Safari on Windows

[Frattimonde]

now for windows :) Beta though

http://www.apple.com/safari/

[Modred]

As of the public beta version of Apple's Safari Web Browser 3 (http://www.apple.com/safari/), the flagship browser of OS X is now available on Windows XP and Vista. I've been tinkering with it a bit since yesterday and have found some nice features, but so far I haven't been blown away.

At the top of Apple's list of features we find speed: according to their speed chart, Safari is up to 2x faster than IE7, around 1.5x faster than Firefox 2, and around 3x faster than Opera 9. These tests were recorded using the "industry standard" iBench tests, which I have not heard of until now. The results go a bit against my experience as well. Firefox has, at least with my installs, been slower than the other browsers until I manually changed some configuration settings that allow it to use pipelining and open more connections.

Besides, Opera has been claiming to be the fastest browser on the web for years, with "research" to back it up, so I hardly think Apple's claim to the same spot using its own tests can claim any more validity than Opera's.

The "inline find" feature is...what Firefox has had since version 1.0, and less powerful than what Firefox 2 has. Firefox offers a normal find plus two types of "quick" find that can be accessed with a press of a single button instead of the normal CTRL+F combination: / gives you full page search and ' gives you search only in links (very handy for quick navigation). In Safari 3, the find only operates as the standard CTRL+F combination. And even after finding the desired text, the browser still doesn't behave quite as expected. With the desired text selected, you might expect pressing TAB to jump to the next selectable element, such as a link or form field. So far, pressing tab from this position does nothing.

Speaking of using TAB to navigate pages, you have to specifically enable this in the preferences dialogs. Considering that this feature has been more or less standard in IE and Firefox for years, I see no reason why it shouldn't be enabled by default.

As for tabbed browsing, everything looks alright, but the behavior is really quite atrocious. With only one window and one tab open, Safari does quite good on memory consumption, but opening only a few tabs can send the memory use skyrocketing. I've had the instance of Safari I'm currently in open for around around 30 minutes to an hour. I've had at most 3 tabs open at a time, and have visited sites such as WarBoards, StarCraft.org, and YouTube. The current memory consumption is upwards of 350 MB. I have never seen IE7, Opera, or Firefox use that much memory for normal browsing.

In addition to this horrid memory hogging, attempting to load pages in multiple tabs simultaneously slows both to a crawl. With only one tab loading at any given time, Safari presents a rather pleasurable speed. But if I load say, StarCraft.org's front page and WarBoards' front page at the same time, the combined time to load both is around 5-10x longer than if they were loaded individually. Plus, when one tab is loading, switching tabs becomes largely unresponsive and takes a second or more just to view content that has already been loaded in a separate tab. If no pages are loading, switching between tabs is very fast.

On the plus side, Safari 3 renders fonts very well and looks great.

Overall, Safari 3 for Windows is trying to fill a spot already clinched by both Opera and Firefox, and for the most part doing a worse job than its competitors. Maybe Apple will iron out most of these complaints before the final version, but with browsers like Firefox out on the market, it may be far too little and way too late.

[Modred]

Bah, you would post this while I was writing my review.

[EvilEmpire]

I stopped reading at "World's Best Browser" and Closed the page when I saw some yahoo screenshot in it.

[Zenox]

i liked it.. it fast.. it very fast.. me download .. me use it..me approves..it fast..but hates windows...very nice..

[bouncl]

can you still use IE with this?

[Modred]

can you still use IE with this?

Installing another browser, such as Firefox or Safari, should not damage your IE in any way, so you can always just use IE again if you don't like the new one.

[Neo]

safari is so worthless. Yes I said it. I don't even think most mac users use it, do they?

I like it, seeing as i can test designs now without needing a mac, but others, bleh.

-Neo

[Frattimonde]

I don't even think most mac users use it, do they? Yes we do :P (But FF is still a good backup for some pages, agreed.)

[Neo]

Ok, but I'm seeing a lot of people who use macs who say they don't even use it... so yeah.

-Neo

[Frattimonde]

Ok, but I'm seeing a lot of people who use macs who say they don't even use it... so yeah.

-NeoIn time you will call it... master.

[Neo]

Doubtful.

Its not fast. Its resource hungry, and offers no benefits from switching from FF.

FYI: Opera is still the fastest browser for windows. =p

-Neo

[Frattimonde]

I can try at least, can't I ? :P

[Thedutchjelle]

Safari is way faster than the firefox i have, so i just stick to safari ^_^

[Neo]

If you want a fast browser, get Opera. Its the fastest browser on windows bar none.

-Neo

[Basan]

Safari is way faster than the firefox i have, so i just stick to safari ^_^

It depends on the FF version you've got. So far, I'm still 'stuck' with my 1.5.0.12 version and it's still pretty fast (apart from the program opening but that may be due to the 30 extensions I've got for it :P).

[EvilEmpire]

It depends on the FF version you've got. So far, I'm still 'stuck' with my 1.5.0.12 version and it's still pretty fast (apart from the program opening but that may be due to the 30 extensions I've got for it :P).
Saying 'stuck' suggests that you don't have a choice, but If you ever do, switch to 2.0, its 2.0 times as fast, believe me. Especially the startup.;)

[Basan]

Saying 'stuck' suggests that you don't have a choice, but If you ever do, switch to 2.0, its 2.0 times as fast, believe me. Especially the startup.;)

It was a joke. The single comma usage, a thing I generally use when making sarcasm, should've lead ya to it. ;)
And I've tested the 2.0 version as well... and it's a lot more sluggish when compared to version I currently have on my laptop. :P

[EvilEmpire]

Bollocks! I can't believe that, probably a very specific extensions combo. meh whatever works best..
As long as it doesn't come from a mac though :P

--
Never heard of the single comma thingy :shiftyr:

[Neo]

Firefox is slow. Startup and stuff. Rending can be made faster via fasterfox, but meh.

Firefox is still more useful imo. Opera is incredibly fast, and IE7 is actually not to bad. Safari, however, is like the bastard step-child. Its fast, but not exactly useful for anyone except developers.

-Neo