[Eug]

Originally Posted by Simon 

I'm somewhat surprised to read so much about a 'speed-up'. What is it that Safari 3 is really slow at? In my experience Safari 3 on a modern Mac is very fast (especially once you get rid of all the Flash ads). Is this only about older Macs?

Safari 3 is slow on Windows. The new version feels much, much faster... until it crashes. Take a look at this JavaScript comparison:



I haven't had time to test it on OS X yet, but reports are that it does feel Snappier. And this time it sounds like it's not just placebo:



This would be magnified on older machines. I look forward to testing Safari 4 on my G4 450.

[Dakar V]

It'd be nice if the had included Safari 3 for reference.

[voicebox]

Originally Posted by freudling 

I see some complaints on here, which is common for people to do after using something "new" for only a short period of time. Personally, I would never go back to Safari 3, there is no turning back. This is a major upgrade and a welcome one, I love it. The new tabs, the top sites, cover flow in history/bookmarks, and it is way faster. I got so tired of the old Safari crashing, spinning beachballs, getting bogged down on java/flash heavy pages. No longer an issue now.

I couldn't agree more!

[kylef]

Again: where is the option to retain all tabs? I must be going blind, but I've gone through every setting and found nothing..

[LeeG]

Just loaded on work PC, havent loaded at home on the mac yet.

Fast and very nice.

But am I the ONLY one who noticed that its a huge Google Chrome ripoff? Its like they said - oh hey, google did all this stuff, we should add that that stuff to safari...and then did.

I happened to really like chrome, so I say bring it on....

L

[kylef]

It definitely resembles Chrome, I can't deny that

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by kylef 

Again: where is the option to retain all tabs? I must be going blind, but I've gone through every setting and found nothing..

What does "retain all tabs" mean?

[Andrew Stephens]

hmmm. Exported my FF3 bookmarks and imported them all into Safari 4.

Fired up FF this evening after using Safari all day, all my FF bookmarks are gone. Vanished.

Is safari playing naughty here? Didn't set it as default browser. Restarted Mac. Still gone. Will have to TM them in the morning.

[Gavin]

Some things I've noticed:

If I pop open several tabs I find the multiple progress spinners annoying. Other than that I find the tabs on top actually fit the paradigm better. They are sub-windows so the titles belong in the title bar.

I've noticed that sometimes it takes a double click to switch tabs. I though I was just missing but it keeps happening.

It has much better performance when you have lots of tabs open each with tons of graphics. So if you pop open a link to some ginormous blog page in another tab it doesn't hose everything while the 120 pix load.

It also seems faster at moving back and forth between tabs - especially if you have a lot open.

I'm noticing a higher latency for starting a page load - could be my network ??

I like the new type ahead for urls better, version 3 is way too eager about filling things in for you.

New HTML/CSS stuff is very cool:
http://webkit.org/blog/324/css-animation-2/
http://webkit.org/blog-files/leaves/index.html

Still no fine tune control for cookies - white list, etc.

Web Inspector and other debug tools have more useful info and is easier to use - cool!

The Quicktime component is a step back: audio is on off only - no volume control. Can't save the file. No settings access (little down arrow). And the movie no longer starts and stops with the space bar. What the hell!? on second look it only does this if the movie is opened directly - not for movies embedded in a page. weird

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by kylef 

I must be going blind - where is the "load previous tabs" options when you re-open Safari..

The same place as was before: The History menu.

Except it's always been called "Reopen all Windows from last Session".

[kylef]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

The same place as was before: The History menu.

Except it's always been called "Reopen all Windows from last Session".

Are you telling me there's no automatic way of doing it?

[Dakar V]

Originally Posted by kylef 

Are you telling me there's no automatic way of doing it?

Tabs are contained within the windiws, so it opens everything back up the way it was.

[jpellino]

On a bog-standard 10.5.6 (and just back from Depot) no crashes or issues with Mail.app or other things.

For those who want both versions, option-drag Safari from the Apps folder to the desktop before installing 4. You'll have both.

I didn't "get" chrome - I "get" this. Of course my Chrome test was to DL it to my wife's Windows machine and try it with no coaching or guide - so maybe that's not a fair go.
I didn't think I'd like Tabs On Top but now I do.
Once "Top Sites" has your number it's a welcome addition.
The update from the star is pretty cool, but I know it's just an effect.
Wish you had an option to do a "top sites" treatment to bookmarks bar folders as well as "open in tabs".
Google search bar is missing "clear recent searches" as a menu item. Did I miss something?
Coverflow history is more useful than I thought, though it doesn't seem to be populating the lists of bookmarks with previews in a timely fashion.
Stop/reload seems to need to be clicked on a solid part of the icon - I reported it.
Hey, it's beta.

