Aqua-Soft Forums[newsimg]http://blogs.computerworld.com/sites/default/themes/cw_blogs/cache/files/u121/Safari-Webkit.jpg[/newsimg]Apple released Safari 3.1 yesterday with an updated rendering engine that makes the fastest Internet browser even faster. On top of that, Apple’s new browser includes some features that give an eye to the future of HTML 5 specification. It also adds some needed compatibility and bug fixes as well as some other new features that really make it a great everyday browser. For the uninitiated, Apple provides a great PDF overview of Safari.
You can get the upgrade/installer from http://www.apple.com/safari/download/ which is about a 16mb download for both Mac and PC or simply update from Software Update. The installation is easy but strangely requires a restart on Macintosh and not on Windows.
The interface and the experience are largely unchanged from Safari 3.0. Under the hood, however, Apple has made some significant changes that it has pulled from the latest builds of the open source Webkit engine. Webkit is the framework version of the engine that's used by Safari.
Apple has added features like HTML 5 offline storage, media support and CSS animations and Web fonts, which you can test here if you are using Safari 3.1:
http://webkit.org/blog/140/html5-media-support/
http://webkit.org/blog/138/css-animation/
Regarding standards, it leads the pack. It scores 75/100 in the latest Acid3 Tests, which is significantly higher than the previous version of Safari and other shipping browsers (Firefox 3 Beta 4 scores 68/100, the most recent WebKit scores 92/100). It also does significantly better than any shipping browser on the (perhaps biased as it is hosted at Webkit.org) Sunspider Javascript speed tests.
While I spend 90% of my time on a Macintosh, I’ve also installed Safari on my Windows XP box to see how it stacks up against Internet Explorer, Opera and Firefox. In short, it works extremely well for everyday browsing. If you appreciate speed and efficiency or if you are using a slow or old machine, definitely give Safari a try. It also performs really well with lots of tabs open. While it does perform much better than the shipping version of Firefox, the speed improvements in Firefox 3 beta4 are neck and neck with Safari 3.1 – though Firefox 3 does consume more resources.
One of the drawbacks of Safari has been the perceived “over-smoothing” or softening of fonts on the PC. While still smooth, Apple’s Safari 3 allows websites to specify fonts outside the seven web-safe font family fonts, which are downloadable on the fly.Unfortunately, Safari doesn’t have all of the add-ons that Firefox enjoys so it can’t be my everyday browser. The Google Toolbar is the one add-on that sticks out but I have about five others that I would rather do without. Furthermore, sites like many corporate Microsoft Exchange’s Web Outlook also use Microsoft’s proprietary DirectX technology – which isn’t included with any other browser except IE. The Web Outlook experience on Safari, while usable, leaves much to be desired. Finally, Opera offers things like direct torrent downloads that aren’t offered in Safari.
Safari’s open source Webkit engine isn’t just used in Safari. It is the basis of the Web browsing engine in iPhone’s Mobile Safari, Symbian’s browser and the Google Android platform. It is also the basis of Adobe’s new AIR platform. With the latest 3.1 release, Safari shows, though its marketshare numbers don’t exactly prove it, that it is a force on the desktop as well.
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