Safari downloads top 500,000

Apple today announced that users have downloaded more than 500,000 copies of its new Safari web browser since the free public beta was posted on Apple’s web site on Tuesday, January 7. “Mac users have gone wild over Safari,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With its speed, innovative new features and ease of use, Safari is the Mac browser our users have been waiting for.” According to Apple, Safari is the fastest browser ever created for the Mac, and one of the most innovative and easiest to use browsers on any platform. Safari’s highly-tuned rendering engine loads pages over three times faster than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer for the Mac and runs Javascript over twice as fast. Safari’s innovative features include Google search capabilities integrated directly into the toolbar; SnapBack, a new way to instantly snap back up to search results or the top level of any website after browsing down one or more levels; a completely new way to name, organize and present bookmarks; and automatic “pop-up” ad blocking. The Safari public beta is available immediately for free download here. Safari, requires Mac OS X version 10.2 and is optimized for Mac OS X v10.2.3. Safari is a 3MB download that occupies only 7.1MB of hard drive space. The final version of Safari will be made available later in 2003.