Oregano

Oregano is the name of a series of web browsers developed by Oregan Networks.

Oregano 1

Initially developed in Cambridge by ex-Acorn employees for the Network Computer market as a full screen browser, Oregano 1 was later improved for the desktop RISC OS market, and sold as an independent product. A 32-bit version of Oregano 1 was never released, so it never ran natively on later machines such as the IYONIX pc.

For many years, Oregano 1 proved to be a solid and useful product for RISC OS, at least until CSS came into widespread use on web, with which it did not really cope with.

Oregano 2

Oregano 2 was slated as a rewrite supporting multiple platforms into which Oregan had expanded (notably, this is the browser which ran on the Sony PlayStation 2. The RISC OS version was in some ways an afterthought, developed only because of the requirements of the then new IYONIX pc, with only a few updates during its development. Although in some ways technically better than Oregano 1 (with some CSS support and JavaScript improvements), it was much slower and had a variety of frustrating bugs that were never addressed.

One oddity among browsers on any platform was that it integrated a flash player (almost everywhere else it is a separate plug in), although its usefulness was questionable, supporting an older version than was prevalent on the web at the time.

Most Iyonix users probably instead opted for NetSurf which became available sometime later (need a timeline), and which although lacked JavaScript, was constantly updated, much faster and had near-comprehensive CSS support.

Oregano 3

Oregano 3 in a RISC OS version was never released. Although seen in demo and beta form by some users, the realities of real world software development for RISC OS imposed and RISC OS version was finally canceled (need reference).