Safari 4 Beta Preview: A New Compass
On Tuesday, Apple released a public beta of its web browser, Safari’s, latest revision. The new version encompasses over 150 new and innovative features, with things such as CSS effects, Top Sites, and the new Nitro javascript engine toping the list.
The install process of Safari 4 was smooth with the only hiccups being the requirement of the latest security update and the Windows-esque reboot at finish. Upon first opening the app you are greeted with a very Apple looking ‘video’, which according to the Twitterverse, was done almost entirely using CSS and images. Once completed, you are dumped onto the new ‘Top Sites’ feature, it is a very Matrix looking method of looking at the sites you visit most, with screenshots of each individual site. This page is also very configurable, allowing you to remove certain sites, pin others, and change the size of the screenshots.
Tip: To make ‘Top Sites’ your home page, just type ‘topsites://’ into the Home Page field of Preferences.
Using the new Nitro javascript engine, Apple claims Safari is now 6 times faster at executing javascript when compared to Internet Explorer 8 and 4 times faster than Firefox 3.1. In the column of functionality, Safari now has a pretty extensive search assist feature. When typing into the search field you are now presented with 10 suggested searches and 10 of your most recent searches. In my testing, Safari did a superb job of judging exactly what I was going to search for and did it at an impressively high speed. A feature similar to this is also now a part of the address bar. The history page now features Cover Flow, not a huge new feature, but it does come in handy when skimming for a certain page.
This update to Safari is also chock full of user interface tweaks, the first and most recognizable being the new location of tabs. Previously, the tabs for the various sites you currently were surfing was beneath your address bar but not anymore. Now the tabs are located at the very top of the window, in line with the close window buttons. The tabs also pack a feature that was perviously missing, the ability to pull off into a separate window. Simply pull the tab down and away from the other tabs and it will open into it’s own window (present in Safari 3). Personally, I am a big fan of the move as it adds a bit of vertical screen real estate but it comes with one big flaw. In order to reorder your tabs, you have to click on the far right corner or else it moves the entire window. I understand completely why it is like this, but it is a bit annoying.
Little UI tweaks are also visible when looking at drop downs, such as the search suggestions. These now have more rounded corners and just feel a bit cleaner than before. It is also worth noting that in this current beta, the progress bar that once was a part of the address bar has been replaced by a simple spinner.
In conclusion, I think that the Safari 4 beta is most definitely worthy of an install and it has currently overthrown Firefox as my default browser. It’s fast, clean, has that Apple polish that we all have grown to love.
I’d be careful about installing Safari 4 at this early point – it’s an early beta version and will have some glitches. The installation will remove version 3 without your permission. Version 4, I discovered, does not work on certain web sites (banking sites) and so I had to uninstall it and reinstall version 3.
Interesting, I have heard a bunch of people talking about how it isn’t rendering sites correctly but I have not had a single problem, even my bank (USAA) renders correctly.
Dragging tabs off windows was there in Safari 3, too.
Thanks Ben. The post has been corrected.
Yeah, dragging tabs has been around for a while. Glad you found it! It’s a great feature. But what’s different in version 4 is that you can now drag a tab from one window to another. Pretty slick. Haha.
I kind of like the tabs, even though I have to get used to the slight change in clicking behavior (drag only on the corners). Everything else is fine, in terms of tabs, plus, as I said, they added a feature.
What I DON’T like about version 4 is the progress indicator. I think it’s completely stupid to get rid of the progress indicator. If they made all the other changes to the location bar (moved the refresh button, added the fraud protection notifier, showed a whirly progress wheel), that would be fine, BUT they should keep the IN-LINE progress bar. That’s my only real complaint about version 4, so far, besides the fact that it cripples my GrowlMail, for now. LOL.
So Safari 4 is just a few treats that Firefox has been doing for ages? I think I’ll stick to firefox, thanks. Not to mention, all the great extensions for firefox are free. And actually work. And the browser doesn’t feel like it’s clunky and outdated. I wanted to use Safari. I wanted to love Safari. It just made me feel like I had two-by-fours strapped to my arms and legs while trying to write my name.
1Password is not compatible with it yet (not surprisingly), so I am going to wait.
@Douglas: it was compatible since the 25th, through a beta upgrade. Now, there’s an official upgrade. Works flawlessly.
You can drag tabs from window to window in safari 3.
If you (like me) happen to not like the new tabs, you can revert to the old tabs with a simple terminal command:
defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NOTo reverse this command, re-enter it with “YES” at the end instead of “NO”.
I just got around to testing it now on one of my XP boxes. I’m actually using it at this moment. The interface has improved over Safari 3 and this is definitely the fastest browser out there. It actually feels more like Chrome to me than Safari, which, in my book, is a good thing.
Having said that, it’s clear to me that Safari will never end up as my primary or secondary browser. That’s because the same stupid tab issue that made me dislike Safari 3 is still there. I close tabs by using the scroll wheel button. Using that method, i only need to click anywhere on the tab and it closes, and i can close tabs at a rate of up to 4 per second. I stopped hunting down those tiny x’s years ago and I’m not about to start that again. ALL the other browsers, including Safari’s Webkit cousin Chrome, allow me to make use of the scroll wheel button to close tabs, so what’s with Safari?
There isn’t anything that’s really new about this browser…. the features being promoted as new are just new to Safari. Ultimately, there’s no way that these browser features can ever substitute for the rich working environment that FF enables through its add-ons.
I found an article about getting returning Safari 4 beta tabs back to normal, but I can’t remember what I type into the url to get into the code? Help!
Thanks,
Kenny
1 thing I noticed is that Safari 4 beta doesn’t allow me to use Hotmail…clicking on any of the mail icons has no result, so have to use Firefox to access hotmail on the web. I think this was a problem with the beta version os Safari 3, too, but was corrected for final release.