Safari 4 released today, offering 'unparalled speed'
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Jun 8th 2009 12:32PM
posted Jun 8th 2009 12:32PM
Among the torrent of news is the announcement that Safari 4 ships today, boasting "unparalleled speed," especially when compared to IE8 (this is Apple talking, not us). Included in the new browser is a full history search, featuring a cover flow view of the user's browsing history (as well as a full spotlight search). And it looks like they've thought a lot about the browser when building the new OS -- In Snow Leopard, Safari runs as a 64-bit application, "boosting performance by up to 50 percent." Also in SL, Safari plug-ins run as separate processes. When a plug-in crashes, the browser remains intact, meaning you can just reload the page, not the browser itself. Available today (as in, right now) for Leopard, Tiger, and -- of course -- Windows.
Good stuff.
Going to download now...
If safari was any good mac users wouldn't switch to Firefox, hopefully apple who mess up safari 4
Wont*
Actually I love Safari on the Mac. I never use Firefox on OS X. I *do* use Firefox almost exclusively in Windows, though I find the occasional site where I need IE and Firefox doesn't work. Amusingly, in OS X, I never find sites that don't work in Safari.
And no, I've never tried Safari in Windows, and don't plan to.
Practically everyone I know who has a Mac uses Firefox or Opera.
While I have little difficulty finding Apple's claim that Safari is better / faster than IE8, I have my doubts about Firefox or Opera. The Opera 10 beta is ******* brilliant.
**than IE8 credible
I don't use either Safari or IE8. I just love sticking with Firefox!
its funny to read all these apple haters and their weak arguments ...
just sit back and laugh your ass off l
""If safari was any good mac users wouldn't switch to Firefox""
we dont .. firefox is for people who cant stand Internet explorer
Firefox is meh on OS X. Things like not supporting keychain. Locking your keychain will lock all of your saved passwords in safari, but not if you use firefox.
I didn't use safari 3, but I've been using safari 4 beta and I definitely prefer it to firefox. Mostly because they stole a bunch of shit from chrome.
Firefox is for people who want a great internet browser that runs faster than IE, is nearly as compatible, and way more customizable than any browser out there. Safari is more niche right now. I'm not knocking it, I just wouldn't give up Firefox with my add-ons for something that is probably only marginally faster and a bit prettier. I'll take function over form and wait for FF 3.5.
wait, you mean things can crash on a mac?
Welcome to the real world.
all the time
System upgrades aren't flawless either. Upgraded the wife's iMac to Leopard and some service kept nagging about not being able to start when OSX starts. Couldn't find anything about the error online, had to wipe the machine clean and reload. So much for being better than Windows.
Download Safari from Apple
Look, Apple unwittingly advertised Microosft's Bing search during their press conference... oops
actually ms is targeting iPhone with ads for bing and the Woz, at the launch stated 'That was the most astounding software demo I've
ever seen.' I'm not as enthusiastic ... but Apple will make money off the connection. It's just another delivery system to iPhone and iTunes.
What would they have to lose? Apple is getting money from Microsoft for the ads, and Microsoft is getting money from the ads. Apple doesn't compete with Microsoft in search, and Bing is a really good search engine. Everybody wins.
I'm *very* happy to see browser makers touting standards compliance.
I hope you can still use the hack to turn the URL-bar-as-progress-meter back on.. or they made it default again like in Safari 3. A minor thing, but one thing I really love about Safari.
"(this is Apple talking, not us)"
The two are separate? Given this site's obvious bias when it has come to reporting on Win/Mac competition in the past, I find this statement quite amusing.
I can't help feel they took something from Chrome.
Are Chrome plugins run as separate processes? I know each tab in Chrome is its own process so if something fails you don't lose your whole browser session, just that window. It's also possible the plugins are separate too, I just can't remember.
Actually, the Safari 4 beta looked almost identical to Chrome. Now, they seem to be using the traditional tabbed style again...
@UnixSystemsEngineer: Ya, plugins are too. Chrome == awesome.
I wonder how it will work on windows. I have yet to see apple ports work anywhere near the level of efficiency and/or sport a full complement of abilities that the native programs do.
I agree Safari is bit faster than other web browsers. But lack of (i) Undo the last closed tabs (ii) Clear all private data(cookies,cache,history) in single click or combo of keys(just hate manual deletion of everything) (iii) google toolbar (iv) unable to erase google search history option alone(only in safari 4) (v) Navigation through the tabs using cmd+(1,2,3) keys (vi) Restore the last session, if safari quit unexpectedly (vi) Buggy autofill features .................
makes me prefer Firefox always over Safari.
Chrome for the win.
Last I looked, Safari (for Windows) didn't have anything like Adblock Plus for Firefox
http://adblockplus.org/en/installation
and/or Fanboy's Adblock List for Opera
http://www.fanboy.co.nz/adblock/opera/
Though I saw some Mac-based solutions for the ad problem.
Anyone know of an in-browser ad-blocking solution for Safari on Windows? Would like to spend some some more hours with Safari to better see what it offers, but won't do it with ads (and this puts speed arguments in a whole new light!)
