Apple announced the release of the public beta of Safari 4 today claiming that its “Nitro” engine runs JavaScript 4.2 times faster than its previous incarnation. More new features include: Top Sites, a way to stimulate internet overload by viewing your most frequently visited pages all at once; Full History Search, in which the user can search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages; Cover Flow, to flip through web history or bookmarks just like you’re used to in iTunes; and Tabs on Top, which makes managing tabs easier and your browser window that much larger.
“Apple created Safari to bring innovation, speed and open standards back into web browsers, and today it takes another big step forward,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.
Indeed, Apple claims that the new Nitro JavaScript engine executes JavaScript up to 30 times faster than IE 7 and more than three times faster than Firefox 3. Similarly, Safari 4 is said to load HTML web pages three times faster than IE 7 and almost three times faster than Firefox 3.
Safari 4 also includes HTML 5 support for offline technologies so web-based applications can store information locally without an Internet connection, and is the first browser to support advanced CSS Effects that enable highly polished web graphics using reflections, gradients and precision masks.
Safari for Mac, Windows, iPhone and iPod touch are all built on Apple’s WebKit, which the company calls “the world’s fastest and most advanced browser engine”. Apple developed WebKit as an open source project to create the world’s best browser engine and to advance the adoption of modern web standards. Most recently, WebKit led the introduction of HTML 5 and CSS 3 web standards and is known for its fast, modern code-base. The industry’s newest browsers are based on WebKit including Google Chrome, the Google Android browser, the Nokia Series 60 browser and Palm webOS.
New features in Safari 4:
- Top Sites, a display of frequently visited pages in a stunning wall of previews so users can jump to their favorite sites with a single click
- Full History Search, where users search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages to easily return to sites they’ve seen before
- Cover Flow, to make searching web history or bookmarks as fun and easy as paging through album art in iTunes
- Tabs on Top, for better tabbed browsing with easy drag-and-drop tab management tools and an intuitive button for opening new ones
- Smart Address Field, that automatically completes web addresses by displaying an easy-to-read list of suggestions from Top Sites, bookmarks and browsing history
-Smart Search Field, where users fine-tune searches with recommendations from Google Suggest or a list of recent searches
- Full Page Zoom, for a closer look at any website without degrading the quality of the site’s layout and text
- Built-in web developer tools to debug, tweak and optimize a website for peak performance and compatibility
- New Windows-native look in Safari for Windows, that uses standard Windows font rendering and native title bar, borders and toolbars so Safari fits the look and feel of other Windows XP and Windows Vista applications
benet
November 10, 2009 at 7:01pm
Every little chat Salon 1000 ah!replica watchYou are my best's buddy qsq
joeypk07
June 20, 2009 at 12:43pm
Timball, they moved the refresh/reload button to the right side right next to the RSS feed. Or you can always use the key command (command-R)
Timbali
April 13, 2009 at 9:31pm
There's no refresh/reload button. Not even an option for it. What's up with that?
Quayzar
February 24, 2009 at 11:05pm
I really like the new version of Safari but have already had to do two modifications via the terminal. I like the look of the new tabs but the placement of them turned out to not be practical for me so I restored them to their former location. I then had to restore the progress bar which so far is the biggest draw back of Safari 4 as I have to sometimes deal with a slow connection and not knowing how much of a page has loaded really bothers me so I had to restore the old one. The odd thing about the progress bar fault is Apple made a direct reference to what a great idea the blue progress bar is. If that's true then why did they get rid of it? A spinning gear is not an adequate solution.Never the less so far I really enjoy the speed boost and the cool features but I think if they can fix these to faults they really will have a slam dunk but for now at least I can fix things via terminal.
tedscastle
February 24, 2009 at 3:41pm
I have never had so much fun with a browser, and that is just the opening page.
Ben
February 24, 2009 at 2:09pm
Safari 4b seems to work quite well. There are some new, and pretty slick features. The interface doesn't follow Leopard's UI, and I miss the feature when you could drag the tabs out and make them into new separate windows. Time will tell...
njdevilsfan
February 24, 2009 at 4:34pm
you still can drag out the tabs.click the little striped triangle on the right side of the tab and simply move away and release. best browser i have used so far, and with suggestions they get from the beta, will be even better when the final comes out
