My thoughts on OmniWeb 5

I was going to post this under the MacBytes link thread, but it seemed like it perhaps warrants its own thread.

I'm giving OmniWeb 5 a shot right now. It's a big improvement over previous versions in that it uses WebKit, so it's not nearly as slow as its predecessors. I have a couple of gripes about it though:

-New browser windows always open at the default size instead of the size of the window I was in. I don't like that. I'm usually on IRC, AIM, and the Web at the same time and I have my windows set up so it's easy to see if somebody's said something while I'm in Safari.
-The RSS viewer isn't nearly as easy to use as NetNewsWire. I was expecting something along the lines of what you can see in the screenshots of the Safari browser in Tiger. The only way to see summaries of headlines is to go into the bookmarks window, which is a pain.
-I can take or leave the tab implementation. It's not really an improvement over other implementations, but it takes up more screen real estate. It's not really enough to bother me, but it does irk me when I'm looking at a particular webcomic I like. When the tab drawer is open, the screen isn't wide enough for the drawer and the webcomic. The option for a more conventional tabbed approach would be welcome.

That said, the ad blocking is nice, as is the ability to edit source code in the browser. I also like the customizable search field, though it would be nice to have a dedicated search bar, where I could have multiple search fields instead of having to choose the website I want to search from a popup menu. The UI is cleaner than Safari's, but Safari's UI never bothered me to begin with. Workspaces will probably be handy on occasion. Sometimes I'll have several windows open for one subject, and then I'll have to take a brief diversion. It's nice to save all of my open windows, then I can close them and have less clutter while I pursue another subject for a little while, then I can easily switch back. Also, the ability to manage preferences based on the domain name you're browsing is a BIG plus. I blocked ads, but on a comic strip site I visit, I discovered that the comics themselves fit the description of an ad based on their size and the fact that they're on another server. So for that domain, I turned ad-blocking off.

It's a solid browser. I don't know whether I think it's worth the $30, but for some people it probably is. I don't think it's a Safari-killer by any means, but I like it enough so far and I may go ahead and pay the registration fee by the time my trial is over.