Lunascape: All Three Major Browser Engines in One
Yet another example proving the coolest things always come from Japan.
Lunascape is a web browser that incorporates all three major web rendering engines — Firefox’s Gecko engine, WebKit, which is used by Safari and Chrome, and Trident, the engine used by Internet Explorer.
The Windows-only download is the product of the Tokyo firm Lunascape, which has apparently been developing this product as Japanese-only release since 2004. This is the first English version of the browser, and it’s available as a free alpha download.
I ran it through some basic tests, and it’s stable. You can switch between the three rendering engines by right-clicking on the current tab under the menu bar. The option to select an engine appears in drop-down menu. There’s also an auto-engine switcher that forces specific pages to use one particular engine.
Most of us use several web browsers in testing our websites or even for just browsing around. Personally, I use Camino for all of my productivity apps (Gmail, Google apps and FriendFeed) and Firefox 3 for general browsing, but I also have to keep Safari open to use CondeNet’s intranet. Almost everyone has one critical site on their list that only lets you in if you have IE or Safari/Chrome, so Lunascape is an attractive alternative to running multiple instances of different browsers.
That being said, Lunascape is a total beast. It’s cluttered and difficult to use, especially if you’re used to the expertly-designed interfaces of IE or Firefox, or the barely-there UI of Safari or Chrome. There’s RSS support, but reading feeds is clumsy. There are almost too many options, including dozens of tweaks and interesting functionality available in the default menus, like the ability to download all linked media on a page to your hard drive at once, DownThemAll-style.
Speaking of DownThemAll, Lunascape sadly does not support Firefox add-ons even though the website advertises that it does. (If there’s some way to lash Firefox add-ons onto this, please let me know in the comments!)
The browser does have its own plug-in architecture, however, and it can be customized with a healthy assortment of downloadable skins. So, not only can you run Safari, Firefox and IE all in one browser, you can also do it in vibrant, pink Hello Kitty style.
Also check out the Lunapedia, an online user manual full of tips, links and FAQs.
