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Computerworld: Apple’s Safari for Windows well-crafted and fast - very fast
Thursday, June 14, 2007 - 02:52 PM EDT

"Safari on Windows looks pretty much like Safari on the Mac, save for the shape and positioning of the close, minimize and zoom buttons. Other than that, it's nearly identical. The feature sets are the same, as well, from bookmark organization to the built-in RSS reader. Even the text renders the same, though there's debate over whether that's good or bad. And as you'd expect, the menus -- which show up in the menu bar on Macs -- are in their proper Windows location at the top of the Safari browser window," Mike DeAgonia reports for Computerworld.

"I downloaded and installed Safari on both Windows XP and Vista, using Parallels' Desktop for Mac on an Intel-based MacBook and a Mac mini," DeAgonia reports.

"Various reviews have confirmed one consistent fact: Safari is fast. Very fast. Apple says this browser renders HTML twice as fast as Internet Explorer 7 and 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2. I didn't benchmark it, but I can say it is indeed faster than either one. Javascript also shows obvious speed increases," DeAgonia reports.

"Safari represents another move by Apple to get its highly-touted software in front of people who may never have heard of Safari, much less tried out Apple's other apps or hardware. Woo them with a few well-crafted programs such as Safari or iTunes, and -- Jobs no doubt hopes -- you can win them to the OS itself," DeAgonia reports. "And when Apple puts that same well-crafted app -- Safari -- on what may be the hottest must-have device of the year, the iPhone, it reinforces the big-picture message: Apple suddenly seems to be everywhere."

Much more in the full article here.

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Jun 14, 07 - 02:55 pm Comment from: Randy

Too bad I and many others can't use it because of the "no text" problem. I would love to install it at work since I am all Mac at home.

Jun 14, 07 - 02:55 pm Comment from: Wandering joe

Working fine for me. At work on my (cough cough) pc and home on my precioussss Macssses

Jun 14, 07 - 02:58 pm Comment from: ApplePi

More money for Apple through the search properties that are built in. Smart move for Apple. The fact that they can fix bugs over night shows the dedication that M$ doesn't have or care about. Working hard gets you places, Apple and it's people are showing that. Maybe Windows user will get more of a taste with the new Browser...

I've has only so-so luck with it at work, but I try to break things on this shitty PC, so maybe I shouldn't count!!!

Pi

Jun 14, 07 - 03:05 pm Comment from: More

Apple will soon add some cool stuffs that work great with iPhone, that way people a forced to download Safari and probably set it as their default browser later.

Imagine a button on Safari to create widgets for the iPhone. Now that will be HOT! That alone will skyrocket the download rate of Safari.

Jun 14, 07 - 03:08 pm Comment from: Yes

YES A BUTTON ON SAFARI TO CREATE IPHONE WIDGETS WILL BE A KILLER!

Jun 14, 07 - 03:10 pm Comment from: doesn't impress me yet

I put Safari 3.0 on my Macbook and it crashed twice within the first half hour (2 different websites). I was very glad they included the uninstall app to put my v2 back in place.

Jun 14, 07 - 03:12 pm Comment from: macuser

What is the 'no text' problem?

Jun 14, 07 - 03:15 pm Comment from: macuser

I tried posting the prev. comment from Safari 3.0.1 on windows xp.
But, it failed.
I also see that i was not able to copy / Paste the text from a textbox like the comments box at the bottom of this page

Jun 14, 07 - 03:16 pm Comment from: macuser

Button to create iphone widget. That will be hot.
Why am i posting this?

Jun 14, 07 - 03:17 pm Comment from: macuser

A lot of times, i see that MDN is too late in brining the news. I see them in Macrumours or Digg.com/apple before i see them here.

May be MDN needs additional people to publish the story.

Jun 14, 07 - 03:19 pm Comment from: macuser

I wished i had used Safari to type this.. better spell checker.. how do i turn on this in Firefox? is that through google toolbar. I do have it turned. It is probably only doing spellcheck. I need something to check the grammar too..

Jun 14, 07 - 03:22 pm Comment from: macuser

I tested Safari in for the CSS rendering. I had html page with lot of nested tables with CSS styles
Here are the results.

Average time for the page to load

IE 780 ms
Firefox 710 ms
Safari 070ms

Safari was 10 times faster. Amazing.

