14 DAY TRIAL // A few days ago I was reading a RSS feed from Newsvine that mentioned a new browser made by a team of Japanese coders for the Mac OS X. I just red the few first words and already my eyes were shutting and my head was falling on the keyboard.
The introduction was something like this: The Japanese have a genius for developing some very cool technologies, so it stands to reason that getting a team of Japanese coders to work on developing a Mac OS X web browser would be a good idea. The browser is called The SunriseBrowser and it is an extemely lightweight, lightning fast browser that has been essentially designed for web developers, geeks and bloggers.
The only words that crossed my mind were: "Oh my God... another browser???" I did not understand absolutely anything from what they were trying to say, and I was a little confused. Why didn't I comprehend what they were saying? Well... I am not saying that the writing of the news was bad. Heavens no! That thought is far from my mind. What I am trying to say is that, the fact that nothing from that paragraph attracted me is mainly because I am not that much of a developer, geek or blogger.
Well, as I stated slowly scrolling down the page, some thoughts crossed my mind really quickly. Some little devil puffed on my shoulder and started whispering: Close it. It's just another browser. What can this one have that would be of any interest? There already exists Firefox and Opera and nothing can offer more than those two.
The devil was terribly wrong. Sunrise has surprised me so pleasantly that I cannot even believe it. The obstinate part of my being is incredible. Whenever I fix my mind on something there is a very small chance I would change my mind, and the motive that is supposed to make me change my opinion has to be a damn good one.
The Sunrise Browser did that for me. It made me feel ashamed of myself for misjudging it without seeing what is all about. It's true, it lacks many features that some might find impossible to live without, but I bet many will like it.
The Looks
This is the part where it gets tricky for me. I usually can't stand an application that does not offer the possibility of installing new skins, themes or modifying its shape and colors. I simply cannot work with such a thing and it ends up in a lonely folder on my disk damned to be forgotten for eternity. This is basically the final test for an application that I am supposed to work with frequently.
Well... Sunrise does not have such features yet. Its looks are more than simple and the appearance customization is almost equal to none... except it has resizable windows. Yeah, I know, every window is resizable... but Sunrise has got some nice features implemented, that can prove to be very useful to web developers. For example, in the toolbar, there are four predefined dimensions. 640,800,1024 and FH which represent the four basic resolutions used by web developers: 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768 and Full Height; and that I'm told, can be really useful.
Apart from this, there is another thing that caught my attention and has got to be the transparency control bar. I have absolutely no idea of the practicality of this feature regarding the process of web developing, but - despite that - it looks quite cool. Another thing I can not understand... Why do these auto resizable functions and transparency control make Sunrise look this good to me? It may be that it is a little late... in the morning, and I may have had a few extra glasses last night, but I just love its extremely simple design although I shouldn't.
Oh, I almost forgot. The bookmarks are awesome! And the reason of my excitement is simple: Screenshot bookmarks. Why didn't anyone in this industry thought of that? Why didn't I think of that? The basic idea is great, although it lacks some basic things like the possibility of categorizing these bookmarks and this is a serious must these days. Anyway, it's a wonderful idea and a good start if you ask me.
The first line, the one that crosses the looks part, is that even if it lacks many things, it looks good in its unique way.
So... that's it. The looks of the Sunrise browser are really nice when viewed during a sunrise and while drinking...Not that anyone can rely on that, but it is the best I can say, because even though I would usually hate an application that looks this simple, Sunrise pleases my senses and I can not really explain how and why.
The works
This is where The Sunrise Browser gets its golden stars. Its simplicity in the form of the GUI is actually a strong point when it comes to working with it. Working with a browser cannot get easier than that, while still allowing access to basic features that represent its "catch 22".
Surfing the web with it is basically as if one opened web pages from its own hard drive. Write the link down, click enter and poof, the site is fully loaded. I am not talking about some tinny-winny site with 3 pictures and few lines of text; I am talking about those monster sites, serious sites, that are packed with information, links, photos, animations and structured in many frames. Well, these sites are some kind of preloaded and then shown instantly. The process is so quick that it made me think that I received some bonus bandwidth from my provider or something.
Other than that, I was surprised to see that some sites, bad developed ones I mean, look better with Sunrise. I had some problems in the past with some sites dear to me, mostly programmed in PHP. The problem with them was that, most of the times, they had some very nasty bugs when they were resized and other problems that I still can not figure out.
If they worked with one browser they didn't work with others and there was no pattern in the errors; but with sunrise they all worked wonderful. Absolutely no problem in showing the content exactly as it was meant to be. With Firefox for example, there was a site that I accessed frequently that had some huge problems with the text areas, but in Opera or others there was no problem. With Opera though, I had a problem with a forum, terrible text field misplacing because of a banner, still a problem that would not appear in other browsers.
Sunshine worked just fine with every site I knew that had such problems and so, it made me think better about it.
Another great thing I like in Sunshine is the Page Shot option. This is extremely nice and more than practical. Sunshine offers two ways of "shooting up you pages". One is the Total Range option that captures the whole web page as it is, and the Range of Display that saves only what it shown in the current form of the window.
