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.
Updated, June 17: The sandboxing of plug-ins, such as Flash, in Safari 4 will be limited to users running Mac OS X 10.6, which will be available this fall. The feature is currently not available, nor will it be available to Windows users. Windows users should also note that changing the default search provider is limited to either Google or Yahoo.
The public version of Safari 4 was released Monday amid all the iPhone noise at WWDC, and Apple confirmed what those who played around with the beta version already knew: Safari is now a serious browser for serious Windows users, and its position on Macs has been bolstered.
You can download Safari 4 for Windows and Mac from CNET Download.com.
If you're unfamiliar with Safari 4, I strongly recommend checking out Stephen Shankland's analysis of the Safari beta version that was released in January. The biggest overall changes are the graphics improvements, including the new interface and the new JavaScript engine called Nitro, but since the beta little else is dramatically different.
Users of Safari 3 will be hard-pressed to not notice that the interface is completely new, with a look and feel much more in line with the other major Webkit-based browser, Google Chrome. The browser launches with the menu bar, tab bar, and status bar all hidden, presenting you with the location bar, bookmark bar, and the slick Top Sites interface. Top Sites is essentially Opera's Speed Dial feature, presenting your most commonly visited Web sites, with a Cover Flow-style skin. The black background, curvature, and reflective window bottom make this the most professional-looking Web browser around. A blue star and an upturned corner indicate that a site has been updated since your last visit to it. Tap the Edit button in the bottom left corner to remove a site or pin a site permanently to Top Sites.
One major change to the interface from the beta involves tabs. In the beta, Apple experimented with a Chrome-style "tabs-on-top" that it has abandoned in the public release. The font for the tabs was often hard to read, and made Safari look excessively like Chrome. The new tab style now looks much like the old tab style.
Safari's visual speed dial is one of the new browser's best features--if your system is new enough.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Cover Flow is now available as a graphic way to browse your bookmarks and history, however, if you've got a somewhat older computer you still won't be able to use any of these graphics improvements.
Another new change for Mac users in Snow Leopard will be the sandboxing of browser crashes caused by plug-ins such as Flash and Shockwave. The page that they're on will continue to function, and you can reactivate the plug-in by reloading the page.
Safari 4 is also the first nonbeta browser to fully complete the Acid3 Web standards compliance test.
The URL bar does feature "smart" surfing, but only for including your history and bookmarks--much like Internet Explorer. Chrome and Firefox remain the only browsers to default to Google's "feeling lucky" style of searching from the location bar.
Cover Flow in Safari gives your Bookmarks and History a graphics lesson.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Apple's big claim with Safari is that it's the fastest browser on the market, and Apple just might be right on that count. On an Intel Core Duo T400 ThinkPad, with 3GB of RAM and a 2.53GHz processor, I ran both Webkit's SunSpider JavaScript test and Mozilla's Dromaeo test on Firefox 3.5 Preview, Google Chrome 2, and Safari 4. Safari came out on top in Dromaeo by a long shot, but Chrome eked by in SunSpider.
For the SunSpider test, Chrome hit 597.0 milliseconds, while Safari scored 620.4 ms and Firefox comparatively chugged along at 952.2 ms. On Dromaeo, Safari reached 175.06 runs per second, Chrome managed 67.92 runs/s, and Firefox came in last again at 48.48 runs/s. However, Chrome only led in two categories, and it tied both with Safari. Safari definitively led in 36 tests, and Firefox led in 12.
Keeping in mind that although these tests are affected by background computer processes, your hardware, and other factors, Safari is definitely one of the fastest browsers out there. However, it still lacks extensions, and for many Firefox users that's enough to keep them from switching. Even Internet Explorer supports some form of extensibility with its Web Slices and Accelerators.
Like many other browsers, Safari's location bar offers suggested sites.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Safari is still a RAM-devouring beast, too. With two tabs open, one to Dromaeo and one to SunSpider, it was using a shocking amount of RAM--more than 500MB after running both tests. Google Chrome consumed about 75MB of RAM across the same two sites under the same circumstances, while Firefox required 120MB.
With about 8.5 percent of the browser market, it's clear that Apple is positioning Safari as more than a developer's tool on Windows, and that its successes at building a faster JavaScript engine should be taken seriously even with its other drawbacks.
Editor's note: This review has been updated from its original to include source information.
Among the news and announcements at the WWDC Keynote this morning, Apple previewed the next iteration of Mac OS X Leopard. Snow Leopard, as Mac OS X 10.6 is known, appears to pack a lot of new features and is slated for release in September, though no hard dates were announced during the Keynote.
The goal of Snow Leopard, according to Apple, was not to reinvent Mac OS X, but to refine, simplify, and speed up the overall experience. They were careful to point out Snow Leopard is not a complete OS replacement, but an expanded update to the current system. During the first public preview of the latest version of Mac OS X 10.6 this morning, we got to check out some of the changes Apple proposes will make the system faster and easier to use.
During the Keynote, Apple's Bertrand Serlet outlined a few of the major new features in Snow Leopard. For coverage of Safari 4 and QuickTime 10 features, read this blog post from Seth Rosenblatt.
