Chimera Navigator adds download manager in nightly builds

by , 11:00 AM EST, December 31st, 2002

The nightly builds of The Chimera Project's Navigator browser have gained a download manager. Having separate windows for each download can become quite messy when several files are being transferred at the same time. With the addition of this feature, all files a user downloads are listed in a single window.

Although the new feature may be reminiscent of Internet Explorer's download manager, Chimera's implementation is a bit different. There is a small "x" in a circle at the top right corner of each download listing. Clicking an "x" will remove the corresponding download from the window. The download manager can also be closed while files are transferring. As long as the browser keeps running, the downloads will continue in the background. A closed download manager can be re-opened by choosing "Downloads" from the "Window" menu. In previous versions of the browser, closing a download's window would cancel the transfer.

Screenshot of Chimera's download manager
The Chimera Web browser's download manager
conveniently lists all downloads in a single window.

Chimera is a Gecko-based browser, which means it uses some of the same code as The Mozilla Project's Web browser. While Chimera has been fairly stable lately, this software has not yet reached version 1.0. Consequently, inexperienced users may want to wait until the final version is released. To try the browser, visit the Chimera site and follow its link to the latest nightly build.

The Mac Observer Spin:

We're thrilled to see Chimera continue its trend of refinement. It has been improving stability and adding new features while remaining fast and efficient. We're also happy to see that the developers have been picking up the pace lately; only days ago, the Chimera Project released a statement recommending that users download the December 20th build of Chimera instead of version 0.6. Please note that the December 20th release is not new enough to include the recently-added download manager.