The best thing about the Page Shot is that it saves the captured page in a PDF. So, it's more than a printscreen, as the text can be manipulated, and the images are saved exactly as they appear on the site and without any loss of their quality.
This works just fine mostly, but I have found some problems with it when it comes to flash animations. For example, on a page made entirely in flash, the Total Range Page Shot is not a... total range one, it is Range of Display shot; while on websites with flash content among other things, the flash content is shown as blank. I don't have the exact explanation, but if it could be fixed it would be great.
This is not it. Sunrise offers a Source view in a transparent window, a "View Link to File of CSS" option and some checking options. Checking options that include quick CSS and HTML validations and other options that I cannot quite understand, because I would certainly not use them, but they give me the impression that a web developer might put them to good use.
Another strong point in its defense is the zooming. In Firefox you can increase/ decrease the size of the text, while in Opera one can easily zoom the whole page. Sunrise does them both and it does them flawlessly. For me personally, these options are vital and I am glad to find them both in one browser.
Well, now comes the hard part. You did not think this browser was flawless now, did you?
It has some pretty big problems and many things should be added. I have experienced some breakdowns when surfing with it, meaning that it stops responding to any command randomly and it gets pretty frustrating. Also the history is a bug itself. I have spent more than 24 hours with it and haven't really figured out how it works. At fist, the history contained the websites that wore found in the Safari history. Now it contains only the site that I've made it into my home page.
I think it's because it is based on WebKit, which means that it uses the same KHTML rendering engine as Safari, but I cannot really put my finger on it. If it works based on Safari's history, then it means that it hasn't got any real history of its own; and if its history has nothing to do with the one in Safari, then how the hell is this browser saving the sites I surfed? Not good... too many questions.
The field search also bugged me a little. The browser supports in its URL field a web search field, making this field working both ways. It can be shifted from the URL field to the web search, but I could not really understand how. Either my English is really bad, or theirs is, as I cannot understand a thing they wrote on the website, which, by the way, can use some major improvements if they want to popularize this browser. This is the worst represented software with huge potential I have ever seen.
Also, as I pointed above, the bookmarks menu, although it's wonderful in its graphical form, it really needs some categorizing options. If not, one just gets many screenshots of many sites, and that's it. Well... I personally want more in the near future. Ok... I understand that it is dedicated to the web developers, but why not include some options to make the life a little easier to everyone else?
And now we are getting to the final and the biggest necessity of them all: tabs. I know that some major developers have struggled for years before they included tabs in their browsers. Microsoft has tried recently and made a mess of it, but Sunrise is not IExplorer and I bet that some tabs would be greatly appreciated by many.
The Factor
Even though it does not rise to the standards of other popular browsers, and still needs a lot of work, the Sunrise Browser has got a specific charm. I for one would not use such an application as it hasn't got many features I truly need or look forward to in a browser: it has no tabs, not customizable appearance, no themes, no feed management client, no decent history, no decent bookmarks organizer, no special panels. And these are only the things that are easily visible, but in spite of these lacks, it has some very nice and unique features I really want.
The graphical bookmarks, the scaling of the text and the whole page, the page shots are some features I would love to find in my default browser. These little details that are meant to ease the work of web developers and its simplicity makes me love it, even if I don't really have any special use of it. Oh... did I forget to mention its size??? It's 770KB. I have seen simple text files that weigh more than that. In my point of view, it is a clear sign that those that developed it really knew what they were doing. The guys are real professionals and that is why I am asking more from them.
This browser is like a nice piece of desk accessory. It looks simple, it has some special touches, some details that I love and I could find it multiple uses. But I don't. I just leave it there on the desk, and even if I will probably never use it, cause there are several and more practical such things I use frequently, I want it soooooo bad.
It has that factor that attracts you and you can not explain why. It has that X Factor that makes you say: Wow... Cool!
Firefox does not work that way for me. Don't get me wrong, it's a really great browser and features more than anyone can really handle, but it does not attract me so much. Opera kind of did that at first, but the impact was not as great as when I have seen Sunrise. I can not explain why, and this opinion is totally subjective, but at the end, Sunrise is a browser that had a nice start and has the possibility to do so much more. The basic idea, the one to make a browser that would ease the use of a web developer, is genius-like and the possibilities are countless. Who knows, maybe in the future there will be a browser that will ease the use of those that work in the graphics area... just a thought.
The Good
Aside the subjective opinions, at the end, Sunrise is a browser that does its job, no major bugs in displaying a web page and offers some great features that can not be found in other browsers.
The Bad
It still needs many features, and some of the ones it already has can use some more work. Also, the website is pretty bad. It does not offer enough details and enough support and could use some major changes. Those ideas that came at first when the browser was born should be expanded. Why offer just some special features that still need work? Make it big, make it good, and push the limits of an idea to the maximum.
The Truth
The Sunrise Browser has got a long road ahead, if it wants to compete with other browsers. If it does not want to compete, well... it should! Its potential is enormous and something really professional can be made out of it.
Click on some screenshots to see what's what:
