Are you content with the features offered by your favourite browser? Are you looking to change your browsing habits just so that you can blend with the browser?  The browser market today for Mac OS X is already saturated with the likes of Safari, Firefox, Camino, and OmniWeb. But there’s a new entrant in the race and this one brings along some really nifty features and promises a lot more to come.

Introducing Cruz, the latest entry into the browser wars arena. From the same developer who brought you FluidApp, Cruz (previously known as Mecca) is a WebKit-based browser that pretty much looks and works like Safari. However, it has a bunch of additional features, some so awesome that you may wonder why no other browser had introduced them them so far.

1. Multi-pane Window 

One of the most exciting feature of Cruz is its ability to split the window into multiple panes wherein you can open several pages at the same time. Similar to frames in HTML, you can resize these panes according to your needs. The browser ships with what Todd, the developer behind Cruz, calls the Browsa Browsa plugin. This lets you have two separate panes apart from the main one in the center. Of course, you can add more pages through tabs, but the left and right panes remain unaffected. You can also split the page horizontally and open two pages one below the other. Cruz also lets you select different Browser Agents for these panes. In the attached screenshot, I’ve set up the left pane to display our site’s iPhone interface, while the right one shows my twitter feed using Hahlo.

2. Thumbnail Plugin

This is one feature of Cruz that has the “cool” tag attached to it. With this, you get a Cover Flow like preview of the images on that page. Take a look at the screenshot here to get a sense of what it looks like. While I have my Flickr page open in the main center pane, the Thumbnail plugin creates a Cover Flow effect from the images listed on that page. This is pretty much what Cooliris does, just in a different way. The preview can easily be switched off or on using the small button at the top right on the window in the toolbar.

3. FullScreen Mode

Cruz comes with a fullscreen view that converts it into an HUD-like black display. This is a great way to work on web apps or use one of those online editors, if you are an author. The window panes work the same way as they would in the normal mode.

4. Other Features

Cruz comes with a lot more exciting features, such as:

• Open Plug-in Architecture
• Built-in Userscripting
• Userstyles
• Global and Customizable Keyboard Shortcuts
• Session Restore
• Hidden “Closed” Windows
• TinyURL creation/expansion
• Full WebInspector
• Custom Window Opacity/Level/Style