It looks like Apple have been working on their next release of the well known Apple web browser which was released for Windows a couple of years back. Safari 4.0 Beta is their latest release, and I took the courage and downloaded the beta.
The first thing you notice when you download it is that it’s quite a big file – for a web browser anyway. Baring in mind that Google Chrome’s installer is about 3 or 4 MB (including the installer downloads), Safari’s installer size of 25.5 MB is a little bit of a shock. Once it has downloaded and you run the install program, you are presented with the usual terms and optional extra installs (which I proudly unticked – I personally think the Bonjour crap is a waste of time), after which it will spend a couple of minutes installing the program.
Once it’s installed you will find the program immediately fires up, and you are presented with a “Welcome to Safari” video, followed by a very snazzy looking frequently used tabs screen.
Safari
As for generally browsing the web, the experience is relatively good. There are a few bugs, but these can be reported with ease via the bug button at the top right.
The new interface has definitely made an improvement to the general feel of Safari since version 3. I still prefer Chrome – despite what Apple says, Safari is not the fastest web browser. It has to be Chrome – by miles. Don’t you agree?
I recommend you go and try it. I don’t think I’ll keep Safari as it’s just unbeatable to Chrome, but maybe in the future when the final release comes around, maybe I’ll do a full review. Head over to apple.com/safari to try the new beta.