How many of you have heard of the Safari web browser? Well, in case you haven’t, let me explain.

Some Background

Back around 2001-2002, Apple was working on a web browser for their then-new Mac OS X operating system (I believe Safari 1 came in the Mac OS X 10.3 Panther release, but don’t quote me on it). Ever since Steve Jobs had returned to the company (Apple) in 1997, the main internet browser on Mac OS (9, and at that time 10) was Internet Explorer 5 for the Mac. Apple, who still rivaled Microsoft, decided it was time to remove the last standard Microsoft application from their OS and create a better web browser. That was when Safari was born.

Over the next few years, Safari would take the open source web render (KHTML, used in the Konquer web browser), rebrand it Webkit, and build a new browser off of it. Back at WWDC (World Wide Developer’s Conference) 2007 (last June) Jobs unveiled Safari 3, which was the first version to ship as both a Mac OS X release and a Windows one. Safari 3, which went final back in October, has been called a ‘failure’ for the Windows platform, and most reviewers said to ‘stick to Firefox, even IE can do better.’. Now its time I give my personal review of Safari 3.1 (released a few days ago to Apple Developer Connection Members).

Some Specs and Thoughts

I have used Safari in the past (the first Beta of 3 back in June for both Windows and Mac OS X, and more recently, the final version of 3 for Windows). Honestly, and this does not effect my review, Safari 3.0 was garbage on Windows. That taken into account, its blazing fast on Mac OS X. Regardless, for the past two years my default browser on all operating systems I’ve used* has been Firefox.

Becuase of this, I have been reluctant to try Safari 3.1 because of its issues on Windows. I tried it on Mac OS X when it was released a few days ago and enjoyed the experience (though not as much as Firefox 3 Beta 2). But I bit the bullet and tried it, and thus, here is my review.

Machine Specs (Purposely):

- Windows XP Service Pack 2
- 256MB RAM
- Intel Pentium III Processor

The Review

As soon as I finished installing, I opened Safari. I wasn’t surprised when the load times where very similar to my previous use of Safari 3 (referred to as v3.0). The one thing I did notice was that my homepage (http://www.maskedmedia.com) loaded faster than it did in Firefox. Impressed? Yes. Not only is this an improvement over v3.0 (I’ll explain why in a minute), it is because the blog has images, scripts, and Javascript which all need to be loaded. Pretty nice surprise. This is because of the new version of Webkit built into this version of Safari, which early reports have running 2 times faster than v3.0. I browsed for around an hour, and man, this was a lot faster than the previous version, though Firefox in the end did have better rendering speeds.

One of the main reasons I like Safari so much is it’s interface. It looks exactly as it does on Mac OS X, which I love. If you haven’t used a Mac, it pretty much looks like iTunes (except not the same scrollbars).

In the End…

Safari 3.1 is a major improvement over the previous versions. It’s speed enhancements, both with rendering web pages and the interface earns a great praise. On the downside, Firefox 3 still feels faster overall. Sometimes Safari’s menus lag, including the bookmarks menu, which is what I use most often. I will continue to use it over the next few days to see if I can get some more power out of it, but I think Safari may have just passed Internet Explorer in my book.

The Ratings

Speed: 3/5 – Safari 3.0 got a 1/5 for speed (which was a gift). This version definetly improved on its predecessors rendering and interface speeds, which got it some bonus points, but still needs some tweaks to get to the point of a very good browser.

Interface: 4/5 – Same rating as the previous version. Nothing has really changed, since it is essentially the same skin since version 1. The only thing from making it a perfect 5 is its slow bookmarks menu and lack of iTunes scroll bars, which really piss me off .

Other Stuff: 2/5 – Yes, Google and Yahoo! searches are standard, but I have yet to find a way to add other searches like Firefox. I have some search engines that I use literally every hour (besides Google) installed in Firefox, including IsoHunt, Wikipedia, GoDaddy, and the Facebook API wiki. If I can’t add these to Safari, it really stops me from using it full time. Other than the searches, I have yet to come across a lot of plugins for Safari, but I hope they come soon.

Overall: 3/5 – Safari has definitely moved forward since 3.0 (which I gave a 1/5 to), but it still has a way to go.

*My Operating Systems

Windows XP (Service Pack 2, Service Pack 3)
Windows Vista (Release Version, Service Pack 1)
Mac OS X Tiger (10.4.11)
Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.1, 10.5.2 Beta)
Ubuntu Linux (7.10)
Ubuntu Studio Linux (7.10)