Lunascape 5 Genisis. Yep, It’s a Browser!
December 8, 2008 by Jim Creech · 2 Comments 
OK, who here enjoys developing for all the browsers out there? Especially CSS and IE6! What a match made in heaven. I’ve been developing now for almost 12 years and nothing has ever irritated me more than having to develop for so many browsing platforms.
» IE 6, 7 & 8
» Firefox 2 & 3
» Opera 8 & 9
» Safari 3
» Chrome
» And, let’s not forget Pogo by AT&T 
For the most part, we all know our code will work the same across most platforms and it’s really Internet Explorer that we have to be concerned with. The thing I hate though, is having to have versions of all these browsers open for testing purposes. It’s just time consuming and it’s frustrating when they all work right except for one! Gun to head!
Well, get ready to add another to your list that might eventually take off. It’s called Lunascape and it’s being touted as the world’s fastest browser (although it really chugged for me on startup along with loading msn.com and 2advanced.com) and the first one to operate all three rendering engines in one. Lunascape is already claiming more than 10,000,000 downloads.
I like that, ideally, you could have three tabs open running the trident, gecko and webkit engines to properly test. Remember, I said ideally! The browser is currently in its Alpha stage so I wouldn’t quite suggest that regular users to go download it. Right now I would say it’s primarily for developers and early adopters to try out.
Besides rendering engines, here are some other features.
» Tab Browsing (That’s Cool)
» Mouse Gestures (Hmmmmmm)
» Plug-In Library and 3rd Party Compatible (Some IE and hardly any Firefox)
» Skins (Most are pretty bad)
» Actual Crash Protection (Cuz it happens)
Click here to check out the full list.
I know this multiple engine thing is not new as Firefox does it natively and IE 7 does it through a plug-in. However, three-in-one is better and who knows, maybe Best Buy will finally do their engine independent Blue Browser with 4.
So, check it out and let me know what you all think. I will be sticking with Firefox myself but will keep an eye on Lunascape.
Hmmm never heard of it and as a web developer, I don’t want to
I’ll stick with Safari, Firefox and IE. Good post!
well, I never knew about differences between browsers and then had to build one… find out, the diffence, and I was !?@!#@$@$?@. I would like never hear about a new one too
Hopefully, when the amount of users increase to FF or IE, I won’t be responsible for built website and be old