Safari 4 Beta Web Browser Released
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
A beta version of Apple’s Safari 4 web browser is now available for public consumption by Macintosh and PC users alike. It boasts 150 features, 30 (yes, I counted) of which are marked as “NEW”.
Among these new features, the most interesting ones are:
Speculative Loading
Safari loads the documents, scripts, and style information required to view a web page ahead of time, so they’re ready when you need them.
I wonder how Safari will “guess” which files to pre-load. Hopefully this is something that can be turned off, for those among us who would like to conserve bandwidth.
CSS Effects
Pioneered by Safari, CSS effects help developers add polish to websites by stylizing images and photos with eye-catching gradients, precise masks, and stunning reflections that require only a few lines of code.
Does anyone recall IE’s ActiveX filters? They pretty much all died with the exception of the alpha filter, and even that was just used to fix its lack of support for PNG transparency.
Acid 3 Compliance
Safari is the first — and only — web browser to pass Acid 3. Acid 3 tests a browser’s ability to fully render pages using the web standards used to build dynamic, next-generation websites, including CSS, JavaScript, XML, and SVG.
I thought Opera 10 was the first browser to pass the Acid3 test? Still, kudos to the Safari team!
HTML 5 Offline Support
Web developers can now create applications that you can use even when you don’t have access to the Internet. Thanks to HTML 5 offline support, designers can build web applications that store themselves on your computer, where you have immediate access to them. Along with the application, web developers can also choose to store the application’s data on your system, so you always have the information you need. Applications and data can be stored in a traditional SQL-like database serving as an application cache or as a “super cookie,” which stores data in the familiar cookie format.
What!?! HTML 5 support even though we are 4664 days away from HTML 5? Woo hoo Safari!
Cover Flow
Using Cover Flow, you can flip through websites as easily as you flip through album art in iTunes. Cover Flow displays your bookmarks and history as large graphical previews, so you can pick out a website instantly.
I just hope IE8 doesn’t try to copy this “feature” by adding a Flip3D mode.
History View
Take a closer look at your browsing history in the History view. Search for previously visited sites, drag web pages to your bookmarks, and clear individual items. Safari displays your history using Cover Flow, so you can flip through your search results as easily as you flip through iTunes album art.
This is definitely useful for quickly locating a page in one’s history.
So what are you waiting for? Download Safari 4 for a test drive now.