In addition to QuickTime and Safari improvements, Serlet hit upon several planned enhancements to the latest Mac OS X. Apple claims they have managed to decrease the install time of the operating system by 45 percent. If this turns out to be the case, the OS will take up six fewer GB than before, which might mean a significant storage boost for current Leopard users. It's difficult to determine if this will be true for everyone--people run different configurations on several different Mac models, making it difficult to nail down exact numbers. Any decrease in system bloat is certainly a good thing if Apple can pull it off.
According to Apple, changes to Leopard are mostly small refinements that make it easier to use. We already liked the convenience of Expose to quickly find what we're working on when there are a lot of windows open on the desktop. But with Snow Leopard, an interface enhancement would let you click and hold on a Dock icon to bring up all the windows associated with the application. Apple also demonstrated the ability to drag an item from one program, use Dock access to Expose, and move files where you want them--like grabbing an image to send in an e-mail, for example. Usability refinements like these are small, but might make using a Mac a more seamless experience.
Long-awaited support for Microsoft Exchange makes it easy to create meetings, use global contacts, and more.
(Credit: Apple, Inc.)We were happy to see that Stacks is slated see an upgrade, including the ability to open and explore folders within the stacks window--the current version opened the Finder when a folder was clicked. The possibility of an added scrollbar to Stacks will be a very welcome addition. With the current version of Leopard, there is a limit to how many programs will fit in the Stacks window, forcing you to go to the finder if you don't see your program. During this part of the presentation, Serlet also showed how Snow Leopard will be able to preview images, videos, and PowerPoint presentations, even if you don't have PowerPoint installed on your Mac.
Support for Microsoft Exchange is a feature many users have been waiting for (for far too long), and with Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Exchange support may finally become available. During the demonstration, Apple showed how you will be able to add an account to Mail, choose Exchange, and your Mac will autodetect Exchange information from your address book, or you can enter the information manually. From there, Apple says you will be able to use Exchange's global list of addresses and drag and drop contacts into iCal to easily schedule meetings. They also demonstrated smart technology surrounding meeting locations enabling your Mac to discover time conflicts and change the meeting time and location to work for everyone. These features look great, but we wonder whether Apple plans will line up with reality when Snow Leopard is actually released.
With Snow Leopard, Apple claims they have made all of the Mac's core applications take advantage of the 64-bit architecture. This could mean faster applications, faster loading times, and smoother overall performance. Snow Leopard also should add support for most hardware with Open Computing Language (OpenCL), which would let any application tap into the GPU computing power previously available only to graphics applications. Apple says they have improved threading across multiple processors using what they call a grand central dispatch to control threads. These tweaks might help improve overall performance, but we'll have to wait for Snow Leopard's release before we can judge the efficiency and speed of these refinements.
With Snow Leopard being more of a service pack than a complete system upgrade, it seems Apple has priced it accordingly, letting current Leopard users pay $29 to upgrade. The family pack, which allows you to install the new OS on five computers in your home, will cost $49. Though Apple didn't announce a specific date for release, we already had some idea it would launch in September. Maybe the improvements will be enough for people to pay out of pocket for this patch-like upgrade.
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Correction: QuickTime 10 is likely to be released with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in the fall, and won't be updated Monday.
At WWDC Monday morning, Apple's Bertrand Serlet came out with guns blazing, not just in support of Snow Leopard, but of Safari and QuickTime, too. Announcing that Safari 4 would leave beta later Monday and that QuickTime would receive a massive overhaul, Serlet introduced new features while taking swipes at both Microsoft and Mozilla.
Safari 4 can be downloaded from CNET Download.com for Windows and Mac.
Safari 4 shipping today.
(Credit: (Credit: James Martin/CNET))The senior vice president of OS X software said that QuickTime 10 is now "super efficient" and will support HTTP streaming based on h.264 and AAC, a feature that many competing programs have long offered. The new QuickTime will automatically adjust the playback bit rate, and it will be able to stream through firewalls.
In addition to receiving a major version jump from v7 to v10, the interface has also received a complete refresh. Onscreen controls will disappear when playing back video. The QuickTime "Q" logo will also see a slight redo, changing from its familiar blue to a silver and purple.
Safari 4's Nitro will be the fastest JavaScript engine of any browser on the market, Serlet said. Without describing what kind of benchmarks he was using, he showed a chart indicating that Chrome 2 is 5.3 times faster than Internet Explorer 8, but that Safari 4 is 7.8 times faster. Safari 4 also loads JavaScript three times faster than Safari on the iPhone, Serlet said. HTML 5 audio and video tags will be support in Safari 4, too.
Microsoft was not the only target for Serlet. "The number one cause of crashes," he said, "is browser plug-ins." Mozilla Firefox is the best-known extensible browser, and one new feature in Safari 4 is designed to address the instability that some plug-ins can bring to browsers. Crashes in Safari 4 that are caused by a plug-in will cause only the plug-in to fail. Refresh the page, Serlet said, and the plug-in will reload. "All you need to do is reload that page and that's it. You haven't missed a beat."
I'll be running hands-on tests on Safari and QuickTime later today when they're made available to the public. The update to QuickTime in particular is somewhat surprising, given that Apple had been resistant for years to make any dramatic overhauls to its movie player. If the company can improve its performance, then we may be looking at a heated battle in the video playback market in addition to Web browsers.
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