Safari 4 Leaves Beta, Calls Itself “World’s Fastest Browser”

@balcis: No, not in offline mode. =)

@cha0tic: yea, it took I think under 2 minutes. First browser AND OS (Mac OS X) to go down. Then came down IE On Vista. Linux never came down with Firefox

@Nitrokart: Nope, thats Internet Explorer silly

+ Watch video

Chaaaaaaalangge!

TonyTriple

@[www.instantcrickets.com]

fastest doesn't necessarily mean its the stablest, nor does it mean its the lightest. Ill stick with firefox and chrome kthxbai

reluttr

@lamintak: I don't remember any public sites off the top of my head, although I have encountered a few. More recently I've been developing a website and have been testing it in all the various browsers. It looks fine in Safari for Windows, but renders weird sh*t in Safari for Mac.

atomicrabbit

@cha0tic: If you remember correctly, the hack was worked out well in advance. The 10 seconds part was simply the execution of a lot of pre-planning.
And the other part you left out was that the other browsers fell very shortly after that.

Keep it in perspective.

DiscoZombie

@goodywitch: let's start with the simple one, isn't it on "offline mode", is it?

balcis

@cha0tic: err <10 seconds

@fiman16: At that hacker conference/contest a couple of months back, Safari was the first to be hacked (>10 seconds), allowing the person to take control of the computer.

I really liked the tabs in the top.

@fiman16: That too.

"Apple's Safari 4 web browser left beta today, boasting itself as "the world's fastest web browser."

Well I think that is plain bullS**T. Matter of fact, anyone making that claim about their browser is lying or badly self deluded. Except that Apple's specialty is marketing blurb. So I can see their crap coming from a long way off. It's just that they've been saying things like this for so long, it's just tiring as well as dishonest.

What appears to be the fastest browser, depends on what kind of connection you have to the information-super-interweb-dumptrucks..., what shape your system is in, how well you maintain it, where you are in the world, the quality of your provider, and probably a bunch of other factors I just can't think of right now.

In any case, so long as js is off, Opera is the fastest browser in the world. Firefox wins no top prizes for speed but for all-round performance, js or no, it kicks the virtual asses of all the others. IE8 is a bit of a mess imo. A lot of things have to be tweaked before it will come anywhere close to the speed of FF or Opera...... a lot of sites need to be added to the Restricted zone before IE will liven up. Chrome is another straightjacket but in other ways, though for speed it can compete with Opera.

If I didn't loathe ad propagandists like Apple as much as I do, I'd pass this over, but Apple can take its browser and get back to Beta, maybe all the way back to Alpha. Or better still, just shove it altogether. Thank you.

paintbox

@Persistence: I don't know what results I was getting but I googled the password issue with Firefox and everything I found told me it wasn't possible to use keychain to fill in passwords...would I still have to input all the passwords with either of your apps?
Problem being I have SO many sites that I'll end up somewhere that needs a password and Safari remembers it, when I've long since forgotten the website, let alone the login info...

@veronykah: I upgraded to Safari 4 and so far so good, haven't seen the spinning ball yet...fingers crossed.

@cha0tic: people hack mac software?

fiman16

The best they could do is to put the tabs back *in* the window and not on top of it.

@Nitrokart: That too.

grewal12

@veronykah: and firefox's master password can do the same thing, as well as numerous free applications that work with small flash drives.

I love the Mac-like font smoothing on PCs.

Otherwise, meh. Firefox 3 more than makes up for slower speeds with its versatility.

PrimitiveWallflower

But is it still the blurriest browser?

Mykie Gunderson

@veronykah: Have you looked into the Xmarks plugin for FireFox? It syncs all my bookmarks AND password across computers.

jim.mclean

Fast or not, it's almost as ugly as IE

Vordreller

Safari 4? Meh... I lost any appetite for it since Apple stole all the features from other browsers and called its browser "innovative" because of it.

Aleksey Demtchouk

@Gonzie: Me too! I want them back! Grrrrraaaaaaarrrrrggghhhh!

Samu Wade

Firefox is bloated, slow and clumsy. Dramatically slower than any other browser. And doesn't integrate with the Keychain. It used to be a decent browser years ago, but there are better alternatives today.

IE is a joke. Anyone still using IE should just smack themselves in the forehead with a ballpeen hammer. It'd be less painful.

DiscoZombie

@ssj4Gogeta: The new tab page and tab drag and drop were not original to Chrome. Opera also had tabs on top before Chrome did, but Safari now (sadly) seems to have dropped them.

Samu Wade

It has the same questionable UI decisions as the beta but with tabs back below the url bar again. Stop/Reload is in the url bar on the far right side of the browser and you can't put it back with the other navigation buttons. The loading indicator is an out of place dark blue box that pops up where the RSS icon is (no more nifty url loading bar). The tab close buttons have been replaced with squares that look like they belong in Windows XP, not OSX.

