I’m a bit shocked that this has happened before the iPhone and Leopard’s release but Apple have just released Safari Beta 3 on both Mac and Windows platforms.
Safari is the fastest browser running on Windows, based on the industry standard iBench tests, rendering web pages up to twice as fast as IE 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2. Safari joins iTunes® in delivering Apple’s legendary user experience to both Windows and Mac® users as well as full support of open Internet standards. Safari 3 features easy-to-manage bookmarks, effortless browsing with easy-to-organize tabs and a built-in RSS reader to quickly scan the latest news and information. Safari 3 public beta is available today as a free download at www.apple.com/safari.
“We think Windows users are going to be really impressed when they see how fast and intuitive web browsing can be with Safari,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Hundreds of millions of Windows users already use iTunes, and we look forward to turning them on to Safari’s superior browsing experience too.”
It is damn fast. I can’t actually believe how fast it is. Apple have thrown up some figures based on its preformance on the download page for Safari.
The fastest web browser on any platform, Safari loads pages up to 2 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2.
I know it’s a beta release but it doesn’t seem to be supporting Ajax properly as Google Talk isn’t appearing within Gmail, however Netvibes is accessible and that is a very Ajax heavy application. I can’t tab between the URL bar and forms either. The built in RSS reader isn’t the prettiest thing either.
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thank you for visiting! Cormac
14 responses so far ↓
1 Safari Beta 3 on the Mac // Jun 11, 2007 at 8:33 pm
[...] 3 is available for public beta from the Safari download page. It is also making an appearance on Windows for the first time. I have just downloaded it and I have to say it’s the fastest rendering [...]
2 francis mahon // Jun 11, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Hmm… think I’ll be taking a look at both versions of this. Seems like a great idea by Apple - if they can build a substantial share of the Windows browser market, it will surely encourage major content providers to become more Safari friendly.
3 Chris Gallagher // Jun 11, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Hmmm weird decision by apple. Not many mac users even use safari do they?
4 francis mahon // Jun 11, 2007 at 10:57 pm
I can still remember using NCSA Mosaic, back in the day - and I’ve used pretty much every other browser released since. I’m a long time fan of Firefox (installed on the family Windows PC), and tried it on my Mac. I ended up uninstalling it and sticking with Safari. For my browsing needs, it’s the best browser out there…
5 The End Is Nigh - Safari Available For Windows! // Jun 12, 2007 at 12:02 am
[...] Cormac mentions that Safari beta 3 is available for download on OSX and Windows XP! [...]
6 Cormac Moylan // Jun 12, 2007 at 8:08 am
Chris, FF would be the most popular browser followed by Safrai, then Opera/Camino at the bottom of the pile. I will check my Anayltics logs this evening for macblogger.net to get the proper figures.
I find FF to be very slow and buggy on the Mac. It’s not developed in the native Mac language and is just a port of the Windows client anyway.
Camino is based on Mozilla’s Geeko and is developed specifically for the Mac. It runs like a dream but nowhere near as fast as Safari 3. Safrai 3 isn’t the prettiest thing to look at though. The grey finish on it makes it look so dull and boring.
A facelift and some extra features could make it a contendor. Apple can’t rely on the speed difference alone to sway users from FF to Safrai.
7 Chris Gallagher // Jun 12, 2007 at 9:58 am
So far I’ve found that Camino is actually slower than firefox although, yes it is more stable.
8 Cormac Moylan // Jun 12, 2007 at 4:16 pm
I have noticed that big a difference in the speed myself. Camino doesn’t support browser extensions either I don’t think.
On the + side, you can get Mac widgets which cover a lot of the things Firefox Extensions do. Which is very handy.
I love widgets.
9 Mutiny Design // Jul 10, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Thanks for the link. I was actually considering downloading that Apple emulator ( pear pc i think ) so I could use Mac Browsers, but now I won’t have to.
I will be looking forward to finding out all my sites don’t work in Safari and a whole new bunch of JavaScript nightmare.
Does anyone know if there are any noticable differences between Safari fro Mac and PC?
10 Cormac Moylan // Jul 11, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Hi David, as far as I can tell there are no differences between the Mac and PC version. But in saying that, I don’t really use either. I find the Safari interface to be too dull. Firefox/Camino/Opera/Flock are all much better on Mac.
Hopefully Apple will give Safrai a facelift with the release of Leopard on the horizon. It certainly needs it.
11 Mutiny Design // Jul 12, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Agreed, I installed Safari and found it to be good but a bit bland. The CSS and JavaScript handeling of Safari is excellent however. At first glance, safari certainly seem to beat Firefox and IE in the Javascript department.
P.S. I like your little adition of the flag, OS and browser next to the post. You are putting all us windows users to shame.
12 Cormac Moylan // Jul 12, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Ha! Cheers. It’s one of the better stats plugins for WP.
http://www.firestats.css
13 macBrowser - The popularity contest // Jul 24, 2007 at 8:47 pm
[...] devices. I haven’t used Opera mini or a mobile device for browsing the web for the matter but I have used Safari Beta 3 and I have it say…’It’s fast, it’s damn fast’. But that’s not [...]
14 FMN Media - Leamington Spa // Jul 29, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Keeps crashing for me..
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