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Oh crap! Could I really switch to Safari? Wait, nope.
While I've been using Firefox for ages, I've been playing with Chromium for quite some time and become used to its speed. I downloaded Safari 4 when the final became available yesterday and was impressed.
Speed isn't the be-all and end-all for a browser, but it's pretty dang important. And yes, Firefox has gotten faster of late, but it's still not quite on par with the Webkit Wonder Twins (no, I couldn't have picked two superheros who sucked more while still having super powers - sorry Zan and Jayna).
Apart from its obvious speed improvements, how about Safari's ability to kill an unresponsive plugin (like Flash) on a page without the whole browser falling to pieces? I'll have that, please.
One other small detail that I was pleased to find was better support for the Windows 7 taskbar. Just like IE8, you'll get a hover thumbnail for every tab and window Safari currently has open. Download progress is indicated on the icons as well. It's not perfect - hovering a particular thumbnail only shows a blank page on all but your active tab, but it's better than all the other non-IE browsers have achieved so far.
Wait a minute. Did that seriously just happen while I was putting this post together?
Hey Safari, where the hell did all my bookmarks go? I
That's a pretty major failure of a very basic browser function.
Session restore? Well, according to the history menu Safari can do that, too. Yet when I select the option to restore from my last session I get my last active tab and two blank tabs. I'm pretty sure those had actual websites in them before - yes, they did. GMail and Reader. Where did they go?
I always want my core web pages to open when I launch my browser. In Safari I need an addon or I have to make a selection from a menu to re-open tabs (and then in a new window)? That's garbage.
And its address bar sucks, too. In Chromium or Firefox I can type 'reader' and up comes all my history for Google Reader. Safari, on the other hand, sits there like a drooling hillbilly waiting for me to give it a bigger clue.
Safari 4 was looking good, but it looks like I just bit the soft part of the Apple.
Comments
26
Subscribe to commentsQuikboyJun 9th 2009 4:40PM
I still find it disappointing you can only have 2 choices for search engines.
I liked the old Safari better. I loved the you could resize the input field, and I like the little UI touches that makes it look less boring in Windows XP.
DafretyJun 9th 2009 7:43PM
Personally I hated that Apple was trying to force their own interface into Windows. It gave me a headache trying to adjust between Apple's font smoothing and Microsoft's, and their own shell didn't cooperate with anything else. I just hope they switch to the correct Windows style for future iTunes versions as well.
RahabibJun 9th 2009 4:56PM
as a part time mac user, I really wanted to like Safari. But from a usability stand point it just doesnt compare to firefox. Its speed is still slower than chrome (on windows) and the windows version has some serious stability issues for me (mac no probs).
After all is said and done, I use firefox and sync my bookmarks on both windows and mac. far better solution than anything apple has put forth at this time.
Christina WarrenJun 10th 2009 10:54AM
XMarks works with Safari for the Mac, when it comes to Windows, I think the bookmark issue will be better for lots of users, er, potential Safari users.
I'm a total Mac fangirl (hey, I'll admit it!) but I'll trust my buddy Lee's assessment for Safari 4 for Windows. In OS X, it must be said, it does totally kick ass. But of course, I'd expect nothing less.
ianJun 10th 2009 12:00PM
Opera. Overlooked and undervalued.
shaunisadirtyJun 12th 2009 9:36AM
"Safari, on the other hand, sits there like a drooling hillbilly waiting for me to give it a bigger clue."
Haha, perfect explanation right there as to why I don't use Safari. Other than its retarded name.