If you remember, Apple had launched a beta version of its Safari internet browser for the Windows platform last year. Safari browser was considered to be one of the best in the world but had previously been available only on the Mac OS platform. What Safari brought to you was a very cool interface and very decent speed. In it’s beta phase, there were some concerns over its stability. It was certainly not up to the mark in web security like Firefox browser.
Recently, Apple launched its stable version pulling out the beta tag of Safari browser version 3.1. You might not see a lot of difference in look and feel but there is neat fine tuning underneath that might persuade you to switch from other browsers.
What can excite you in Safari to try it out?
Now it does have an amazing turn of speed. It downloaded sites like Gmail and CNN a lot faster than Opera, Firefox and Internet Explorer (IE).
It still enthralls you with experience of a fluid-like substance slowly filling the address bar as a site downloads.
The browser also comes with a handy search option that highlights the word you are looking for on a web page while dimming the rest of the page. So if you are searching for a particular phrase, say ‘money meter‘ on a web page, the word ‘money meter’ will get highlighted wherever it appears while the rest of the page will fade out into the background.
There is also the ‘SnapBack’ option, which allows users to return to the page from which they started browsing or to original search results with a single click - no need to keep hitting the ‘back’ button.
The most special feature is the ‘private browsing’ feature which automatically makes data private without your having to hit any extra buttons. This is just useful when your laptop or computer is being used by many in the family.
Other cool features like different search options and tabbed browsing are anyways there. In addition to that, you can convert a tab into a new window by just dragging it down!
Not everything is beautiful around
Even with all these cool features, with all its speed and sleek interface, there is still something which we don’t like to have in our browser. It still requires you to download additional software to be able to use features like chatting within Gmail. It’s page-rendering still goes horribly wrong. You might not see the site logos “favicon” on the tabs - a common feature in other browsers. And even though Apple claims to have patched up numerous security holes in Safari, it’s still cannot give you as secure browsing experience as Firefox. Moreover you would miss those Firefox add-ons you are used to by now.
But for the heck of speedy browsing you can still give Safari browser a try. The browser can be downloaded free of cost.
Remember, it’s a hefty 18.6 MB download, far heavier than the relatively light Opera and Mozilla Firefox.
There is still some relief, it pulls all plug-ins like Flash and Adobe Reader from your existing Firefox browser, so you don’t have to worry about downloading them separately. But it’s just the initial pain worth having, to experience the lightning speed of browsing in Safari.
Also read some interesting posts:
“And even though Apple claims to have patched up numerous security holes in Safari, it’s still cannot give you as secure browsing experience as Firefox.”
Apple had lately noticed this when paypal mentioned something related to that topic