Seems much more responsive and stable though.

It really feels like a shoddy Safariesque FireFox theme...

cjschmidt

This release is REALLY bad in my opinion, why did they move the tabs to the bottom again? and the new mouse over effect on top sites if really ugly. And the new loading indicator is annoying and really ugly.

Bad move apple, REALLY bad! >:(

Muscar

My own test (not scientific) Opera 9.64, Opera 10 beta, and Chrome are about the same. All much faster than the rest.

@StevieQ: but i liked them dammit! serious space saving there.

I liked the loading bar because it shows overall progress, I don't care how fast it says it is I want to know that

The public's ultimate perception is often fueled by the name of a product. Which of the following browser names sounds the fastest?

Opera
Safari
Internet Explorer
FireFox

If you really wanted to be known as the fastest browser, why would you name it Opera? Opera's aren't over until the fat lady sings (which could be hours). Safari's are renowned for their slower than molasses excursions through extreme habitats, often taking days to arrive at the point where they start. And Internet Explorer sounds like it would take light years to complete.
The only name that beats them all is the last one. Take a wild animal, light it's tail on fire and watch it motor. That's fast. That's better marketing.

@cha0tic: The fastest to be replaced with Firefox?

@Leafy: Actually, you'll be happy to know that this release does put the tabs back to their normal spot by default. I've updated the image above to reflect that.

What about the tab bar on the Windows version? Picture above shows it on top. The Mac version puts the tab bar back to its original location, I'm assuming the Windows version does the same.

@Gonzie: That's why they called it a "beta".

StevieQ

@[glimmerblocker.org] if you are on the Mac. Try a CSS-based solution for Windows.

StevieQ

ok where have the new style tabs gone?

where's the old style loading bar gone too?

Guys, try downloading the release version and commenting on that. Why comment on the beta that is now gone?

I just downloaded the Leopard version and it seems much faster than the beta and launches much faster than FF. Page loads on par with FF.

They refreshed the look on Leopard: older-style tabs with close boxes that only appear when the tab is hovered over. A flatter-grey look with a new progress loader and RSS icon. I'm pretty happy with it so far.

As for ad blocking, on the mac I am using GlimmerBlocker, a simple-to-use and powerful proxy tool, so I can use it right away with Safari 4 and all my other browsers.

StevieQ

I was truly hoping they'd reconsider the UI before the official release. Why does Apple seem to have such a hard time sticking to their own user interface conventions?

For sophisticated users, the title-bar tabs and all the other eye-candy are fun -- for about five minutes. For the casual user, it adds nothing but confusion.

Chrome, on the other hand, adds -- by taking away. A good lesson that Firefox (to a certain extent) and IE could also learn.

This is getting to be so stupid. We're talking about milliseconds now. Such a small amount of time that no one is actually going to even notice anyway. It's just idiotic, and as always -- Safari sucks when you look at features so of course Apple is going to make a big deal about "speed".

@David Gilling: What isn't?

StevieQ

@DiscoZombie: The release version is back to the old tabs on the mac.

StevieQ

I can't bring myself to test this. FF FTW compared to all browsers IMO.

When I tried out the beta yesterday for the first time, it didn't connect to the net (while firefox, chrome, opera, IE had no issues). Portable and official installations. Weird. Any ideas, or is it not worth it?

They just copied everything from Google Chrome. tabs on top, new tab page, two menu system, tab drag and drop. Is Apple doing that because Google used its Webkit?

ssj4Gogeta

@Leafy:

Put your tabs back on the bottom with one line in Terminal:
[www.macgurulounge.com]

DiscoZombie

@atomicrabbit: I believe you and I'd be interested to see some examples of this. Do you have any?

lamintak

@cha0tic:
That too.

I'm kinda disappointed & surprised the official release doesn't include the title bar tab feature. I was just getting used to it.

deverbative

@pvtryan2:

Top right, adblock, also supports click to flash a really awesome flash blocking tool.

[localhostr.com]

Joe O'Reilly

how ugly on XP

David Gilling

I don't care; the schizophrenic tab-title-bar still sucks. Right now I'm using its beta on mac; and I don't know about crashing but it *does* freeze quite a lot for me..

Leafy

Like I posted on Gizmodo, after tweaking the about:config,
Firefox is faster on my pc.

For some reason, some webpages don't render the same between the Windows and Mac versions of Safari. Kinda stupid.

atomicrabbit

Hm, really??
Did they change something significant from beta because I find Safari 4 to be incredibly slow the longer its open.
I get the spinning wheel of death constantly and use firefox to open up flash heavy sites.
I would have left safari for firefox altogether but safari fills in all my passwords from keychain and apparently firefox doesn't...bummer.
Guess I'll try the "new" safari 4 and see if there is a difference.

Safari may be fast, but does it offer a free advertisement block addition, such as the one found with Fire Fox?

pvtryan2

The fastest to be hacked?