Snippet: Camino Browser Discontinued ☇

Earlier today, the Camino browser team announced that they’d be ending development of the ten-year-old browser:

After a decade-long run, Camino is no longer being developed, and we encourage all users to upgrade to a more modern browser. Camino is increasingly lagging behind the fast pace of changes on the web, and more importantly it is not receiving security updates, making it increasingly unsafe to use.

Fortunately, Mac users have many more browsers to choose from than they did when Camino started ten years ago. Former Camino developers have helped build the three most popular – Chrome, Firefox, and Safari – so while this is the end of Camino itself, the community that helped build it is still making the web better for Mac users.

Thank you to all our loyal users, and to everyone who contributed in countless ways over the years to make Camino what it was.

As with many others writing about Camino today, I used it almost extensively from about 2003-2007, flirting with Firefox briefly, but eventually using Safari once it got good and lost the obnoxious brushed metal look. Camino always tried to mix the ultra-compatible Gecko engine with a very Mac-centric interface. It never felt like a port from Windows.

It’s a shame development had to end, although I’d guess that most of Camino’s target audience has long switched to Safari or Chrome, but still keep it around as a backup. In our little way of looking back, be sure to check out my interview with Camino lead Mike Pinkerton.