last session (build 40)
-Session lock (build 40)
-Additional colors (build 40/44/47)
-Custom error pages (build 44/47)
-Settings Import/Export (build 44/47/50 ???)
-Metro-like dialogs (build 44/47/50 ???)
-New accesories (Notes) (build 47/50 ???)

This only goes up to build 50 (Beta 1), after that I'll make a new list. If you have any other requests that you want to be fullfiled in build 40 then please let me know NOW, otherwise you'll have to wait for later builds.

So here's what's comming in build 40, as you can see quite a few major improvements, definetly worth waiting for and upgrading IMHO.

No Installer?

Or is Poseidon going to remain portable?

Oops, sorry linuxlove, I forgot to put the installer onto that list. Me and linuxlove have been working on a custom installer (also written in VB.NET) for Poseidon, named Poseidon Deployment System. It will be first introduced along with build 40. Prior to installation it checks for the latest version and downloads it, so it's not tied to any particular build as it will always install the latest. You'll see more once it's all released.

And yes, Poseidon will remain a portable app (in a RAR archive), so after build 40 you will have the option to use PDS or the portable versions. Here are two teasers.




NOTE: The credits dialog text starts scrolling after 4 seconds, after it reaches the end it stops there for another 4 seconds, then reset to default position and repeats the cycle in a loop.

Oh, interesting, more to look forward to.

Oh man, I forgot another new thing: favicon support. You can now see the page's favicon left of the adress bar... Build 40 will also be the first build with a new build tag, 1.0.40.0.x86fre.main_alpha1.120710-2000.

Can it run on Windows 8? I would like to see some screenshots of it with the Windows 8 theme.

Give me a second and I'll try that for you...