Apple releases Public Beta of Safari 4

[Gerri Shin]

[css-div=" width: 750px;"]Apple announced a public beta of Safari 4 today with the "Nitro" engine that runs JavaScript 4.2 times faster than Safari 3.
I;ve gotten a chance to download and install this new version of safari and I must say I am extremily impressed. I've been using Safari 4 since the Developers preview, but when comparing the last dev release and this one, there is almost no comparison. This build zips through the web faster than any other browser, even chrome.
[/css-div][css-div=" width: 750px; height: 620px; overflow: auto;"]here are a few of the new features that Apple has included in Safari 4:
http://www.pokecommunity.com/picture.php?albumid=86&pictureid=19260
Top Sites, a display of frequently visited pages in a stunning wall of previews so users can jump to their favorite sites with a single click;
Full History Search, where users search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages to easily return to sites they've seen before;
Cover Flow, to make searching web history or bookmarks as fun and easy as paging through album art in iTunes;
Tabs on Top, for better tabbed browsing with easy drag-and-drop tab management tools and an intuitive button for opening new ones;
Smart Address Field, that automatically completes web addresses by displaying an easy-to-read list of suggestions from Top Sites, bookmarks and browsing history;
Smart Search Field, where users fine-tune searches with recommendations from Google Suggest or a list of recent searches;
Full Page Zoom, for a closer look at any website without degrading the quality of the site's layout and text;
Developer Tools - built-in web developer tools to debug, tweak and optimize a website for peak performance and compatibility; and
Windows-native look in Safari for Windows, that uses standard Windows font rendering and native title bar, borders and toolbars so Safari fits the look and feel of other Windows XP and Windows Vista applications.http://www.pokecommunity.com/picture.php?albumid=86&pictureid=19261
with these and many more features, see this page for full list (http://www.apple.com/safari/whats-new.html), and on that note, it seems that CNET has taken the liberty of testing out the new javascript engine 'Nitro" and compared it to the majority of the other top browsers[/css-div]

[css-div=" width: 750px;"]http://www.cnet.co.uk/i/c/blg/cat/software/safari4_benchmarks/safari-vs-other-browsers1.jpgProving itself a staggering 42 times faster at rendering JavaScript than IE 7, our benchmarks confirm Apple's Safari 4 browser, released in beta today, is the fastest browser on the planet. In fact, it beat Google's Chrome, Firefox 3, Opera 9.6 and even Mozilla's developmental Minefield browser.

We used the SunSpider suite of JavaScript tests to determine which browser was the quickest, and the Safari 4 beat every browser in terms of speed, on both a PC running Windows XP SP2, and a Mac running OS X 10.5.6 with all updates applied.

Below are the actual figures if you want to see how all seven browsers scored against each other, but for quick reference we determined on a PC that Safari was a whopping 42 times faster than Internet Explorer 7, just over six times faster than Internet Explorer 8, 3.5 times faster than Firefox 3, and 1.2 times faster than Google Chrome. Here's Safari versus the rest, excluding IE 7:

http://www.cnet.co.uk/i/c/blg/cat/software/safari4_benchmarks/pc_benchmarks1.jpg

Add IE 7's results to the PC graph and witness the shocking truth. These are results from a PC with a 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo:

1) Safari 4 (Total time: 910ms)
2) Mozilla Minefield 3.2a1 (1,136ms)
3) Google Chrome (1,177ms)
4) Firefox 3 (3,250ms)
5) Opera 9.6 (4,076ms)
6) Internet Explorer 8 (5,839ms)
7) Internet Explorer 7 (39,026ms)

http://www.cnet.co.uk/i/c/blg/cat/software/safari4_benchmarks/pc_benchmarks2.jpg

I'm using it now and I can honestly say that I'm loving it and if mozilla want my browser reference they have a challenge now.
Are you going to try it?[/css-div]

[Zet]

I'm already trying and loving it, though the only thing that I'm not quite fond of is the windows native look =/

[Gerri Shin]

well, its still better than what safari 3 looks like for windows. I also think in the preferences there's a way to have it use the Mac font rendering agent in there, Im not sure if you can swap the whole window look though.

[AdvancedK47]

Those silly idiots. They just copied from Google Chrome >:*(.

It is still in BETA so I think will have too many glitches. I really don't like how the browser wars just keep developing.

Edit: ZOMG! This is the fastest browser I've ever used! :D

[Zet]

well for me I'd have to say hands down in my opinion that Safari Beta 4 is currently winning

[Ayano Katagiri]

I've never tried Safari yet, but my friend was telling me about the new beta. I might try it, Firefox has been a little weird lately on my PC. Does Safari have add-ons like FF? I'd really miss the Adblock Plus if Safari didn't have something similar.

[Zet]

no safari doesn't have addons, but it's pop up blocker is kinda better than firefox's

[Gerri Shin]

actually, I've got ad-block on my Safari app. it inherited it when I upgraded to the new beta.
If you're using a Mac you could look here at PimpMySafari.com (http://www.pimpmysafari.com/) I'm using Safari ad-block version 0.3.2. I'm sure many of the plugins found there could be re-written for the windows version

My favourite feature right now is the new debug menu!

[Zet]

looks like it's for the Mac OSX only

[Virtual Chatot]

I'm loving it, only I wish they would include more CSS capabilities in the next release :/

I want my rounded signature to actually be rounded :P

( gonna love the developer tools )

[Apple Inc.]

I must say I am quite impressed with it although I don't like the way it looks in Windows at all which is why I bumped it back down to Safari 3 as I feel it looked better.

[Gerri Shin]

the only real downside to the Mac versions, that I can see, is the fact that you have to be running version 10.4.11 of tiger for the tiger version, and you have to be running 10.5.6 of leopard to run it on leopard. It will not install on anything below 10.4.11 (for tiger) and 10.5.6 (for leopard). It also won't install on the developer's seed 10a261 of Snow Leopard.

as for everything else, it's great!

[Archer]

I'm loving it, only I wish they would include more CSS capabilities in the next release :/

I want my rounded signature to actually be rounded :P

( gonna love the developer tools )
If my memory serves correctly, there's a separate CSS Code for round borders in Safari. The "Moz" in "-moz-border" stands for Mozilla.

I'm going to try it out, but I think I'll miss Mouse Gestures and other add-ons.

~ Review Pending ~

Ugly Windows theme is ugly.
I like the cover-flow idea, but it's rather laggy on my computer, which means it won't perform well for anything more than 2 years old. I had to manually set text rendering and it just didn't impress me. The whole layout just seems a mess, with bookmarks/history stuck to opening in a tab and... yeah. The only feature that I like is the text rendering, which was available in the last version.

[Virtual Chatot]

Found the Safari codes, and they can also be used right alongside the Mozilla code without any glitches.

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/4803/picture2f.png
-webkit-border-top-right-radius: 15px;
-webkit-border-top-left-radius: 15px;
-webkit-border-bottom-left-radius: 15px;
-webkit-border-bottom-right-radius: 15px;
-webkit-border-radius: 15px;

[Silver]

This is/was the final nail in the coffin of me using mozilla, I had switched to Safari 3 a few weeks ago, and Safari 4 just blows my mind, and FF3 out of the water. =)

[moments.]

I downloaded it and got straight into it and I am loving it so much, beats Safari 3 and Firefox which I had used a lot before Safari.
Nothing I have found wrong with it just yet.

[Virtual Chatot]

It has crashed mysteriously on me three times so far, but as its in beta, I'm sure Apple will find the answer to that problem before the final release :|

( Wasn't that big of a deal, still managed to restore all of my windows :P )