You are aware, that you have "UNPARALLED" in the title? That's not a word, now is it?
Dear Apple,
I will NOT use a browser where middle clicking a tab doesn't close it.
I have a flow to my browsing and something so basic that breaks it every 2 minutes is a big down point.
After all, it isn't 2004 anymore.
Other than that, I really think that the all the browsers are
didn't finish my thought.
otherwise all the browsers are so close in speed that your preference is really just based on features and aesthetics.
Looks like they fixed that, props to them
3 button mouse? It isn't 2004 any more.
A mouse without a wheel? It isn't 1997 anymore.
i dont see the download other than the safari 4 public beta on the apple website. anyone have the link?
no comparison to chrome? ya because it's the same underlying code, they're just behind on catching up with it. Apple = Fail yet again.
You do realise that while Chrome and Safari run at near enough the same speed, Safari has tons more features than it.
I'm using it right now, and damn it is nice. very fast and very aesthetically pleasing.
I noticed the speed, Engadget loaded FAST!
i just downloaded safari 4, and compared google maps speed to the latest build of firefox. i found that the differences in speed were nearly un-noticeable. i honestly could hardly tell you which one i thought was faster, they were so close, and i was using google maps in a firefox window that had 5 tabs open, where safari 4 only had google maps open. overall ive never had an issue with safari, but for a windows user especially, its just like that new search engine 'Bing' its the answer to a question no one asked.
Still a memory hog on Windows. I opened up Google, and it consumed 90MB of RAM. I'm going to stick with Chrome, which uses 1/3 of that when browsing Engadget.
they moved the tabs back from the top to under the bookmark bar! and they got a semi-"loading" progress bar back. finallly
This is a downside in my book. The tabs on top were a much more efficient use of space. Anyone know how to change it back?
I just opened Safari 4 and IT CRASHED
I dig the Top List thing but it doesn't really seem faster than my usual Firefox
THEY GOT RID OF THE UGLY TABS ON TOP!!!!!!
(sorry for the caps, i'm just soo exited!!!!)
light blue background = fail
They killed upper tabs! Morons!!!
Somebody still has Betas dmg? I'm going back.
same here i am going back to beta upper tabs was the best thing ever
It looks like they abandoned some of the changes they made... like the upper tabs... but I bet that some enterprising developer will come up with a way to re-enable them,
Personally, I found them very unintuitive.
I like the updated progress bar, but I preferred the old one which could identify how much of the page has been loaded...
I'm impressed, I'm using it right now. What is great for me, I have three media center PC's. I enlarge the fonts so they are readable from a distance of 10-15 feet. Other browsers take up too much useless space for the title bar, tabs etc. This is way more compact. I'm not an apple fan be any means, but this is promising.
How does moving the Stop/Refresh button away from the other navigation buttons make any logical ui sense? The new loading message adds another distracting element while actually giving you less information than the clever URL loading animation. You can't remove or move the favorite button either - move the stop reload button I use hundreds of times a day across the browser, but force me to have the fav button right between fwd/back and the url...
At least they put the tabs back where they were - although they choose to replace the nice round close button with a very WindowsXP-like square.
Hopefully someone will find terminal hacks to put things back, but I already tried the ones for the Beta with no luck.
It really feels like I'm running FireFox with a knockoff Safari theme installed. Yuck.
iMac here and it's so damn slow now...
i liked the tabs on top. why take them away? so sad :(. i'm moving to the developer version of chrome.
ernie, the apple has spoken, tabs are bad, I suggest selling your laptop and going back to a commodore if you want OLD TECHNOLOGY!
@Mitch wtf, stop eating crack.
@ernie Yea, tabs at the top were great, missing them too. I wonder if it's possible to put the back 'on top' (see what I did there) from some .plist.
Now use FireFox for the plugins - but Safari 4 is clearly faster than all other browsers. Sites feel much snappier.
The tabs on top and multi-touch trackpad support were the only things keeping me with Safari. Now they're gone. I'm moving to Firefox 3.5.
I don't have a Mac machine, so I am not sure about the Mac OS version, but the Windows version of Safari 4 looks almost exactly like Chrome. Even the 'Top Sites' screen is just fancier looking 'Most Visited' screen on Chrome ... I like it though, but I still prefer Chrome.
ill stick with chrome
Woop
Seems Safari 4 doesn't like changing home page other than Apple's page, just after changed the home page to google it consumes 99% cpu and freezes when click next tab.
http://www.host-images.com/u/files/12pove5bqa5ov6qlt0pu.jpg
Just upgradet to Safari 4 on my mbp. Within the last hour it has crashed 3 times. What a piece of junk!!!
It actually feels slower if not the same.
Beating Internet Explorer in speed is like being smarter than Paris Hilton.
Doesn't mean anything; nobody cares.
I can't get tabbed browsing to work at all. When I click a link in an e-mail for instance, it opens in a new window. I have everything set up the way they say to. I am running Vista 64.
How do you get to the top list
?