Jun 14, 07 - 03:25 pm Comment from: macuser

Safari and Long running scripts.

Before Safari 3.0.1, i had some stability issues with Safari. Sometimes it goes 100% CPU load.. Something to do with JavaScripts gone wrong.. I do not remember the site name.. i think it is something like ESPN.com...

But with 3.0.1, i see that Safari is asking me a questions" There is a slow running script on this page!. Do you want to stop it?" This behavior is very similar to Firefox.It is good.

Jun 14, 07 - 03:26 pm Comment from: macuser

I like the activity feature in Safari. I can see what is going on different tabs. different windows. I can see all the download or script activity. I also have an option to stop it. This is really cool.

Jun 14, 07 - 03:26 pm Comment from: ad blocking

i want my adblock, on both Windows and OSX versions.

Jun 14, 07 - 03:27 pm Comment from: macuser

Another great feature that i like in Safari is "Private Browsing".
This is a neat feature. ( Someone dubbed this yesterday as "Safari on P0rn mode).
But this is a very cool and useful feature.

Jun 14, 07 - 03:28 pm Comment from: macuser

I have this 'Bonjour' in my Bookmark windows. Do anyone know what it is...

Jun 14, 07 - 03:28 pm Comment from: Cubert

"Apple suddenly seems to be everywhere."

Yeah, I saw Steve hiding behind aisle 2 in the grocery store last night, and I really believe that guy at the gas station today asking for change was Phil Schiller in disguise.

Jun 14, 07 - 03:32 pm Comment from: frisby

I like it on PC. I have one work pc besides my iMac and Macbook and I keep reaching in the wrong corner for the close button. Same thing happens to me in iTunes.

I use it at home to with no issues, but...I just need to say this....

For 2 years I have been doing web pages in frontpage. Today I ordered DW for my Mac Mini at home and my MacBook. Today chains around my wrists fell off and my loud... fairly new high end pc turned off for one of the last times.

I feel so free, so FREE!!!!

WTF am I supposed to do with this 9 month old PC workhorse?

Jun 14, 07 - 03:38 pm Comment from: Stefano Jobso

@macuser:

"I have this 'Bonjour' in my Bookmark windows. Do anyone know what it is..."

It's a "service discovery protocol" in Wikipedia's words:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonjour_(software)

it's open-source and likely to become something of a standard way of doing certain things:

"Since Apple introduced Bonjour technology in 2002, every major printer manufacturer has adopted the technology so you can add and remove such machines from networks without configuration."

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bonjour/

If you don't want to make any services available on a home network, then you don't need it. You could disable it if you don't need it, but it's not really a security risk. As Wiki says:

"In fact, Bonjour does not provide any extra access to services, even on the same local area network (LAN); it merely announces ("advertises") their existence. For example, a user can browse a list of nearby computers which share files—Bonjour on these computers has told the user that the service is available—but he or she must still provide a password to access any protected files on these machines. Additionally, Bonjour works only in a close range; by default, its messages only reach users of the same subnet."

Jun 14, 07 - 03:39 pm Comment from: kirkgray

And to think it all started because Microsoft ignored Internet Explorer for the Mac as soon as they'ed killed off Netscape.

"What goes around, comes around," huh Billy Boy?

Jun 14, 07 - 03:48 pm Comment from: James

Has anyone suggested that the number of Windows downloads of Safari could be a good representation of people who plan on or are thinking about buying a Mac in the future?

Jun 14, 07 - 03:49 pm Comment from: Bizarro Ballmer

Nothing would make me happier than to watch Safari eat away at IE's market share.
Wonder how Ballmer is handling this?

You know what to do right MDN?


*DUCK*

Jun 14, 07 - 03:57 pm Comment from: macuser

@Stefano Jobso

Thanks for your detailed explanation of Bonjour. This is cool!!

Jun 14, 07 - 03:59 pm Comment from: Cubert

"WTF am I supposed to do with this 9 month old PC workhorse?"

Put her down, frisby. Put her down.

Jun 14, 07 - 04:18 pm Comment from: ken1w

> Nothing would make me happier than to watch Safari eat away at IE's market share.

