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Safari for Windows Downloaded Over 1 Million Times

ClaraBow writes "Apple reports that it took Apple just two days to reach 1 million downloads of its newest Safari Web browser for Windows. If these downloads manifested into regular Safari users, then we just might have a third major browser on the Windows platform. If Safari can obtain a 10% market share on Windows, then it would further weaken IE's position and give standards-based browsers more leverage with developers."

439 comments

  1. It makes me wonder... by jZnat · · Score: 5, Informative

    These statistics make me wonder if Konqueror 4 will become another large competitor on Windows. Konqueror and Safari both share a very common core (KHTML/WebKit), so the renderring and page handling should be relatively the same. Web designers can get another speedy and a more native web browsers that tests their sites for the same purpose, and general users can get a lightweight, standards-compliant, open source web browser (without the OSS requirements, you can already get this with Opera, of course) that won't try to enforce another platform's "look'n'feel" like Apple's apps all do.

    For the interested, you can grab an alpha copy of KDE 4 (download qt-copy, kdelibs, and kdebase at the very least; you can use either GCC/Cygwin or MS Visual Studio to compile it). On OS X, there are precompiled universal binaries for everything, and Kubuntu and openSUSE users can get packages for it from their respective websites.

    --
    'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
    1. Re:It makes me wonder... by Gothic_Walrus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      These statistics make me wonder if Konqueror 4 [konqueror.org] will become another large competitor on Windows.

      It won't. The only reason Safari took off like this is because Apple is behind it.

      --
      Goo goo g'joob.
    2. Re:It makes me wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      As a developer I'm dropping IE completely because I don't see any reason why I should buy an OS license just to test in IE7 when I already test in Firefox, Konquerer, Lynx, Opera and Safari. I've made enough concessions to IE over the years, now it's time for Microsoft to fix their mess instead of relying on web developers to do it for them.

    3. Re:It makes me wonder... by Pieroxy · · Score: 1

      If you consider that the only version I've downloaded isn't even capable of displaying bold text, I'd say Safari on Windows may one day become the third browser, but we're nowhere close to that right now.

    4. Re:It makes me wonder... by larry+bagina · · Score: 1

      Opera doesn't have a native look and feel on any platform. Firefox doesn't have a native look and feel on OS X.

      --
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      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    5. Re:It makes me wonder... by Allicorn · · Score: 5, Informative

      Took off?

      Just because I downloaded the thing doesn't mean I'm going to switch to using it seriously.

      Maybe I just wanted a giggle!

      --
      OMG!!! Ponies!!!
    6. Re:It makes me wonder... by Andrew+Tanenbaum · · Score: 5, Informative

      You must not be a very good developer. Windows+IE7 is free for testing.

      Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image:
      http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Fa milyId=21EABB90-958F-4B64-B5F1-73D0A413C8EF&displa ylang=en

      You can convert the VPC image to the format of your VM of choice (I use VMWare Player on Linux).

    7. Re:It makes me wonder... by wykthorr · · Score: 0

      It's really not an option to drop IE testing. It's still the browser on windows and it has about 60% of the market. You just can't expect users to change their habits just so that they can view a bunch of sites. They simply won't.

    8. Re:It makes me wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do realise that most people that currently use Konqueror do so because of its neat way that it can be a file manager, web browser and an universal file viewer at the same time. If you'll use it solely as a web browser you'll find it average at best; my guess is that people (as in your average pc users) aren't going to use it unless they discover it's not just a web browser...

    9. Re:It makes me wonder... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Of course it displays bold text. There's bold text on the default page. Perhaps you meant that some non-standards compliant page you looked at displays incorrectly?

    10. Re:It makes me wonder... by badc0ffee · · Score: 1

      Or was this just another /. effect? I fired up my windows virtual machine in VMWare under Linux (of course) after seeing the article on /..org.

      --
      1011 1010 1101 1100 0000 1111 1111 1110 1110
    11. Re:It makes me wonder... by azuretek · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly, I think of that 1 million the majority of them are already firefox users and they just want to test it out, see how good/bad it is.

      I did download it though I'm not using it as my main browser, I don't even use it on my powerbook.

    12. Re:It makes me wonder... by pe1chl · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Indeed. I downloaded it only because it might offer a way to look at our website the way the Maccies do.
      I installed it on a Windows 2000 VM and it was a TOTAL PIECE OF CRAP. Almost nothing worked.
      I think it mentioned "Windows XP" somewhere so I'll try that this week, but I am not optimistic.
      Rendering was crap, text often wasn't displayed at all, proxy didn't work, looks are terrible.

    13. Re:It makes me wonder... by WhatAmIDoingHere · · Score: 1

      Less space than a nomad? No wireless? LAME.

      "I installed it on an OS it says not to install on and it doesn't work! OMGWTFBBQSANDWICHES!"

      Learn things, man. Learn things.

      --
      Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
    14. Re:It makes me wonder... by pe1chl · · Score: 1

      I have not read it will not work on Windows 2000 and the installer never mentioned a compatibility problem.

    15. Re:It makes me wonder... by shmlco · · Score: 2, Interesting

      In the same vein perhaps all of those FireFox download numbers are equally inflated. Try it out, go back to what you know.

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    16. Re:It makes me wonder... by gig · · Score: 1

      No, it is basically a myth that Safari and Konqueror are the same.

      What happened was that the WebKit project did not start from scratch, they used KHTML as the basis for it, because KHTML was philosophically the same: small code, fast, standards-oriented. That was years ago, though. At this time they are different browsers with different code bases, although the two projects share a lot of code and they are continuing to do so.

      This is a great arrangement because Safari is clearly designed to be the browser for everyone, and Konqueror is not. For example, Safari has about 20 preferences and very few of them can even get you into trouble. Another example is that Safari always has QuickTime available, Konqueror, no.

      The big feature for Windows users to enjoy in Safari other than speed is it has actual publishing-based type rendering, e.g. I can do a design in Photoshop and replicate the text design in Safari/CSS 2.1, whereas what Microsoft does with their square fonts is a screen-based hack that has very little life left in it now that we are moving from pixel-based design to resolution-independence.

    17. Re:It makes me wonder... by c_forq · · Score: 1

      At the same time how I started using Firefox was as something to just test out. I played around with it in the .7 days (when it was Firebird, shortly after their name-change from Phoenix). Fast forward a couple ears and it had replaced IE for me. Now I have a Mac, and Safari has begun to be what Firefox previously was for me, and I can picture myself switching to Safari as my main browser in the future.

      --
      Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
    18. Re:It makes me wonder... by Fozzyuw · · Score: 1

      I downloaded it a few times.

      1- work computer
      2- "main" computer
      3- laptop computer

      Cheers,
      Fozzy

      --
      "The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
    19. Re:It makes me wonder... by gig · · Score: 1

      > You must not be a very good developer. Windows+IE7 is free for testing.

      It would have to be, since it renders the Web in an entirely unique way and can't even pass the CSS acid tests.

    20. Re:It makes me wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Of course. Which is why download stats are just used to gauge interest, while browser usage stats are the thing used to calculate marketshare. This is the same for everyone.

    21. Re:It makes me wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope, this didn't answer the question, since that image requires Windows in the first place to extract. Besides that it's time limited, and I don't care to dig through how many other restrictions it has.

    22. Re:It makes me wonder... by 644bd346996 · · Score: 1

      The FF downloads wouldn't have been sustained for so long if there wasn't serious word-of-mouth marketing going on.

    23. Re:It makes me wonder... by shelterpaw · · Score: 2, Funny

      Apparently you didn't read the fine print which states: Upon downloading this browser you may not avoid Steve Jobs reality distortion field and Safari will be the best browser you've every used and the only one you will use on windows.

    24. Re:It makes me wonder... by catbutt · · Score: 1

      When you say "it won't", do you mean, in the next 5 years, the next 20, the next 1000, or are you actually making this prediction forever, till after the sun has burned out and we've moved on to other star systems? I always wonder this when people make such bold predictions and fail to qualify them with even an "any time soon".

      I see no reason why a webkit based browser might not be just as popular as firefox or even IE at some point in the (relatively near) future. With the big bucks of Apple supporting the development if the "hard stuff", that is, rendering and javascript engines --- and then being open source people can do whatever they want with it like Firefox, such as add extensions and the like.

      Why not? The complaints I hear about Safari are all things that are just choices on the part of Apple (such as inability to resize by all edges, or to use different keyboard shortcuts), not technical inadequacies.

    25. Re:It makes me wonder... by lilfields · · Score: 1

      Even if it wasn't free it still would make him not a very "smart" developer; he maybe good, I don't know...but considering IE6 and IE7 still make up the majority of market share, developing websites to work well with them is essential...doing otherwise would be pretty dumb considering you'd be cutting off a huge chunk of the market. Anyhow, I'm sure some of these downloads of Safari are multiple downloads, Mac users running boot camp, web developers who never had a shot at testing designs on Safari, etc. I doubt, at least for now, that it is a serious contender with Firefox and Internet Explorer...but I think it could be a very serious contender if they begin packaging it with iTunes CDs that come with iPods...

    26. Re:It makes me wonder... by garbletext · · Score: 1

      Neither can firefox, until version 3 is released.

    27. Re:It makes me wonder... by lintux · · Score: 1

      Wow, that's pretty cool! Too bad that the image will expire in two months. :-(

    28. Re:It makes me wonder... by Lars+T. · · Score: 1

      I have downloaded Firefox several times, simply because our company firewall blocks the automatic update. Wanna bet I'm not the only one?

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    29. Re:It makes me wonder... by jZnat · · Score: 1

      I know they aren't the same, and I didn't say they were; I said they share a very common core (as in a lot of the code still is the same), and thus still act in nearly the same way in most situations.

      --
      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
    30. Re:It makes me wonder... by Breakfast+Pants · · Score: 2, Informative

      Those numbers *are* inflated, but what aren't are the Firefox usage stats; websites can clearly tell which browser their actual users are running.

      --

      --

      WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
    31. Re:It makes me wonder... by 'The+'.$L3mm1ng · · Score: 1

      I downloaded it twice, the first time because I was excited to be able to test my websites with Safari without spending money on overpriced Apple hardware, and the second time because Heise announced an update, which unfortunately didn't suck much less. Mozilla in its pre-1.0 days displayed websites more reliably than this so-called "beta". Most importantly, it displayed all the text, even if maybe at different places than intendent, even for non-English users.

    32. Re:It makes me wonder... by 'The+'.$L3mm1ng · · Score: 0, Troll

      With the big bucks of Apple [...]

      You misspelled "bugs".

    33. Re:It makes me wonder... by h2g2bob · · Score: 1

      Download statistics tell you squat. The only semi-reliable way (apart from an old fashioned survey, I guess) is browser usage statistics . Fx seems to be about 15%-ish if I remember. W3Schools says 33% but I'm guessing that's inflated quite a bit.

    34. Re:It makes me wonder... by blackcat77 · · Score: 0

      Exactly. I downloaded it, tried it and uninstalled it less than an hour later.

    35. Re:It makes me wonder... by 'The+'.$L3mm1ng · · Score: 1

      According to Heise this happens on non-English versions on Windows (like mine - he's right).

    36. Re:It makes me wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even if it wasn't free it still would make him not a very "smart" developer;

      Obviously the "smart" thing to do is to continue fixing websites for IE, providing no incentive for Microsoft to support web standards or fix bugs? When a page renders correctly in every other web browser except IE, the fix belongs in the browser. It's that simple.

    37. Re:It makes me wonder... by azuretek · · Score: 1

      I too had been playing around with firefox for a while before it became my standard browser. I used to use safari on the mac exclusively but it's lack of extendability is the only reason I don't use it.

      If there were as many good addons as there is for firefox I'd switch back in an instant. Mainly I want firebug, web developer toolbar, and Foxmarks for keeping bookmarks synced between systems.

    38. Re:It makes me wonder... by bob68k · · Score: 1

      I agree...I downloaded it to test it... and frankly it's very boring. Safari has nothing over Firefox. I'm sticking with Firefox.

    39. Re:It makes me wonder... by laffer1 · · Score: 1

      That's a good point. They had to put out a security patch 24 hours into it. Did that count twice? I installed the original and the security patch'd version using software update.

      Also, I'm a multi-platform kind of guy. I have a Mac and PC on my desk. I use Safari as my primary on my Mac, but I can't imagine using it in Windows. It sucks. I had it crash a few times, and I get a lot of disconnects when trying to download sites. Its slower than Firefox and IE (unlike their cute graphs) on my Vista box. Its also slower than safari 2 on my Mac. The Mac is a much slower machine so it shouldn't be quicker.

      I would rather use Firefox, but I don't like a crashing browser. Its great in every other OS. Safari is like Firefox is on Windows. Its substandard and was not tested well enough. It also doesn't have native look and feel.

    40. Re:It makes me wonder... by PainKilleR-CE · · Score: 1

      I downloaded it twice to make sure the download wasn't corrupt. The beta isn't even remotely useable on my laptop (crashes and none of the menus are visible, the address bar text is not visible or enterable, and it won't even render Apple's website correctly).

      --
      -PainKilleR-[CE]
    41. Re:It makes me wonder... by tepples · · Score: 1

      what Microsoft does with their square fonts is a screen-based hack that has very little life left in it now that we are moving from pixel-based design to resolution-independence. Photos are not resolution-independent. Mainstream web browsers still use that ugly-ass "nearest neighbor" rescaling method that was supposed to have died with the original PlayStation. (Firefox 3 fixes that, but it's still alpha. I haven't yet tried Safari.) In fact, they are never going to be resolution-independent because when scaling down by a significant amount, people will complain about pages taking too long to load (a 100px by 100px image is 1/100 the size of a 1000px by 1000px image), and when scaling up, they will look blurry.
    42. Re:It makes me wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "W3Schools says 33% but I'm guessing that's inflated quite a bit."

      Maybe for their web logs that is entirely accurate. Their website even says something to that effect:

      "W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user."

    43. Re:It makes me wonder... by Nataku564 · · Score: 1

      Not always ... I know I sometimes have to mask my useragent as IE in order to make things work in Opera. Id wager some portion of users likely just keep it flipped to IE mode for convenience.

    44. Re:It makes me wonder... by packetbasher · · Score: 1

      It's really not an option to drop IE testing. It's still the browser on windows and it has about 60% of the market. You just can't expect users to change their habits just so that they can view a bunch of sites. They simply won't.
      Really? There seems to be quite a few web sites out there that are IE only. I believe those sites are expecting me to change my habits....
    45. Re:It makes me wonder... by wykthorr · · Score: 0

      Those are poorly designed sites made by idiots. If somebody does a stupid thing it's not like you should do the same just because it's a common thing. The internet is currently a crappy place. Let's not keep it that way.

    46. Re:It makes me wonder... by MickDownUnder · · Score: 1

      What percentage of that 1 million would be developers? Most developers will download it to test their sites compatibility in it as they have most other browsers.

    47. Re:It makes me wonder... by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

      I could be old fashioned but unless I see Safari 3 hitting top of download.com top 10 list and Apple webservers struggling to handle demand, I wouldn't call it a "hit" or anything.

      Forget the Konqueror (which I will use as default when KDE 4 finals), Safari 3 is _not_ popular in Windows standards.

    48. Re:It makes me wonder... by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

      If the final version of KDE4 really turns out to be stable on OS X, Konqueror will be really popular on Mac. If you use a real powerbook (g4 based), you would be impressed by its amazingly low cpu usage even at alpha stage.

      If Xwindows subsystem didn't look alien on OS X, I would be already using Konqueror 3.x but as you know, it is intended for fullscreen Xwindows running KDE. I was really impressed with its settings, configuration and "business feel" of browser.

    49. Re:It makes me wonder... by AK47 · · Score: 1

      Most developers? I would love to live in that world.

    50. Re:It makes me wonder... by MickDownUnder · · Score: 1

      I think most developers at least do smoke tests of their sites within the major browsers, or at least download the browser and save it with the intention of doing tests at some stage. Of course most sites out there do not behave the same across browsers. Most developers I know love having a a collection of installation packages for various browsers. I was just agreeing that most people who download browsers without any itention of actually using it regularly.

    51. Re:It makes me wonder... by we9307_ess · · Score: 1

      I downloaded Safari beta 3 for Windows XP and the text on the browser is all scrambled as if the letters and special characters are all substituted for other letters and characters. This is garbage.

    52. Re:It makes me wonder... by Pieroxy · · Score: 1

      You clearly misread my post. I said that the version I have isn't capable of displaying bold text. I said nothing about yours. Of course, I don't think Apple capable of putting out a browser not capable of that. Mine, on my Windows - legit mind you and up to date - doesn't though.

      As for non-compliant pages, Google doesn't work. That was the first page I tested Safari with... and almost the last one.

    53. Re:It makes me wonder... by NilObject · · Score: 1

      These statistics make me wonder if Konqueror 4 will become another large competitor on Windows.

      For the interested, you can grab an alpha copy of KDE 4 (download qt-copy, kdelibs, and kdebase at the very least; you can use either GCC/Cygwin or MS Visual Studio to compile it).


      Well...
    54. Re:It makes me wonder... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      JPEG2000 and many other image compression standards allow some degree of resolution independence, since you can download the low frequencies first, then the higher ones and just stop when you've got enough that there would be no user-visible increase in quality. There are also some topography-based image compression techniques under development by a few people which allow scaling a lot better than traditional raster formats.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    55. Re:It makes me wonder... by lilfields · · Score: 1

      Ok, so let's not write software for Windows or OSX because they have a miscellaneous bug, reason being if we developed for them that might make them not fix them? That... doesn't sound like a very "smart" thing to me...I don't think you'd be in business for long. I've never had problems getting IE to render correctly, it just takes tweaking at times, but generally it works fine...no real difference than tweaking for any other browser.

    56. Re:It makes me wonder... by tepples · · Score: 1

      JPEG2000 and many other image compression standards allow some degree of resolution independence, since you can download the low frequencies first, then the higher ones and just stop when you've got enough that there would be no user-visible increase in quality. Even classic JPEG system supports such a progressive download in theory. But which user agents support or plan to support downloading only the low frequencies of a progressive JPEG image, closing the connection, and then resuming once the user zooms in? And isn't there a cloud of FUD about JP2 that it might violate some third party's obscure patent?

      There are also some topography-based image compression techniques under development by a few people which allow scaling a lot better than traditional raster formats. When do their U.S. patents expire?
    57. Re:It makes me wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please show me a web site that is IE-only. That practice stopped around 2003.

      Really, show me a site that doesn't work in Firefox, Opera or Safari. Please.

    58. Re:It makes me wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Idiot, the download page states XP & Vista.

      No mention of 2000, ME, 98, or 95.

  2. Dumb speculations by Alphager · · Score: 5, Funny

    "If Safari can obtain a 10% market share on Windows, then it would further weaken IE's position and give standards-based browsers more leverage with developers."

    If my aunt had balls, she would be my uncle.
    1. Re:Dumb speculations by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 1

      If the dog hadn't stopped to have a crap, he would have caught the rabbit.

      --
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    2. Re:Dumb speculations by thoughtlover · · Score: 1

      Here's a few more dumb speculations made about Apple... and not to be the fanboy, but c'mon...

        Apple should sell to Sun Computer because they are irrelevant and no one uses them anymore.

        There's no way that Apple is going to sell music and make a profit.

        No one is going to use iTunes on Windows.

      Need I go on?

      --
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    3. Re:Dumb speculations by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 1

      If the dog hadn't stopped to have a crap, he would have caught the rabbit.

      You crack me up, little buddy.

      --
      This guy's the limit!
    4. Re:Dumb speculations by Columcille · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But Safari as a browser is basically no good. It might work well with standards, but its usability is quite weak. I'd place it far behind both Firefox and IE7. I'm one of the 1 million that downloaded it, but I have little plans of ever actually using it except to possibly check how a page renders under it. Its features are just too lacking.

      --
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    5. Re:Dumb speculations by jaavaaguru · · Score: 1

      I've been using Safari for 2.5 years. I want a web browser to do nothing other than display web pages in a fast, standard-compliant way. I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants that.

    6. Re:Dumb speculations by jacksonj04 · · Score: 1

      I'll tell ya what put me off - I was quite liking the fast speeds and alright, it's not what I'm used to in Firefox but it's clean and easy to use...

      And then I tried to go back a page. By clicking my left-hand thumb button on my mouse. The button which in every other browser takes me straight back...

      Nothing.

      --
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    7. Re:Dumb speculations by gig · · Score: 1, Insightful

      > [Safari's] features are just too lacking.

      The lack of features in Safari is a FEATURE. Same way iPods have only two controls (scroll wheel, hold switch).

      If you don't think so, then for you there is Firefox. It has more features, and you can add further features with extensions.

      It's a beautiful arrangement because I know from experience that you can author Web pages for one or the other and they will work in both. If half the Web used Firefox and half Safari we would have a very healthy Web API to work with.

    8. Re:Dumb speculations by Tickletaint · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Safari also has plenty of hidden settings and tools that you can configure by opening up its property list file. (Or the registry in Windows, I guess?) If you want to go even further, it's not like there's a shortage of extensions. Progressive disclosure at its finest.

      Among Safari's unique tools is the Web Element Inspector, which is to fucking die for. Nothing I've seen for any other browser even comes close.

      --
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    9. Re:Dumb speculations by Bootvis · · Score: 1

      Take a look at the Web-developer extension for firefox.

      --
      Read, refresh, repeat.
    10. Re:Dumb speculations by Ctrl-Alt-Del · · Score: 1

      Also take a look at Firebug, which adds some very good JavaScript debugging and HTTP request/response inspection into the mix (those two are fantastic for AJAX development). Sorry, Firefox is still the browser of choice for web developers; IE and Safari are just used for checking compatability, and it's the Web Developer Toolkit, Firebug, and decent (albeit imperfect) standards support that have made the difference. Safari may win over some IE users, mainly those who suddenly find it bundled into their iTunes download - how's that for leveraging (curse the marketing team who came up with that appalling and unnecessary replacement for the word "using") a monopoly? Ipods don't just sell Macs now, they sell browser market share!

      --
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    11. Re:Dumb speculations by Tickletaint · · Score: 1

      Have you seen Drosera? If not, you should definitely check it out—it beats the pants off Firebug, in my opinion.

      --
      Make Slashdot readable! See journal.
  3. Excellent news :-) by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 2, Informative

    That's almost as many downloads as firefox got in its first 24 hrs.

    A new browser - that will target a different userbase to FF & divide the market up a little more, will make the web a better place for everyone.

    --
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    1. Re:Excellent news :-) by thomas.galvin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A new browser - that will target a different userbase to FF & divide the market up a little more, will make the web a better place for everyone.


      Absolutly, and I think that's the only market that will really go for Safari. I'm a Mac guy, but I use Camino at home and Firefox at work. Safari doesn't have anything great that will make me switch. But, if it's bundled with itunes, I can see a lot of people who use IE because it's the default making the switch.
    2. Re:Excellent news :-) by HairyCanary · · Score: 1

      Except Firefox was not new except in name, it had an established user base that wanted to try it immediately. I agree with your second comment. The more competition on Windows for IE, the better. Perhaps it will convince developers to quit releasing web applications which require ActiveX...

    3. Re:Excellent news :-) by Timesprout · · Score: 0

      Well if you go back a bit they reached this number more than twice as quickly as Firefox did with their Fahrenheit 1 million campaign. Presumable they will also see the same high percentage of users download it, have a quick look and then forget about it as Firefox does.

      --
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    4. Re:Excellent news :-) by _xeno_ · · Score: 3, Informative

      If, of course, people keep using it.

      I've downloaded Safari for Windows (twice, in fact: home and work), and while I'm keeping it around for testing (like I keep Opera around) I have no intention of using it as my primary browser.

