Safari? On Windows? Didn’t see that one coming. While I’m still sticking firmly with my beloved Firefox, I welcome the extra competition for browsers. It now means that Windows users have choices beyond Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer (and their derivatives like Flock, Maxthon, Seamonkey and so on). If you use Safari on OS X already then there are some goodies in store. Safari 3 uses a new build of WebKit, which means you get niceties like:
- Resizable text areas
- Rich text edit on sites like Gmail
- Inline browsing of PDF files
It doesn’t, at least for now, support things like Extended Validation SSL certificates or 256-bit SSL, and still offers the insecure SSL version 2 which has been phased out in Firefox and Internet Explorer. It also insists on calling feeds ‘RSS’ – while it does support Atom, it still uses the blue ‘RSS’ icon when one is available. And, at least on 10.4 Tiger, it still has the brushed metal appearance and not the new look that applications like iTunes have adopted recently. Though the screenshots of Safari 3 on 10.5 Leopard suggest that the Leopard version will have the new look.
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June 11, 2007 at 20:22
I am trying out Safari right now on my work PC. Pretty decent for a beta (it is pretty fast), but they definitely have some bugs to work on.
I don’t know if I will switch from Firefox to it on my Mac, but it is nice to know that Safari has improved a lot (especially in the rendering department).
June 11, 2007 at 20:26
I may have just changed my mind.
Do a CTRL-F in Safari for Windows. Try typing a word that you know is in the page.
AWESOME!
June 11, 2007 at 22:14
Well, Firefox has done that for a long time, and has a handy keyboard shortcut – ‘/’ – for it too. But I do have to admit that Apple’s method of displaying it looks better.
June 11, 2007 at 22:18
The Safari way is much easier to find the text you are looking for.
I know about the Firefox way, I have used it since it was released!
June 11, 2007 at 22:43
Windows version is all brushed metal all the time…
I’m really digging it, it’ll sure help in testing new sites, on the other hand it’s another browser to support, if only it would stay in the 4% bracket
June 12, 2007 at 11:57
It’s about time Apple started using the feed icon the other browsers use. Conformity is the key!
June 14, 2007 at 13:28
Hmm interesting. I can get the browser window to display but no text is displayed in either the URL or on the default Apple homepage. Oh and right clicking (which again displays nothing) seems to freeze it completely. Knackered methinks
June 14, 2007 at 14:09
Fixed it… problem with fonts in windows on some machines apparently. Here’s the fix -
http://grupenet.com/2007/06/12/fix-font-issue-in-safari-for-windows/
Have to say as a non-mac user it’s alright. Quite like the cleartype font. Nothing to get over excited about tho to be fair.
July 5, 2007 at 21:00
Surely isn’t Firefox a derivative of Seamonkey (or Mozilla… or Netscape… w/e)?
July 5, 2007 at 21:16
Well technically yes, but more people know about Firefox than Seamonkey/Mozilla nowadays.