Unfortunately, I don't think this will happen in the near term. Safari will gain share at the expense of FireFox and the "others" on the pie chart Steve Jobs showed at the WWDC keynote. Why? Because most Windows PC users are "drones" and they will not bother using an alternate browser as long as IE is working OK for them. The ones who are not drones already use FireFox. In the long term, as people access the Internet more-and-more from non-PC devices like the iPhone (and use web-based apps), Safari will gain share from IE (because it will be stuck on PCs only).

Jun 14, 07 - 04:18 pm Comment from: AJK

@ad blocking

I doubt we'll see Apple include ad blocking in Safari because Google and Yahoo won't like it.

Jun 14, 07 - 04:23 pm Comment from: Buster

I cannot download pdf's off of science journal websites (never a problem with 2.0 or any other browser). Safari 3.0 (Mac) just quits. Darn. On the bright side, it does indeed feel snappier.

Jun 14, 07 - 04:29 pm Comment from: LukeinOz

I am sorry,

I am a big Apple fan (even a shareholder) and I haven't found Safari for Windows FAST.

Admittedly I have downloaded the updated version, so maybe in fixingthe bugs they have slowed the product!?

Even loading Google's home page, which is hardly content rich is taking forever.

I'm not saying this to stir the pot, I am simply posting my experience, and so far I'd say on my work Windows PC Safari is dog slow.

Cheers,

Luke

Jun 14, 07 - 04:31 pm Comment from: One guy from Finland

Is there still other browsers than Safari?
I thought that Safari was the last that survived =)
I´ve been "Safari only" user for since 1.0 and very happy with it.
iTunes is also modification from the Safari. It just connects to WebObject based service called iTunes Store.

Jun 14, 07 - 04:38 pm Comment from: war

Luke..

You aren't the only one that has found Safari on Windows painfully slow. While I don't doubt that it has been speedy on some machines; I can say that it has been slow to load even a simple page. Hopefully, it will be better once it is out of beta. Until then it's back to Firefox on my windows machine at work.

Jun 14, 07 - 04:41 pm Comment from: LukeinOz

Well finally this MDN page has loaded in Safari for Windows!

It was taking so long I fired up Explorer, navigated to MDN, made my above post, and then waited for Safari for Windows to load this page, so I could see how much longer it took!!!

I am sorry but in my work Windows PC Safari for windows is stupidly slow!

I even put Explorer side by side to Safari for Windows, and navigated to Apple.com (started SFW first), and I am still waiting for SFW to load the page that Explorer loaded minutes ago!

Now I undertand and acknowledge that reviews have been glwoing about the speed, but has ANYONE reviewed the latest release version with the bug fixes?

This is the version I installed and it is CERTAINLY not faster than Explorer, in fact as noted it is unbearably slow.

ON another note, I do love the look and feel of Safari compared to Explorer, and as always when it comes to simple things like navigating menus etc Apple kciks Microsoft's ass!

But I am afraid that no amount of slick design and usability will make up for pages taking minutes to load!

Oh and here you go! The MDN magic word is not displaying!

I had to right click and open the image in a new window for me to see it! What a f*&king;joke!

MDN MW "might", as in Apple may have released a DOG!

Jun 14, 07 - 04:52 pm Comment from: LukeinOz

@war - thanks, this has not been a great experience as a Windows user.

This is the FIRST time Apple has disapointed me with a user experience, and I am concerned (as a shareholder) that this experience of mine with SFW will be what other FIRST TIME Apple experience Windows users may get and conclude that all the Windows fanboy FUD that they hear that Apple stuff looks good but is slow is TRUE, because as noted above I think Safari looks good, but is God awefully slow to the point if it was my only browser I'd throw my laptop across the room in frustration (maybe that is Apple's plan? wink )

At the moment I have a 700+ KB/sec internet connection, and with SFW I may as well have a 14k modem on a phone line, becuase it can't load a page any faster than that!

Excuse any typos, I am that pissed off about this Apple experience, that has tarnished my view of them putting out polished products!

My 2 cents,

Luke

PS - MDN magic word STILL not displaying in this screen, another right click and open in new window required!

Jun 14, 07 - 05:19 pm Comment from: Woody

LukeInOz says, "I am that pissed off about this Apple experience, that has tarnished my view of them putting out polished products!"

What part of "Public Beta" do you not understand?

I've run in to the "slow page load" problem on my work peecee. Seems it only happens when the page has embedded Flash content, which makes some sites unbearable. I also ran into a problem with javascript nuggets (like ma.gnolia's Roots bookmarklet) in the bookmarks bar not working at all.