      There are a number of reasons for this, but the most basic reason is that Safari doesn't fit in with Windows that well. I'm not talking about the "look," Aqua under Windows is fine, I'm talking about the "feel." The biggest example for me is that the back/forward buttons on my mouse don't work in Safari. They do work in Firefox. Plus Safari doesn't use standard Windows shortcuts (Ctrl-Shift-] for next tab versus Ctrl-Tab, for example).

      Other things like extensions also keep me using Firefox over Safari. I like AdBlock Plus and NoScript, and those just aren't available for Safari.

      --
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    5. Re:Excellent news :-) by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well if you go back a bit they reached this number more than twice as quickly as Firefox did with their Fahrenheit 1 million campaign.

      I think you're thinking of the RC releases. 1 million people downloaded FF 1.0 on the first day of release.

      --
      There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
    6. Re:Excellent news :-) by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Except Firefox was not new except in name, it had an established user base that wanted to try it immediately

      That's why I made the comparison. FF 1.0 went from 0 to a huge userbase very quickly. For Safari to get downloads in the same ballpark is fantastic. Imagine what's going to happen when they bundle it with itunes.

      --
      There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
    7. Re:Excellent news :-) by RalphBNumbers · · Score: 4, Informative

      That's almost as many downloads as firefox got in its first 24 hrs.


      That kind of depends on which release of Firefox you're talking about.

      The first "preview release" of Firefox took about 100 hours to break 1 million downloads.
      Then Firefox 1.0 hit 1 million downloads in about 24 hours.
      And Firefox 1.5 hit 1.5 million downloads in the first 24 hours.
      And Firefox 2 hit a bit over 2 million downloads in the first 24 hours.

      I'd say the first public beta of Safari for Windows is most equivalent to Firefox's first preview release, so in those terms it's doing pretty damn well, especially considering it was just mentioned at WWDC and then immediately posted on Apple's website, whereas Firefox had been publicly developed and hyped for a long time before it's preview release. But then again, it's still well below the rate of download of the most current release of Firefox.

      A new browser - that will target a different userbase to FF & divide the market up a little more, will make the web a better place for everyone.


      Well, everyone except microsoft and mozilla, who could lose market share and search revenue...

      I really hope that Apple does carve itself a good chunk of windows browser market share, because that would provide a lot of support for a more standards based and platform/browser independent web. But I'm not sure Apple is really betting anything on their ability to do so; if they just make it easier for more web developers to target and test for Webkit/Safari/iPhone/etc, I think they'll consider Safari for windows a success and take any market share gains as a nice bonus.
      --
      "The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
    8. Re:Excellent news :-) by profplump · · Score: 1

      Actually there are several AdBlock-like extensions available for Safari. I don't know that the extension structue is availabe on Windows, or that the extensions would work there anyway, but it's possible. I personally use Saft, there are also alternatives that don't cost $12. I haven't found anything that works like NoScript (or the extension I really want -- FoxyProxy) but ad-blocking at least is available.

    9. Re:Excellent news :-) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right, because Safari doesn't have an established user base...

    10. Re:Excellent news :-) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are equivalent plugins for Safari on Mac. They will surely follow on Windows if it catches on.

    11. Re:Excellent news :-) by AnonymousCactus · · Score: 1

      What about another browser that will target a similar userbase as FF and divide up its market share?
      Just saying, there's a large group of people that won't use anything other than IE. Then there's people who will. A lot of those people are using FF now and seem more likely to switch to Safari. I mean, the true Mac fans have Macs, right?

    12. Re:Excellent news :-) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are a number of reasons for this, but the most basic reason is that Safari doesn't fit in with Windows that well.

      It's stable? It actually works? It renders faster? It's designed by people who know how to design user interfaces, not people who just stick as many damn features into a window as possible?

      Saying it doesn't fit in well with Windows is about the highest praise anyone can give it. That's a good thing.

      Plus Safari doesn't use standard Windows shortcuts (Ctrl-Shift-] for next tab versus Ctrl-Tab, for example).

      Oh, my, God. You might be forced to learn something new! How terrible.

      Other things like extensions also keep me using Firefox over Safari.

      As has already been pointed out, there are extensions available for Safari. They may not have been ported to Safari for Windows quite yet, but that may be because the Windows port has been out for less than a week.

      Proudly posted using Safari for Windows. (Although I'd be even more happy if it were posted using just Safari, but when you're forced to use Windows, you make do.)

    13. Re:Excellent news :-) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's why I made the comparison. FF 1.0 went from 0 to a huge userbase very quickly.

      Except you're still missing the point. There were tons of users of Phoenix, Firebird, and Firefox long before a 1.0 release came around (I know I used it for over a year before the "official" release). So to say that it went from 0 to a huge userbase quickly implies that nobody touched it before the 1.0 release, which is just wrong.

