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Safari 4: for realz.
wunderbar
What Have I Done?Registered User regular
What Have I Done?Registered User regular
Safari 4
No, we're not talking about Africa somewhere. This is Apple's web browser, based on Webkit. IT was in beta for a few months, and on June 6, 2009 came out of beta. Safari is basically Chrome+, even using some of the same icons. IT uses cover flow for history, and while pretty, is horribly inefficent. The beta had the tabs up on the title bar, like Chrome, but somehow managed to fuck it up so bad that they went back to the more traditional position for the final release.
You can download it for OS X and Windows now, but don't bother if you're on Windows.
Original OP Below
No, we're not talking about Africa somewhere. This is Apple's web browser, based on Webkit. IT was in beta for a few months, and on June 6, 2009 came out of beta. Safari is basically Chrome+, even using some of the same icons. IT uses cover flow for history, and while pretty, is horribly inefficent. The beta had the tabs up on the title bar, like Chrome, but somehow managed to fuck it up so bad that they went back to the more traditional position for the final release.
You can download it for OS X and Windows now, but don't bother if you're on Windows.
Original OP Below
So Apple this morning released the beta of Safari 4 for Mac and Windows. Now, because it is the way I am, I immediately downloaded it to try.
Now, I'm running Windows, I think it's safe to say that Safari 3 was one of the worst windows browsers I've ever tried. The main reason for this is that, like iTunes, Safari loaded up in a custom UI meant to look as much like the OS X version as possible. In 4, they decided to go to a *mostly* native UI. Still doesnt' look exactly like a windows app, but it's really close. The result is that it take a lot less time to load, and is a lot more responsive.
Overall I really like it. It has a "Top Sites" screen like Speed dial in Opera or the new tab page in chrome. it has the tabs in the address bar like chrome. It has spotlight-like search for your history.
The UI actually reminds me a lot of Chrome, which I like.
First impressions are that it's pretty good, and fixes a lot of the annoyances of Safari I had, even in OS X. I'm not a fan of the tab bar, as instead of having a max width for the tabs, if you have 1 tab it goes across the entire tab bar.
I'm actually going to set this as my default browser for a bit and give it a fair shake.
Now, I'm running Windows, I think it's safe to say that Safari 3 was one of the worst windows browsers I've ever tried. The main reason for this is that, like iTunes, Safari loaded up in a custom UI meant to look as much like the OS X version as possible. In 4, they decided to go to a *mostly* native UI. Still doesnt' look exactly like a windows app, but it's really close. The result is that it take a lot less time to load, and is a lot more responsive.
Overall I really like it. It has a "Top Sites" screen like Speed dial in Opera or the new tab page in chrome. it has the tabs in the address bar like chrome. It has spotlight-like search for your history.
The UI actually reminds me a lot of Chrome, which I like.
First impressions are that it's pretty good, and fixes a lot of the annoyances of Safari I had, even in OS X. I'm not a fan of the tab bar, as instead of having a max width for the tabs, if you have 1 tab it goes across the entire tab bar.
I'm actually going to set this as my default browser for a bit and give it a fair shake.
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B.net: Kusanku
I run it on a mac though, so I can't speak for the windows version.
B.net: Kusanku
EDIT: Apple, STOP TRYING TO INSTALL YOUR STUPID JUNK.. Oi. You would think the backlash from the Safari "update" thing would have clued them in on this, but Safari Beta tries to install Bonjour by default. So annoying.
I have every browser installed on my machine, and always check out the updates. Had been using Chrome simply because it was fast, and webkit is fast. Safari is 90% as fast, looks to have some better features, and uses webkit. That may win. We'll see. Gonna try it for a week.
So far, going by UI/pretty, Safari is pretty nice. Having the tabs using the glass in Win7 somewhat kills the text on them though, so we'll see how that goes throughout the week. I have made Safari default for now to really give it a fair shake.
Obligatory "it just works" joke.
EDIT: The close button being on the left side of the tab is going to drive me nuts until I change my habitual movement.
EDIT2: Is Ctrl-Tab/Ctrl-Shift-Tab the new standard for navigating tabs? I'm so used to Ctrl-PgUp/PgDn from Firefox, but IE8 and Safari 4 use Tab, which I guess "makes sense" and is easier for one-handed navigation while using the mouse. I just need to retrain.
B.net: Kusanku
I have found my first incompatible site. 1&1's website builder doesn't recognize it and won't let me use it. Is there any spoofing in Safari?
Something definitely missing seems to be the progress bar - it no longer appears in the address bar, and seems to have vanished altogether.
On the positive side, Safari 4 is scarily fast. No pinwheels at all on opening pages, whereas before it used to choke on more complex sites.
I kinda like the tabs. And having it look like it at least sort of belongs on Windows is a plus. I'm going to try running it for a few days too.
Yea other than the "ooo shiny" effect, I could do without.
I like it for iTunes, but I don't use it for anything else.
Same here. MBP running 10.5.6.
I uninstalled Glims and now it runs perfectly. It was a plugin compatibility issue, at least for me.
that works. thanks.
I'm loving this - was just thinking of migrating from Firefox for it's clunkyness.
It's a beta, so 4 wont' show up in software update. You have to download and install manually for now.
[ed] Curse you, Wunderbar!
http://www.macrumors.com/2009/02/06/css-animation-coming-to-safari-already-in-iphone-less-dependence-on-flash/
hooray standards
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Next issue (it's a biggie!): In Safari on OS X to get it to just open a new tab (i.e. never open a new Window), you have to run from the Terminal. I assume this writes to a Safari *.plist settings file somewhere. Any idea how I might get the same behavior on Windows?
Bonjour is actually a very cool thing to have. I don't know what would hook into it by default under Windows, but it's a great networking feature. You should have let it install. It's not something that junks up your computer, slows it down, or has some kind of tray icon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroconf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroconf#Apple_Bonjour
So the beta is looking a bit buggy. first of all I'm not all that pleased with ram usage. Already up to 375MB on my machine and I've only had it running for a couple hours, and right now Google reader and Facebook are refusing to load. I'm guessing it's because they're both quite ajax-y. Going to see if restarting the browser works.
EDIT: yea, it's working now after restarting the browser, closing the tab didn't work.
I'm having no trouble with gmail, although after having the browser open for a while ajax-y pages seem to not want to load. try restarting the browser and see if that works for you.
THIS. Please. I hate telling browsers to ONLY open new tabs and never windows, only to have a site open a new window anyway.. It's archaic.
Perhaps I'm just an archaic minimalist, but if I don't need it, I don't want it installed. If I don't want it for a specific purpose, then I don't want it installed. You said it yourself that we don't know what would exactly work on it by default, so why bother installing something that I don't know what I can use it for?
GMail is working fine for me, and so far Safari has been meeting my needs in a web browser. I will probably never see or use the coverflow option.
Does Safari do the process/tab thing? I'm only seeing 1 process with 10 tabs open, and I'm at ~235MB of usage.
Doh, I was under the impression it was a normal release.
The problem here is probably GrowlMail. For the moment, you have to choose between it and Safari 4.
I'll take my growlmail.
I also noticed that 1Password wasn't installing on the beta browser.
I guess I'll stick with FF3 for now and check out Safari 4 when it's officially launched.
Alright.