Filed under: Windows, Linux, Apple, Beta, Browsers
Safari 4 exits beta, Apple claims it's the "fastest" browser
by Brad Linder Jun 8th 2009 at 3:00PM
Apple claims Safari 4 runs JavaScript up to 4.5 times faster than Safari 3, 4 times faster than Firefox 3, and 8 times faster than Internet Explorer 8. The company says the browser loads HTML web pages 3 times faster than Firefox 3, although the company admits that performance can vary from system to system. I'm going to venture a guess that it may differ from web page to web page as well.
When OS X Snow Leopard is released later this year, Apple says Safari will be able to run as a 64-bit application, boosting performance by up to 50%.
Safari 4 features a Google Chrome/Opera style new tab page which provides you with thumbnail shortcuts to pages you visit frequently. The browser also features full page zoom, and a smarter URL bar with auto-complete functionality.
Safari 4 is available for Windows XP, Vista, or mac OS X 10.4.11 or newer.
Update: It's worth pointing out that Safari 4 is also the first non-beta browser release to get a perfect score on the Acid3 test.
Update: Nope, sorry, nope...Chromium still beats Safari on V8 (rather soundly, at that)...Dromaeo results in in a few minutes! --Lee
Update: Ok, on Dromaeo the results were much closer. My Chromium Nightly Build won 26 categories while Safari claimed 23. I tried several Chrome Experiments, and they generally run much more smoothly on Chromium. --Lee
[via Engadget]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jon said 3:21PM on 6-08-2009
Will it also work 50% faster with Windows 64x ?
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KeegdnaB said 3:22PM on 6-08-2009
Chrome with coverflow
no thanks
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dave said 3:31PM on 6-08-2009
Has anyone figured out how to get the Beta-style tabs back? I miss them.
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Eric said 3:54PM on 6-08-2009
I wonder where the beta tabs on top feature went? Am I the only one who is seeing the old tab bar? I wish they kept the tabs on top, it saved space....
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Max said 3:56PM on 6-08-2009
They went back to the more traditional tabs, yay. Some people are never happy, though.
I also like the new loading progress and RSS icon. I hope the overall blue-grey look will make it into the final Snow Leopard.
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Christian said 4:03PM on 6-08-2009
I wish Apple kept the tabs bar on the top of the screen. The new tabs take up more space, and make my web pages slightly smaller. Apple should really reconsider this.
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Exsecrabilus said 2:23PM on 6-09-2009
Google probably contacted them on the issue privately and convinced them that it was not a good idea for Safari to have tabs-on-top. Money was also involved.
Of course, they'll never say anything, because they say that Chrome/ium is "open-source" and anyone can use the tabs-on-top feature if they want to. Hmph.
Jason said 5:31PM on 6-08-2009
Try benchmarking with peacekeeper. It tests common javascript functions actually used by popular internet sites, not random tests which basically no-one uses. And Safari seems to in overall on this.
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Lee Mathews said 5:43PM on 6-08-2009
Interesting note: While Safari did outscore Chromium 3 by about 10% on Peacekeeper, the test completed much faster in Chromium.
shaunisadirty said 9:32AM on 6-09-2009
Of course they claim it's the fastest, that's all Apple ever claims. Fastest, funnest, gayest, smallest...I hate their advertising, let's destroy America's English more than it is already.
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richard.gailey said 10:32AM on 6-09-2009
Have they improved the crappy security features? In the last Pwn2Own it fell in a couple of seconds if I remember?
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iosifkefalas said 5:03PM on 6-10-2009
I think tabs on top as in Safari beta was a smart innovation for saving some real estate. Too bad it's gone. And hey, Why there's no blue bar? Why instead of pushing Safari forwards they 're pushing it back?
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