    14. Re:Excellent news :-) by onedotzero · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Although your points are valid for users switching browsers, I agree with the original point. It doesn't fit in with the Windows environment - at least, not yet:
      • It uses its own font-smoothing, so text in Safari under Windows looks different to every other application.
      • It doesn't seem to have access to Windows fonts for some reason.
      • If you have your taskbar set to auto-hide, you cannot access it whilst using Safari in full-screen mode
      These are just a couple of points from my brief testing at work yesterday. I just thought Apple would have taken a leaf out of their own design guidelines when building an application for other OSs. I can understand Aqua, but the other points are a little strange.
    15. Re:Excellent news :-) by urbanRealist · · Score: 1

      I downloaded Safari for Windows and have no intention of using it either. I can't use Safari on my Mac because of little issues like lack of support for the Note Pad on my personalized Google home page, and I was curious if this would work on their Windows version. Instead, Safari for Windows crashed on my Google home page. I un-installed it.

      Between home and work, I have four computers: two Linux, one Mac and one Windows. I use Firefox on all of them, and Apple won't change that until they work with Google to achieve some compatibility.

      --
      I've seen a lot of things, but I've never been a witness.
    16. Re:Excellent news :-) by nlogax · · Score: 1

      Then Firefox 1.0 hit 1 million downloads in about 24 hours. And Firefox 1.5 hit 1.5 million downloads in the first 24 hours. And Firefox 2 hit a bit over 2 million downloads in the first 24 hours.

      Can't wait for version one hundred.

    17. Re:Excellent news :-) by UbuntuDupe · · Score: 1

      I think the main, *driving* force keeping me from using Safari on Windows is the fact that Safari always crashes on startup. But I'm just picky like that.

    18. Re:Excellent news :-) by Poromenos1 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Based on your data, they should just release Firefox 6000, then the browser wars would be over.

      --
      Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
    19. Re:Excellent news :-) by Torsoboy · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I hope to goodness they don't bundle it with iTunes... The Quicktime/iTunes bundle is already bad enough. It's deceptive to force users to download and install iTunes if they want Quicktime (there is an alternative without it, but not to the "mainstream" user you discuss). However, since playing media is related, I don't mind so much...

      But if they ever put a browser with Quicktimes/iTunes, my disdain for Apple software would turn to hatred.

    20. Re:Excellent news :-) by notamisfit · · Score: 1

      Don't forget Mozilla Suite/Netscape holdouts...

      --
      Jesus is coming -- look busy!
    21. Re:Excellent news :-) by gig · · Score: 2, Interesting

      > I've downloaded Safari for Windows
      > I have no intention of using it as my primary browser.
      > Firefox.

      The thing is, Apple doesn't really want you to use Safari. Neither does Google. They are really happy with you as you are because you are already using a standards-based browser. You are a good Web citizen. You are easy to author for, easy to serve in the future.

      However there are many people using Explorer because it came with their PC and they don't know any better. Getting those people to just try either Safari or Firefox is important because it costs so much money to develop for Explorer because of its extremely low quality. We are all doing the least common denominator stuff in the same way that ISO 9600 CD's have 8.3 file names so that they can be compatible with "everything".

      > Other things like extensions also keep me using Firefox over Safari.

      Absolutely. The lack of extensions in Safari is a feature. If you like extensions, use Firefox.

      As long as you don't use Explorer that is bad for everyone.

    22. Re:Excellent news :-) by jone1941 · · Score: 1

      You do realize the iTunes already comes bundled with 99% of safari already, right? What do you think the iTunes music store is running on....webkit. I can't believe people didn't realize this already, apple has had at least some limited version of webkit running on Windows for a very long time. Adding the full safari GUI components is very likely a drop in the bucket compared to the entire iTunes download, so why wouldn't they do it.

      --
      Fear trumps hope and ignorance trumps both
    23. Re:Excellent news :-) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not fair to compare this to the Fx 1.0 release, since this is only a beta anyways.

    24. Re:Excellent news :-) by The+One+and+Only · · Score: 1

      Safari supports the use of CSS for ad blocking, here is the stylesheet that I use.

      --
      In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
    25. Re:Excellent news :-) by larry+bagina · · Score: 2, Interesting

      http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww .google.com - 51 errors on their minimal home page. What were you saying about standards?

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    26. Re:Excellent news :-) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just a quick note of agreement with you. My main OSes are OSX, Linux w/KDE, and WinXP. I'm a Firefox guy. I really like Safari and Konqueror, I want to use them, I want to love them, but I can't. NoScript and Adblock and those other extensions are MUST-HAVEs for me. Given the option I would rather have the extensions and run a browser that is more clunky, and less integrated with a few minor annoyances/issues than not run those extensions.

      I see people saying "Oh yeah but with PimpMySafari etc., you can get equivalent extensions for Safari." I've tried them out, no you really can't. Many of those extensions are not free either. And what's there when I experimented were not as thorough.

      What I would love is to see, is these extensions available on Safari and Konqueror. Either direct support for it or a way to port them that is easy enough that someone would do it, and then it would work flawlessly (hee hee hee)... But Firefox works good enough for me. I'm looking forward to KDE4 hopefully it is amazing and I saw someone say there are some OSX native binaries out there for KDE on OSX so I may have to go dig those up and see if I can get that running...

