Mesa Dynamics has released a beta version of Stainless, a browser for Mac OS X inspired by Google Chrome. The application features multi-process browsing, allowing each tab to run tasks separately. When a site is visited that contains content that is typically slow to load, the other tabs can still run unhampered. In the event of a page crash, the browser itself remains responsive and other pages unaffected.The company says that Stainless completely frees memory when a tab is closed, eliminating the footprint experienced with traditional browsers -- which it claims reduces reliability as more pages are opened and closed.
Other features include the ability to drag tabs between windows, a combined address and search bar, and a mode for browsing discretely without leaving information in the history.
Google is already working on a Mac version of Chrome that uses more complex WebCore rendering, but the project has not yet been released into public beta.
Stainless for Mac OS X Leopard is available as a free download from Mesa Dynamics, however the company notes that the project is primarily a technology demo at this point and will probably not be developed into a full function browser.

|