As for who invented what: features from one open-source WebKit derivative making it into another? That's the way it's supposed to work.

[shifuimam]

I like how they have listed as "features" the fact that they're finally willing to use the native Windows UI and font antialiasing.

That's not a feature...it's a fundamental aspect of good UI design.

[NeXTLoop]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

View->Show Tab Bar in Safari 3. (It's been around since Safari adopted tabs.)

I know about that, and in fact always had it set that way in Safari 3... I just didn't really like it. Took too much room and was ugly.

That's why I was saying that the new tab bar seems like a nice compromise. Takes less room and looks better. But if someone does prefer the old tabs, just enter this in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NO

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Gavin 

New HTML/CSS stuff is very cool:
http://webkit.org/blog/324/css-animation-2/
http://webkit.org/blog-files/leaves/index.html

Nifty. I hope we can eventually just do away with Flash altogether.

[shifuimam]

Oh wait...they're still not using Windows' own rendering engine:



Would it kill them to just make an application that meets the UI design standards for Windows? As someone who mostly uses Windows, I'm not as inclined to use Apple's software when it doesn't look like my other apps, doesn't work with stuff like UltraMon, and looks like crap unless I'm using the Luna visual style.

This is also part of why I don't use Chrome except for browser testing. I rely on UltraMon daily for managing windows across multiple monitors, and it doesn't work with apps that don't use Windows' native rendering (or GTK).

[0157988944]

To be fair, they aren't exactly responsible when it doesn't fit in with a custom theme.

[CharlesS]

Okay, where has the "Mark for SnapBack" option gone?

Don't tell me they've removed that...

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Dakar V 

It'd be nice if the had included Safari 3 for reference.

My Cube vs. My MacBook:

Cube G4 450

Safari 3.2.1 Run 1: 70637.8 ms
Safari 3.2.1 Run 2: 35922.4 ms
Firefox 3.0.6: 25779.6 ms
Safari 4.0 Beta Run 1: 16029.8 ms
Safari 4.0 Beta Run 2: 12592.4 ms

MacBook Core 2 Duo 2.1 GHz

Safari 3.2.1: 3739.6 ms
Firefox 3.0.6: 3440.0 ms
Safari 4.0 Beta: 867.0 ms

[Cold Warrior]

As advertised I'm seeing big improvements in javascript-laden pages. Forum pages here with a lot of board-resized images (which uses js) render much faster.

[sdilley14]

I like it so far but it doesn't seem to like my Hotmail. I can get into my inbox but can't open any emails, navigate to other folders, compose new messages, anything. Soooo I have to rock Firefox to check my Hotmail.

[AKcrab]

Originally Posted by sdilley14 

I like it so far but it doesn't seem to like my Hotmail. I can get into my inbox but can't open any emails, navigate to other folders, compose new messages, anything. Soooo I have to rock Firefox to check my Hotmail.

Dump hotmail like the steamy turd that it is. Get gmail.

[fisherKing]

Originally Posted by sdilley14 

I like it so far but it doesn't seem to like my Hotmail. I can get into my inbox but can't open any emails, navigate to other folders, compose new messages, anything. Soooo I have to rock Firefox to check my Hotmail.

maybe...? try deleting hotmail cookies, starting clean. also reset safari! i have a backup email account at yahoo, and had to do this to get it to play nice with S4...

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by milhouse 

For example, it's still missing crash protection/sessionrestore/preferences, the ability to automatically clear/reset the search bar area, the ability to add search engines to the search bar, the ability to change the way links, bookmarks or searches (etc) open in new tabs/same window/new window, etc.

Glims.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

Well, even though I use WebKit nightlies, I `felt' a difference. Perhaps it was only the UI which got more responsive. Don't know.

Indeed. I came from the latest nightlies + Safari 4 dev preview 2 and I STILL felt a noticeable difference. I think it has to do with how they load the pages (i.e., they only load when there's enough content to be displayed).

In any case Safari 4 beta is the fastest browsing experience I've ever had and being a web developer I've tried them all!

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by wr11 

I'm all for options though - more preferences the better.

This is patently wrong. Less options = better usability.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Gavin 

The Quicktime component is a step back: audio is on off only - no volume control. Can't save the file. No settings access (little down arrow). And the movie no longer starts and stops with the space bar. What the hell!? on second look it only does this if the movie is opened directly - not for movies embedded in a page. weird

Aha! So I wasn't the only one to notice this! Must be a Safari 4 thing after all.

Definitely a regression!

[Art Vandelay]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

Aha! So I wasn't the only one to notice this! Must be a Safari 4 thing after all.

Definitely a regression!

I just tried the mp3 you have in that thread and I still get the same old player.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by Art Vandelay 

I just tried the mp3 you have in that thread and I still get the same old player.

