Apple Safari 4: better, stronger, faster?

In Wednesday's IT Blogwatch, Richi Jennings watches Apple launch the Safari 4 beta, claiming improved speed and standards-compliance. Not to mention paper computers...

Gregg Keizer reports:

Apple Inc. today launched the public beta of Safari 4 and touted the new browser as the fastest on the planet. The beta, which is available for both Mac OS X and Windows, is Apple's entry into the current browser race, which over the last 12 months has had every browser maker touting dramatic performance gains.

According to Apple, the new JavaScript rendering engine used in Safari 4, dubbed "Nitro," is more than four times faster than the one used in Safari 3, and beats rivals such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) and Mozilla's Firefox 3 by factors of 30 and 3, respectively. The company also bragged up Safari 4's faster HTML rendering, claiming that it's three times faster than either IE7 or Firefox.

Jack Schofield sucer une pipe: [That's enough cod-French -Ed.]

Apple has released a beta version of Safari 4 for Mac and Windows, with the most surprising thing being that the Windows version actually looks like a Windows program, and does Windows font rendering.

Like Google's Chrome and Android, the Nokia Series 60 and Palm webOS browsers, Safari is based on the Apple's WebKit open source rendering engine, and v4 is said to be the first browser to pass the Web Standards Project's tough Acid3 test ... Whether it will be enough to tempt away people who love their Firefox extensions remains to be seen.

Seth Weintraub has first impressions:

I've been playing with the new Public Beta of Safari 4 on both Leopard and Windows 7 for the past few hours ... It is a bit slower on Windows overall ... tabs have been moved to the top ... The Windows version actually looks like a Windows app ... The installation went fine for me but there are reports on the Internet that some are having issues ... Coverflow is a neat trick but it takes a lot of CPU power ... It is fast but not blindingly faster than other browsers ...New CSS animations work.  To see what I am talking about click here ... Smart Address Field is largely a catch up to Firefox but great to have ... Google Gears doesn't work yet.
...
Overall I think the upgrade is very nice.  I say this almost for what it doesn't do more than what it does do.

AKAImBatman drools:

CSS 3 Web Fonts ... demos were rather impressive. The web pages had more of a print-layout look to them without the classic trick of relying on images to cover all the content. This has the potential to completely change the look of the web for the better.
...
If it lives up to the hype that Apple is giving it, it will be an amazing piece of software.

We love MrHanky and he loves you:

If it lives up to all the hype Apple is giving it, it will still be lacking Noscript and ABP.

The CSS 3 Web Fonts seem rather neat, though.

But JuanCarlosII asks the unanswerable question:

Given that this alleges to be a beta version ... why do Apple insist on removing any existing Safari 3 install when installing? If we are supposed to evaluate and develop, then surely it would be prudent to allow a stable version to also be installed alongside for mission-critical usage.

Surely it's a TERRIBLE idea for non-stable, evaluation software to disallow the use of an alternative stable version?

And finally...

• A Commodore 64 made from one piece of folded paper, and other diversions
  [hat tip: Matthew Reed]

Previously in IT Blogwatch:

• Microsoft: "Just kidding; keep the money"
• Steve Jobs is "offline"
• HP has "hurd" about a recession
  

Buffer overflow:

• Mary Jo Foley: Ballmer: Office 14 not this year
• Nitesh Dhanjani: Gartner and the Pope
• Kristin Shoemaker: Get Your Head Out of the Clouds -- Plug Computing is Open, Too!
• Joe Hartley: The Business of Higher Education
• Andrew LaVallee: Googling "Unemployment"
• No Jitter: Location Based Services & Privacy

Other Computerworld bloggers:

• Dan Tynan: Microsoft brings you the Internet of things
• SJVN: You do know you can't rely on Gmail, right?
• Seth H. Weintraub: Google Gmail goes offline for over two hours
• Shark Tank: Maybe he just can't imagine working without a net
• Shark Bait: Bad reaction to resignation announcement

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Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 23 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You can follow him on Twitter, pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.