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June 9, 2009 12:31 PM PDT

Safari 4's fast, but not perfect: First Look video

by Seth Rosenblatt

Apple is touting Safari 4 as the fastest browser on the Web for both Windows and Mac. Depending on your computer's specs, that may indeed be true. However, if you need more than speed, Safari may not be the best choice. It's zippy with the JavaScript, but on Windows machines it still consumes a huge amount of RAM and still doesn't support extensions--something the Mac version can do.

What it does offer, though, is a uniquely visual browser right out of the box. Top Sites and Cover Flow for History and Bookmark browsing will either entice or annoy, but there's no doubt that Apple is finally taking its browser seriously.

Seth peers into the deep, dark corners of software so that you don't have to. He has yet to suffer a single nightmare about OS/2. You can follow him on Twitter.
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by rogerpack2005 June 9, 2009 3:39 PM PDT
not quite as cool as chrome
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by rms.server June 9, 2009 8:03 PM PDT
Lightning fast browser (faster than IE 8, Opera 9 & 10, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome all that I have tried), nice interface, but memory usage too heavy for Windows XP and my Cel 1400 GHz, 768 MB RAM:(
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by Moblin88 June 9, 2009 8:40 PM PDT
Plugin Sandboxing is a tricky feature to demonstrate because it is only available on Snow Leopard, which hasn't been released yet, not on Leopard or Windows (any flavour).

The browser's javascript is lightning fast though. The speed increase over firefox 3.0 (which I was using prior to Safari 4) is quite noticeable when browsing MobileMe and gmail.
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by Shorty1982 June 10, 2009 12:07 AM PDT
It's fast, but I have noticed that it is considerably slower than chrome when using sites like Microsoft web Access for an example.
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by forever4now June 10, 2009 7:29 AM PDT
Wow! The browser space is really exciting these days.

I hope HTML5 support becomes the next major battleground for browsers. There is a lot of cool stuff you can do with it.
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by zrimec June 10, 2009 8:37 AM PDT
google chrome is awesome, no1 at this moment! much faster than safari or any other!!
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by Carrick2222 June 10, 2009 10:16 AM PDT
Zoom function on Safari is absolutely stunning! The best from any browser out there.
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by n25philly June 10, 2009 10:47 AM PDT
Safari sucks for windows and probably always will. I guess it could be worse, it could be chrome
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by Spribo June 10, 2009 11:21 AM PDT
Chrome is the best! Modern interface and simplicity needed for high productivity. Safari isn't bad, is interface's unique, but I had problems with certain games requiring Shockwave player. And it is maybe "too visual".
by Carrick2222 June 10, 2009 11:49 AM PDT
I see that many people are complaining that Safari takes a lot out of memory usage from the PC, but I am looking at this at the Process Manager, and it shows that Safari takes only 180 000 K of Memory, but Firefox takes about 190 000.
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by Aimee1 June 10, 2009 3:18 PM PDT
I tried Safari once, didn't do anything for me. And I don't care how fast you claim to be - if you can't also offer customization and/or other options and maybe an interface that is little more than two-dimensional, you might as well be using IE.
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by rub13dez June 11, 2009 10:28 PM PDT
maybe you should get a real computer like a mac
MAC24'' 3.06 2GB
by mr.sms June 10, 2009 3:58 PM PDT
until this thing let me search from the address bar, I'm staying with chrome
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by ichigogyunyu89 June 10, 2009 10:42 PM PDT
I totally agree with this. I love being able to search from the web address box. To some people this may be trivial, but I dont want my browser to be cluttered with useless nonsense. Chrome's simplicity and Omnibox are what keep me loyal to Google's browser.
by Joshua_X June 10, 2009 5:45 PM PDT
To forever4now:

I thought Opera 10, beta 1 already has support for HTML 5?

[They might be the first ones too.]

Oh, and I've tried Safari before, I hated it. It's not as fast as most user's claim.
I've used the latest version of Firefox [and the stable version] and it doesn't even compare to Firefox's speed.
And also, I do not like Safari because there is no support for extensions for Windows at all.

I think that Apple should just stop making that horrible browser. UGH.
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by Joshua_X June 10, 2009 5:47 PM PDT
I've used the latest version of Firefox [and the stable version] and it doesn't even compare to Firefox's speed.

I MEANT:

I've used the latest version of Safari, and the beta version, and it still doesn't compare to Firefox's speed.

Sorry. I'm a bit tired and I tend to make a lot of mistakes when I type.
by klor5 June 11, 2009 10:06 AM PDT
Let me start off by saying I've never used Chrome and 90% of the time I use a Mac.
Safari 4 for Mac in my opinion is an excellent browser,uncluttered,very stable,very fast and intuitive,adds Coverflow and Top Sites capabilities to it's wonderful handling of Bookmarks and History.A big step up from Safari 3.x.x.
Compared to Firefox's aesthetic gaudiness (Sorry to all ADD sufferers) and general lack of cohesion,Safari 4 is a dream.Why?
Two things (mainly).
One-I have not come across anything in any other browser that comes close to Safaris' killer feature.
The activity Window.This window allows you to see just about every file that is in your browsers, cache.
This is especially useful when you want to down load videos off the net,especially those videos that the sites' operators don't want you to have a copy of.
Two-This is all well and good,but compared to its potential in terms of speed,Safari 4 on its own doesn't really squash the opposition (apparently).Answer?
Safari 4 + " Webkit nightly build" = Use those Opera Exploring Chrome vulpes to clean your floors.
While to surf the net, install Safari 4.Then go to webkit.org and download the latest "Nightly Build" (yes I know Safari 4 is built around the Webkit engine,Webkit just do the speed part better).
Now with safari 4 closed,install and launch Webkit Nightly Build.It's easy to tell the difference between the two applications' icons-Safari has a silver compass ring,while Webkit has a gold one.
Now control/right click on the Webkit icon in the dock and click on "Keep in Dock".
Now just click the compass with the gold ring in the dock whenever you want to go surfing.
Safari on steroids.Voila.
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by rub13dez June 11, 2009 10:23 PM PDT
let me say something...i tell you guys man people always got to complain about something,never satisfied...i have to agree with klor5 in my opinion its an excellent browser..havent had any problems its smooth as can be.to all you people who are complaining about this and it wont this an that or it keeps doing this plain an simple dont download it ...dont use it or try to figure out why its doing what its doing....or maybe its your computer....why is everybody so quick to blame the browser?shoot it's probably your computer ..so stop crying man......

MAC24'' 3.06 2GB
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by Cryowolf June 19, 2009 10:54 PM PDT
EAH2900 HD, 4 GB DDR2 RAM, quad 2.55 GHz and I still cant run Safari as fast/smoothly as chrome, firefox, oper 10 combined.. And if a browser depends on a good computer to run it's missing the point completely.
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