I haven't yet gotten the last night's update, but will be soon to see if it addresses my two issues.

Jun 14, 07 - 05:47 pm Comment from: Sss

On my 8 year old PC running XP Pro Safari 3 rendered this page in less than a second. IE7 took about 1 second to get the top banner and 4 seconds to fill in the white part with text. Safari 3 on my PC blows away IE7.

I guess we all have different experiences with our different PCs but for-crying-out-loud, my Compaq thin-clinet PC is 8-friggin' years old. Of, course, I also don't have my PC loaded down with stuff as I only use it to test out web sites I build in IE7 and I'm connecting to it via MS Remote Desktop. As such I've been using IE for years on a daily basis as a part of testing sites in all so I have a lot of experience on how fast the various browesers render sites. IE used to be the top dog... but not any more. Safari 3 screams!

Highly recommended

Jun 14, 07 - 06:25 pm Comment from: Roberto

@ frisby:

Run it until it breaks a leg, then shoot it?

Jun 14, 07 - 06:59 pm Comment from: Georgy Porgy

Has is ever occured to the people who find Safari running slower that you are using a machine that through IE's swiss cheese coding, your computer is infected after about the first 14 minutes you use it after first going on the internet?
Safari 3 absolutely flies here on my Macbook, and especially when loading this site. I can't expect the Windows version to be that much slower.
I suggest you scream "IT" really loud over your cubicle. These guys will never reach Maytag Man status like the single Mac IT guy Mac networks need.

Jun 14, 07 - 07:02 pm Comment from: Newmanstein

Re-read the title...ComputerWorld didn't think theirs was slower.

Jun 14, 07 - 07:08 pm Comment from: LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son

Apple has no choice but to put herculean efforts -- and quickly -- into debugging Safari 3, otherwise the iPhone launch will be a disaster. In this particular instance, Safari 3 only needs to work properly with the appropriate Apple iPhone web site(s).

But in the larger scheme of things Safari on Windows, being such a critical and strategic move, will demand -- and I am sure, get -- a lot of Apple's engineering attention on an ongoing basis.

Jun 14, 07 - 09:26 pm Comment from: Dan The Man

I agree, it is soooooo slow. Must be a config thing. 3.0.1 not much better. Very disappointed but also not committed to working through fixing it.

Jun 14, 07 - 09:48 pm Comment from: hussein

luke please try to post some info on the machine u r using safari on
as some issue with a configuration or an isa server client could slow down or some how crash safari..but its realy not an apple proplem if the isa server is the rason

Jun 14, 07 - 11:09 pm Comment from: zillatron

"WTF am I supposed to do with this 9 month old PC workhorse?"

mine makes a great door stop...!

Z

Jun 14, 07 - 11:17 pm Comment from: Tom

For those curious about Safari on Windows XP, primarily compared with Firefox, I posted a review here:

Apple Safari beta on Windows XP

Jun 14, 07 - 11:32 pm Comment from: ldm

The main thing I preferred about firefox over safari was the search of a page. I had trouble seeing what was highlighted in safari. Now safari is far superior in that regard.

Jun 15, 07 - 12:09 am Comment from: Apple will

Safari will eat away at IE's market share. Why, because Apple will tire Safari to iPod and iPhone. Their target are not just those people who know enough to download firefox.

Just like i said before, imagine being able to create widgets using Safari for your iPod or iPhone. And things like bookmarks and many more will have people installing Safari.

Jun 15, 07 - 12:16 am Comment from: Find out

FIND OUT WHO DAVE HYATT IS, AND YOU WILL KNOW THAT SAFARI WILL BE BETTER THAN ALL OTHER BROWSERS IN THE LONG RUN.

Dave Hyatt mixed with Apple is a killer combination

Jun 15, 07 - 02:30 am Comment from: LukeinOz

@ Woody

I understand this is a public beta, but in the end mate, if the purpose is to 'WOW' (excuse the pun) Windows users then this is not the way to do it - public beta or not. People don't give a rats if you lable something a public beta, the will judge the product as it is - PERIOD!

And as I NOTED in my post, I NEVER used the orignial SFW beta, I only downloaded and used the updated bug fix version, maybe you should use that before you have a dig at what I legitimately experienced.