I get the same old player too, but the sound doesn't have a slide - just sound on or mute.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Okay, where has the "Mark for SnapBack" option gone?

Don't tell me they've removed that...

They removed that.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by voodoo 

I get the same old player too, but the sound doesn't have a slide - just sound on or mute.

Ditto! Weirder and weirder!

No sound, no drop down menu to save. What's going on here?

[Art Vandelay]

Actually, you're right. I was going by the weird thing you saw in the referenced thread. It is not the full player that used to be available.

It's possible they're in the middle of implementing the HTML 5 media support which eliminates the need for plugins to handle sound and video files.

[Art Vandelay]

Using the Web Inspector, it does appear that this is being handled by Webkit and not QuickTime. You can see the html code used to create the page.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Art Vandelay 

Actually, you're right. I was going by the weird thing you saw in the referenced thread. It is not the full player that used to be available.

It's possible they're in the middle of implementing the HTML 5 media support which eliminates the need for plugins to handle sound and video files.

Indeed that seems to be the case. It would suck not to be able to save the files or change the volume though.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by kylef 

Are you telling me there's no automatic way of doing it?

http://machangout.com

[- - e r i k - -]

Anyone else find that Facebook photo tagging is broken?

[brassplayersrock²]

the facebook thing is browser wide. I think facebook might have put in a face recog code. i could only get the "name this person" thing to pop up when i directly clicked on a face.


OT:
2nd day on the browser, and I'm still liking it. the top sites thing is becoming really useful. The coverflow of the bookmarks is nifty.

[kylef]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

http://machangout.com

Thanks - can't believe this wasn't implemented natively.

[hyteckit]

Safari 4 is fast. 1password is just updated to work with it.

Too bad some sites don't work well with Safari and require me to fire up Firefox.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by Dakar V 

It'd be nice if the had included Safari 3 for reference.

Right on. Without including Safari 3 those plots are entirely meaningless to me. Also, they don't really answer my original question if Safari 4 is really faster on a current Mac that Safari 3. I have this suspicion that while improvements certainly have been made for JavaScript and the like, regular HTML rendering on a 2.8 GHz C2D won't be any different.

[OreoCookie]

Many pages use a lot of JavaScript and there, I reckon you can measure a difference. But you're right, as long as you don't have any benchmarks comparing the two, all that remains is my personal impression that things got speedier.

Fortunately, I also know the site to check out. 500 kB of Javascript code! (It's our university content management system, don't ask! If you want to see what happens if you feed your browser 8 MB of html + JavaScript (almost no images in those 8 MB), then all you need is try out my university's new content management system )

[msuper69]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

They removed that.

Snapback is still in the help file. Maybe (let's hope) it might make a comeback.

[sdilley14]

Originally Posted by AKcrab 

Dump hotmail like the steamy turd that it is. Get gmail.

Oh I rock the GMail as well for certain things. But I've had my Hotmail account for 8 or 9 years now. Getting rid of it and totally switching over at this point would be about the same as getting a new phone number. PITA.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Simon 

Right on. Without including Safari 3 those plots are entirely meaningless to me. Also, they don't really answer my original question if Safari 4 is really faster on a current Mac that Safari 3. I have this suspicion that while improvements certainly have been made for JavaScript and the like, regular HTML rendering on a 2.8 GHz C2D won't be any different.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

Many pages use a lot of JavaScript and there, I reckon you can measure a difference. But you're right, as long as you don't have any benchmarks comparing the two, all that remains is my personal impression that things got speedier.

http://forums.macnn.com/82/applicati...4/#post3807921

[hyteckit]

This site didn't work with Safari 3.

http://jqueryui.com/themeroller/

Just this it out on Safari 4 and everything looks good. Must have fixed many javascript and CSS issues.

[hyteckit]

Safari 4 beta seems more stable then Safari 3 release.

I keep getting memory leaks and slowdown with Safari 3, which ends up either freezing my mac or quitting.

Hopefully Safari 4 solves the memory leak problem.

[Maflynn]

While I'm sure I'll get used to it, I don't think having the tabs on the top is very intuitive. I also think it breaks the interface guidelines for OSX. It detracts from the simple lines, ease of use.

[- - e r i k - -]

It also makes sense hierarchy-wise.

The Tabs are really just windows, and the representation now is a better way of showing that tabs are really just a way of grouping windows. Changing tabs should reflect a change of content, and this is much better represented now (intuitively you might say).

They are just different from what you are used to.

Could they do with some tweaks? Absolutely!

I also think they are a step in the right direction and much more in line with real life usability than what the previous implementation was (and other similar tab implementations).

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Eug 

http://forums.macnn.com/82/applicati...4/#post3807921

Great, it confirms that I'm not crazy and the speedup isn't just imaginary