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Although I do think, Ajax with javascript/dhtml is pretty cool, it's a bit overkill to think that it will be the "desktop" platform of the future. My beef would be an idea of a secondary application layer (only logical, not literal) over OS and within browser application framework. The shared load between Javascript JIT compilation and native applications to make Ajax application smooth, stable and functional would be hard to implement especially for portable PDAs with underpower processors and limited memory and buffer cache. Not to mention Ajax applications will always have to be confined within browser application, not able to compete with multithreaded and compiled bytecode applications.

Try benchmark Javascript against your machine here;
http://www.24fun.com/downloadcenter/benchjs/benchj s.html

I think, for web "desktop" to be successful and attractive for "users," the web browser platform itself has to change dramatically to give Ajax applications an development edge and ability to compete with native applications. Otherwise similar fate of Java Applets may be ahead for Ajax.

It also passes the International Color Consortium ICC version 4 test again, which also worked on Safari 1.3. Prior to Safari 2.0.2, Safari 2.x only passed ICC version 2 test.

Javascript speed seems a hair faster and gives Opera a good run.

Javascript benchmark

Mac Mini 1.25 GHz w/ 512MB RAM
OS___________Version _______Trial 1_________Trial 2
Mac OSX 10.3.8 Safari v1.2.4___ 85.28 seconds___86.28 seconds
Mac OSX 10.3.9 Safari v1.3____ 10.97 seconds___10.39 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.0 Safari v2.0____ 09.48 seconds___09.30 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Safari v2.0.1___ 09.41 seconds___09.07 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.3 Safari v2.0.2___ 08.41 seconds___08.54 seconds

iMac G5 1.8 GHz w/1GB RAM
OS___________Version _________________Trial 1_________Trial 2
Mac OSX 10.4.3 Opera 8.5__________ 07.45 seconds___07.39 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.3 Safari 2.0.2_________ 08.51 seconds___08.79 seconds

Mac OSX 10.4.2 Opera 8.5__________ 07.31 seconds___07.88 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Safari 2.0.1_________ 09.02 seconds___09.12 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Camino 0.8.4_______ 15.13 seconds___15.33 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Firefox 1.0.7________ 21.04 seconds___20.84 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Internet Explorer 5.2.3 40.87 seconds___36.94 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Mozilla 1.7.12_______ 44.11 seconds___43.54 seconds

Mail.app 2.0.5 fixes the annoying problem with replicating new messages twice or thrice for IMAP email.

Get Info and Finder now shows Architecture the application binary runs on. Guess this will help with the transition to x86 to identify which applications are PowerPC only or Universal. I assume people aren't going to be writing exclusively for Intel X86 Mac OS X applications for a long time.

The bad:

Quartz 2D Extreme is still not part of Tiger. Hopefully it will make it in Leopard.

"Disables Quartz 2D Extreme--Quartz 2D Extreme is not a supported feature in Tiger, and re-enabling it may lead to video redraw issues or kernel panics."

• Explorer 6.0.28 -- 58.43 seconds
• Opera 8.0 -- 15.94 seconds
• Firefox 1.0.4 -- 40.44 seconds
• Deer Park Alpha 1 -- 24.07 seconds

Not really. It might have been at one time, but basically owning the browser scene for so long made it lethargic in comparison to newer browsers. (Or even Links.)

If you're just looking for benchmarks, I'm sure you can find instances where IE is fast(er) than another browser, but it's also likely the other way around.

Unless you really DO mean SoaB terms. Or if you are one of those that believe it is the only web browser.

Gotta disagree with you on this. I used to think the UI on Firefox/OSX sucked, but since 0.8 I think it's pretty good. That was *always* the only thing Safari had going for it over Firefox. Safari's vaunted rendering speed is actually pretty bad. Try out a Javascript speed test or an image rendering speed test to see for yourself. Safari is significantly slower than Firefox. It does seem to handle image layering manipulation better, but that is it. Everything else is much faster in Firefox. Of course I should point out that Opera (especially the 7.6 beta) is much faster than either.

"IME Opera is the least compliant, worst rendering browser. It certainly is fast though, except when you're using JavaScript and hit an Opera bug that makes it grind to a halt."

Opera is very standards compliant, and the JavaScript/DOM support in Opera 7 is fantastic. It's extremely fast, as a matter of fact.

Camino 0.8 is hugely good, and better than earlier versions. But one area that it really shines is in processing of Javascript pages.

I used the BenchJS benchmark from the 24fun.com web site to test Safari , Firefox, and Camino on my 12" Powerbook (837Mhz) Here's what I got:

• Safari (1.2.2) - 171.29 seconds
• Firefox (0.91) - 132.34 seconds
• Camino (0.8) - 29.93 seconds

That's five to six times quicker!

By comparison:

• Firefox 0.91 on my Athlon XP2400 based WinXP Pro system took 41.09 seconds
• MS Explorer 6 on same system took 28.73 seconds

Camino 0.8 is hugely good, and better than earlier versions. But one area that it really shines is in processing of Javascript pages.

I used the BenchJS benchmark from the 24fun.com web site to test Safari , Firefox, and Camino on my 12" Powerbook (837Mhz) Here's what I got:

• Safari (1.2.2) - 171.29 seconds
• Firefox (0.91) - 132.34 seconds
• Camino (0.8) - 29.93 seconds

That's five to six times quicker!

By comparison:

• Firefox 0.91 on my Athlon XP2400 based WinXP Pro system took 41.09 seconds
• MS Explorer 6 on same system took 28.73 seconds