Safari 4 is Here!

It’s here, it’s here! Apple (News - Alert) announced today that the public beta of Safari 4, the “world's fastest and most innovative web browser for Mac and Windows PCs.” Although I use mostly IE for my internet browsing at work while in college I grew accustom to using Safari for certain software applications we were required to learn. (I’m brilliant and I’m a PC and MAC.)

 

Kit Eaton (News - Alert), from Fast Company said his four favorite things about Safari 4 are: speed, top sites, cover flow and history search.

 

"Apple created Safari to bring innovation, speed and open standards back into web browsers, and today it takes another big step forward," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Safari 4 is the fastest and most efficient browser for Mac and Windows, with great integration of HTML 5 and CSS (News - Alert) 3 web standards that enables the next generation of interactive web applications."

 

The Nitro engine in Safari 4 runs JavaScript 4.2 times faster than Safari 3. Innovative new features that make browsing more intuitive and enjoyable include Top Sites, for a stunning visual preview of frequently visited pages; Full History Search, to search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages; Cover Flow, to easily flip through web history or bookmarks; and Tabs on Top, to make tabbed browsing easier and more intuitive.

 

Eaton stated, “Safari 4 is pretty snazzy, and offers a much slicker user experience. The browsers slimmed-down status (at just 32MB for the Mac download) and speediness bodes very well for the upcoming OS X Snow Leopard update.”

 

In a company statement released by Apple, Safari 4 is 30 times faster than IE 7 and more than three times faster than Firefox 3. The tool quickly loads HTML web pages three times faster than IE 7 and almost three times faster than Firefox 3.

 

  Innovative new features in Safari 4 include:

 

 

Of course, Safari 4 is a public beta for both Mac OS(R) X and Windows and is available immediately as a free download.

 

Safari 4 for Mac OS X requires Mac OS X Leopard version 10.5.6 and Security Update 2009-001 or Mac OS X Tiger version 10.4.11, a minimum 256MB of memory, and is designed to run on any Intel (News - Alert)-based Mac or a Mac with a PowerPC G5, G4 or G3 processor and built-in FireWire.

 

Safari 4 for Windows requires Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista, a minimum 256MB of memory and a system with at least a 500 MHz Intel Pentium processor. Full system requirements and more information on Safari 4 can be found on Apple’s website.