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Software: Trying Safari 3 Public Beta

Created by pabrantes. Last edited by pabrantes, one year and 164 days ago. Viewed 762 times. #4

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Software: Trying Safari 3 Public Beta

safari3 In the last few days the blogosphere has been pretty busy talking about all the news going on WWDC.
Everyone's writing about leopard, which I think it's looking great, Id Software joining with Apple or about the new Safari.
I don't like to do what everyone else does, but I'm testing the new Safari and I want to share a few thoughts.

One of the new things about Safari is that now there's also a windows version. The first exploit for windows Safari took about two hours to be released and within the first 24h wasn't the only one released). If I may say a busy day for who's having fun cracking the browser.

Still with all the hype about security on safari - and being an OS X user - I gave it a try. Here's what I think about it:

The Good

Safari 2 already was way too fast rendering pages, so is Safari 3 Beta
Finally when there are multiple tabs we are prompt when closing the window (yes I know there were plugins for this)
The tab sliding is eye candy - and sometimes, even handy - along with the tab drag & drop to create a new window, actually this last one I find it very useful.
The new search interface with the search term highlight is very pleasant to use.
Javascript is being better supported, I remember having some problems with javascript on events. To be more exact at least the radio button's onChange javascript wouldn't run properly (anyone interested in knowing more about it I can post the exact example)

The Bad

The plugins I had installed on safari 2 aren't running because they haven't been tested on safari 3 hence disabled (maybe I can work around it, I don't know...I just start using it now)
It annoys me when I open an image with the browser and it doesn't scale like firefox does.

These are my first impressions, I might (or might not) write more about it.

m4ktub, one year and 163 days ago.

I haven't tried the new Win version of Safari yet but saying that the page rendering is "way too fast" is a little strange. Can a browser ever be "too fast" when displaying a page? smiley

On other news, one great thing coming from the new Safari, and it's version for windows, is the improvement of WebKit's portability. With Apple learning it's lesson and creating the open-sourced project WebKit, it now has reached a point where the KDE team may be comfortable enough with the project to replace KHTML with WebKit and join efforts (coming full circle was the expression used). Even Trolltech is considering integrating WebKit in Qt Desktop and Qtopia. If that happens I think that WebKit will have it's deserved place of honor beside Gecko and IE.

Here is an interesting interview on the topic: http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/06/12/ars-at-wwdc-interview-with-lars-knoll-creator-of-khtml

pabrantes, one year and 162 days ago.

I haven't tried the new Win version of Safari yet but saying that the page rendering is "way too fast" is a little strange. Can a browser ever be "too fast" when displaying a page?
m4ktub

I'm sorry I didn't express correctly, what I meant when saying "way too fast" was that the rendering of HTML page is faster comparing to, for example, the time firefox takes (well actually I think it's more accurate to say the time that Gecko takes, right?).

Thank you for pointing out about the possibility of KDE Team replacing KHTML with WebKit, that is indeed interesting and I had no idea that such thing was even being thought (since things with KDE team and Apple didn't start very well). We'll see some nice stuff going on if that really happens!

If that happens I think that WebKit will have it's deserved place of honor beside Gecko and IE.
m4ktub

Not that I'm a HTML Render Engine expert, but as a user I think WebKit already kicks Gecko and IE… Also I think it's worst mentioning that from this three WebKit is the only one that passes the ACID2 test.

jff, one year and 136 days ago.

Apple software is evil. Be beware!

pabrantes, one year and 135 days ago.

Every IT company is evil now and then because they have their own agenda and interests and that my friend, most of the time can come in the middle of things that are by us, the end users, seen as evil. Look for example the case of Google in China, in my opinion their motto ~don't be evil~~ was left behind in this issue.

I'm not saying Apple is perfect, no one is, and they even had their share of rudeness in the past - for example remember their position in the beginning regarding webkit development? - but in a general way I think we can say that they are trying to behave.

I now your comment was made in a funny tone, but yet I felt like talking a bit about it! smiley

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