I am now Windows Fanboy TROLL. I hate having to use this piece of crap Windows machine for work, but I work for a very big multinational pharmaceutical company, and Apple has yet to crack the medium enterprise market in a significant way, let alone Fortune 500 companies, so I am doomed to use Windows crap.

Hence my dissapointment, I will use ANYTHING over Microsoft products if I get the chance, and I really wanted SFW to rock, all it has done is frustrate and dissapoint, public beta or not, if this is what less Apple friendly people experience for the first time, then I can assure you it will turn them off Apple for a lot longer than if they never even tried SFW at all!

@SSS - agreed, as I noted in my post, people have been getting great results with SFW, but this is a discussion board, I should be able to post my experience, and it is JUST AS VALID.

I am amazed at the fanboys that just can't accept that occasionaly Apple doesn't get it right!

@GeorgyPorgy - possibiliyt mate - but why does Firefox work OK then? Fact, IE and Firefox load pages in a reasonable maount of time SFW on my machine does NOT, in fact even on Apple's OWN website it takes so long, I can switch to IE (or Firefox) and navigate in, download a quicktime trailer before SFW has finished loading the Quicktime page!

@hussein - again granted, but irrelevant! If IE and Firefox can work fine under my PC configuration, but SFW sucks, then it is actually SFW and Apple that has a problem! You cannot expect the average Windows user to start playing around with config settings to make SFW works even remotely OK!

As I said I WANT SFW to ROCK.

As an Apple shareholder I want it to work well, and WOW Windows users!

I know what Safari can do (I do own an iMac). But I also know that lets be realistic it isn't the PERFECT browers, we need a hybrid of Safari, Firefox and IE7 for that.

But as I will again state - if this is what other Windows users experience of their FIRST Apple software then Apple has a problem, because quite frankly it sucks! PERIOD.

I am happy for all you windows users that are using SFW with blazing speeds (but have yet to see someone that is using the bug-fix updated version post such results!)

I am overseas at the moment, and when I get home I will download SFW on my parents and brother's PC and see if it is any better (will exclude this PC config). I REALLY hope that that is the issue, but would still be worried that this will not look good for Apple.

People do not want to WORK to get their broswer to work OK, they just want to download it, install it and start browsing!

my 64 cents,

Luke wink

Jun 15, 07 - 02:41 am Comment from: LukeinOz

@ LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son

As always a voice of reason and reasonable qualified support for Apple.

Like you I am invested big (well for me) in Apple stock.

And like you I wont just blindly accept everything they do as right.

SFW is a massive strategic move for Apple, and I agree it will get the attention it needs, but if NO ONE is willing (or allowed by the fanboys) to critisise the product, then Apple wont get anywhere.

As I have said I really want SFW to work for Apple, it has tyhe potential to really change the game in the desktop space, especially as we nkow Google is busting a gut to destroy Microsoft's hold on the desktop by using web based software/services, and SFW give Apple (and their close ally Google) the chance to marginalise Microsoft even more, but making it more likely that the browser used to access those services/software is not even a Microsoft product!

Web apps (and iWork) to push Microsoft Office out of the way

Mac OS X to push them off the OS space

SFW to push IE off the remaining Windows boxes too - cause lets face it the DOD and Microsoft have already established that the BROWSER is actually "the most important part of the OS" at the moment, as largely that is what MOST people will be using most of the time going forward (if not already)

Luke

PS - and yes everyine I have noted all my peeves above to Apple, even used the bug buttin a few times to let them know too! I'm not whinging about this because I WANT to, I'm doing it because I believe that Apple HAS TO get this right!

Jun 15, 07 - 09:37 am Comment from: BoShuda

Where is the damn sidebar for Safari? Until there's a sidebar, I won't be using it as my main browser. I'll stick with Firefox but thanks anyway apple.

Jun 15, 07 - 09:06 pm Comment from: infomercials

"I am amazed at the fanboys that just can't accept that occasionaly Apple doesn't get it right!"


And I'm amazed that anyone thinks they should just get it right from the begining...c'mon give me a break, first the app is BETA, second, its extremely normal for Windows applications to blow chunks in their first iterations, why would Safari be any different?

Apple got a Windows application wrong? Yipppeeeee! Now they are just like any other Windows developer out there.

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