First Look - Safari 4 Beta

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First Look - Safari 4 Beta

Posted 02/24/2009 at 5:23:33pm | by Roberto Baldwin

safari

Apple announced and released the Safari 4 Beta this morning for all the world to download and try out. The latest Safari incarnation promises to be faster and easier to use than Safari 3.

I tried out the new browser this morning in between cans of Red Bull and the recording of our Tuesday Mac|Live Podcast. Here is what I learned:

- It's fast. Not just, "Oh hey, we tweaked some code fast." More like they pulled the old Ford Pinto engine out and replaced it with a super-charged BMW M3 engine with 110 octane fuel sloshing around inside. Without even doing a side-by-side comparison of Safari 3, the Safari 4 Beta screams out of the gate. It's faster than Firefox and Safari 3. Noticeably faster.

- Cover Flow. I'll admit it. I've never been a fan of Cover Flow. I don't use it in iTunes, the Finder or on any iPhones or iPods. Yet, in Safari when surfing through your history, I find actually useful.

- Top Sites. Great that it's dynamic if you want it to be. You can pin down selected sites and remove sites from your Top Sites page. It seems helpful and fun, but a true test will be if I continue to use it after two weeks. The star that appears when one of your Top Sites updates its contents. Nice!

- Tabs on Top. This is disorientating. After years of having tabs on the bottom with Firefox and Safari, they're suddenly on top.

On the whole, the newest Safari is slick and speedy. If you're not concerned about losing Safari 3, and you want to try out the latest browser technology, go ahead, enjoy the beta goodness of Safari 4.

Just remember, it's a beta.

Check out the 150 features in Safari 4.

COMMENTS: 12

TAGS: Safari, beta, Safari 4

COMMENTS

Great!
Submitted by casfian on Tue, 2009-02-24 16:59

One word, Awesome! Move over Chrome!

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Great but with issues
Submitted by tjpasch on Tue, 2009-02-24 17:26

Safari 4 is great but it created other issues today. First it would not open, it turns out that Glims was breaking it on my system. Removing that worked, but then mail kept crashing. The culprit in this case was Growlmail. (must be removed in user/library/mail/bundles as well as library/mail/bundles).
Then Rapidblog (a Rapidweaver plugin) broke, however the developer fixed it very quickly. So far so good since then.

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awesome but help
Submitted by hallr7 on Tue, 2009-02-24 17:43

anyone else having a problem with top sites, i can't add the ones i want, it just keeps rotating the same ones over and over. I want it to be my top sites, not safari's pic.

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Use your own sites
Submitted by evane on Tue, 2009-02-24 20:32

Open up a new window and enter in the address that you want one of the spaces to be. Return to the original window and click edit. You can now drag the little icon to the left of the web address into the space you want. If it is not already, click the pushpin icon so it turns blue so that it stays with that address, and in that spot. Click done when you are finished.

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fancy that
Submitted by hallr7 on Wed, 2009-02-25 12:55

Thanks, tried everything but that before. Hope apple makes that a bit easier.

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Windows?
Submitted by Applefreak72 on Tue, 2009-02-24 18:20

What happens if you have Windows

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Problem with Youtube
Submitted by casfian on Wed, 2009-02-25 08:28

Noticed that movies in youtube won't play but just wait thou the progress bar is moving. I had to move the marker to make the movie play. Some slowness when in https:// websites. Still testing...that's why they call it beta ....guess.

Would like to see a review Chrome vs Safari thou! Maclife what say you?

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I miss snapback
Submitted by ScottB on Wed, 2009-02-25 13:38

Apple took away page snapback in Safari 4. I use it on eBay to go back to the my eBay page after surfing. I miss page snapback!

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What happened to the awesome loader?
Submitted by tbird on Wed, 2009-02-25 15:02

So far, I am liking Safari 4. It is fast, beautiful, and user friendly. However, the thing I found I missed is the way Safari 3, and earlier, shows the progress of loading pages. In the past, the URL bar would have a lovely blue bar that went across as the page loads. Safari 4 just has a spinning gear!
Anyone else miss this?

..::tbird::..

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restoring Safari 3 URL field behaviour
Submitted by DeusExMachina on Tue, 2009-03-03 20:15

tbird:

Type this into terminal:

$ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign -bool NO

$ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle -bool NO

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pinching
Submitted by animasterh on Thu, 2009-02-26 19:33

maybe it just me, but pinching to change text size seems really touchy

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