Innovative new browser with parallel sessions possible

Stainless is a super lightweight browser that looks like Google Chrome but is much simpler and operates each tab independently.

The advantage of this is that if you’re experiencing slow page loads due to Flash plugins or Java problems, it won’t affect the rest of the tabs. There’s nothing more annoying than seeing your browser crash just because one tab has become unstable so this is a big plus for Stainless. It also means that the more tabs you close, the more memory space you free on your Mac unlike Firefox or IE where closing tabs doesn’t make much difference to your memory.

However, the thing that impressed me most with Stainless was the parallel sessions feature. This allows you to log into a site using different credentials and cookies to those being used by your other tabs. For me, this means I can use multiple Gmail accounts at once in one browser – try doing that in IE or Firefox! This is a genuinely useful browser innovation that Stainless deserves full credit for even if all the big browsers steal the idea in their next release.

Stainless is still in beta stage and still very much a work in progress. It’s an uncomplicated browser that introduces a couple of useful innovations in the form of independent tab browsing and parallel sessions mode that mean this is definitely one to watch.

added: cross-process download manageradded: hold and click in back/forward buttons reveal tab historyadded: bookmark groups (right-click in shelf to create)added: bookmark shelf preferences * fixed: cannot download files that require login credentialsfixed: new windows spawned from menu items or other apps open behind other windowsfixed: URLs with embedded white space result in searchfixed: using back/forward causes tab favicons to be lost (0.6)fixed: ampersands not properly escaped in smartbar searchesfixed: double-click is allowed for new tab, tab close, and bookmark buttonsfixed: opening history window after midnight doesn\’t update the day filters

Changes

• added: cross-process download manageradded: hold and click in back/forward buttons reveal tab historyadded: bookmark groups (right-click in shelf to create)added: bookmark shelf preferences * fixed: cannot download files that require login credentialsfixed: new windows spawned from menu items or other apps open behind other windowsfixed: URLs with embedded white space result in searchfixed: using back/forward causes tab favicons to be lost (0.6)fixed: ampersands not properly escaped in smartbar searchesfixed: double-click is allowed for new tab, tab close, and bookmark buttonsfixed: opening history window after midnight doesn\’t update the day filters