Going after some of MS's browser market share, Safari 3.1

[alfredo]

If you have tried it, let me know what you think.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080324-safari-3-1-on-windows-a-true-competitor-arrives.html


While pundits have been lamenting the fact that Apple's "software update" program on Windows is now pushing Safari 3.1 to users, we thought we'd check out Safari 3.1 to find out if Apple has made any real progress on the Windows version of this browser. After all, it's about the software, right?

We put the Safari 3 beta on Windows through the wringer last summer, and we weren't too terribly impressed. The problems were significant, such that we'd have a hard time recommending the browser to any Windows user. Have things improved? Wow, have they.

Compliance and memory usage: tops
Safari 3.1 is the first non-beta release of Safari for Windows. Along with the Mac version, 3.1 brings support for CSS Web fonts and animations, and improves existing support for SVG and HTML 5. There are also a handful of performance and stability improvements rolled into the release, as well.

Standards compliance is impressive. Safari 3.1 scores a 75 on Acid 3, compared with a 53 on Firefox 2.0.0.12, 40 on Opera, and a paltry 12 on IE7 (I only looked at official releases, not betas; Safari on the Mac also scores a 75). Apart from sites using ActiveX and other browser-specific tech (like WM DRM), I had no trouble using sites in my normal browsing rotation, either. I had no trouble accessing American Express, Gmail, Citbank, Yahoo Mail, Digg, etc.


More at the link

[roguevalley]

1. its nice but it hangs up on me sometimes and closes

I don't know why but I like it.

[alfredo]

3. Is the problem with sites with flash or javascript?

[roguevalley]

7. flash I think

[alfredo]

8. I seem to remember earlier versions of Safari had trouble with

some sites crashing them. CNN was really bad a few years ago. Be sure to send bug reports to Apple. They ask for one every time the app crashes or has to be force quit.

[whistler162]

2. Unimpressed to say the least.....

If I can't get my favorites in anything but a seperate window that I have to open each time I want to go somewhere.

Might be missing something but 0 out of 100.

[alfredo]

4. Favorites=bookmarks? Walk me through it.

Though the Windows version has been around inside Apple for a while, it's fairly new to the wild.

[robcon]

5. Mediocre review of Safari on CNET...

http://www.download.com/8301-2007_4-9898818-12.html?tag=nl.e404

[alfredo]

6. Here's ZDnet's review

http://blogs.zdnet.com/carroll/?p=1816