    27. Re:Excellent news :-) by cecil_turtle · · Score: 1

      It's stable? It actually works?
      No, it's actually not stable at all, and doesn't work for many things. Every review I've read of it mentions Safari crashing, and it has crashed on me a few times. It can't maximize on a secondary monitor without crashing. It can't authenticate to Windows networks. Security holes were found in less than 2 hours. It can't use proxies.

      It's designed by people who know how to design user interfaces
      Yeah, that's why it can only resize from one corner, much more convenient. And why clicking on the task bar doesn't minimize / maximize. And also why the UI is a flat, ugly gray with an eye piercing blue scroll bar that doesn't match anything else in Safari or on Windows, neither of which can be changed. Or why you can't double-click or middle-click the tab bar to open a new tab with the mouse. Or why the bookmarks interface takes over your current web page. Yeah, a bunch of UI experts over there.

      Oh, my, God. You might be forced to learn something new!
      This is just a petty mac fanboi response. Most browsers use ctrl+tab to cycle through tabs, ctrl+enter to append www. and .com to a URL in the address bar, alt+enter to open a typed address in a new window, ctrl+t to open a new tab, etc. Some browsers have minor variations of these, but Safari isn't even close, nor do their keyboard shortcuts even make sense. They clearly didn't design it with keyboard usage in mind.

      They may not have been ported to Safari for Windows quite yet,
      Yeah, like he said, there is no ad-blocking capabilities on Safari for Windows.
    28. Re:Excellent news :-) by zxsqkty · · Score: 1

      Apple doesn't really want you to use Safari. Neither does Google. They are really happy with you as you are because you are already using a standards-based browser.

      Neither Apple nor Google could give a shit over what browser you turn up at their door wearing. Web standards are not a big deal to them - witness their web sites' code validation results. Neither of them validate to even Wilbur levels.

      As long as you don't use Explorer that is bad for everyone.

      How is that bad for everyone? Just above, you listed 2 major companies that are willing to serve you dressed in your best IE suit. If I use IE, that's my choice. There are many reasons for a user to choose IE over the competition:

      * it was already installed
      * I know this interface already
      * it works on the sites I visit
      * it integrates with Explorer and our intranet apps
      * I'm not allowed to install stuff on my work machine
      * ???
      * Profit!

      In any of the above cases, IE could be the right choice for me.

      Now, if IE was sending out malformed requests and crashing the servers it connected to, you may have had a point. But as long as the internets work for me and my surfing doesn't impede your surfing in any way, what's the problem?

      </devils advocate>

      Oblig. Disclaimer: I'm a web developer with a MacBook Pro and a ThinkPad running Ubuntu Feisty (with ies4linux and IE7), and see about 40% of my time spent getting standards compliant sites to work with IE.

      If IE followed w3c standards to the same extent as Firefox or Safari, the bulk of my time would be occupied finding more clients to fill the 40% extra time I gained.

      Currently, I'm paid for that x-platform test/devel thang - I strongly doubt I'd get paid for fishing for more clients.
      --
      Caution: May contain nuts.
    29. Re:Excellent news :-) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, that's why it can only resize from one corner, much more convenient.

      It actually is much more convenient, at least to me. Perhaps you are not used to being able to grab any edge of any window to drag and move it around the screen, but in my opinion it's a much better interface decision than having the annoyance of your cursor changing to arrows every time you're near an edge of a window. I much prefer this behaviour.

      Most browsers don't require you to type ctrl+enter to append www. and .com. Just type the domain name and hit enter. Safari follows this convention.

      Ctrl+t does open a new tab. Did you even try the keyboard shortcuts before claiming they don't work?

      As fot the other shortcuts, wait, are you telling me there's no application for Windows that lets you set any keyboard shortcut to perform any action, in any application? That's really too bad. Microsoft should build something like that into Vista SP1. It's been in OS X for 2 or 3 major releases now.

      Thanks to OS X's Keyboard Shortcuts preference pane, on my machine Safari has the same keyboard shortcuts as Firefox, Opera, OmniWeb, Camino, and Flock for performing all of the things you mentioned.

      Use a custom CSS file for your ad-blocking needs. This one works well enough, I'm sure it works on Safari for Windows as well. Simply go to the preferences and 'Select Style Sheet..." and you should be ad-free.

      But of course, with your attitude, nothing Apple does will ever be 'good enough' for you.
    30. Re:Excellent news :-) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It uses its own font-smoothing, so text in Safari under Windows looks different to every other application.

      Yeah, doesn't it look great?! I wish the rest of Windows rendered text this nicely. So much easier to read, and it looks the way it will when printed.

      Joel Spolsky has a nice piece comparing the sub-pixel text anti-aliasing from Mac OS X and Windows.

        Personal taste regarding this is highly subjective, but I think Spolsky is right that Safari might face an uphill battle on Windows not because Mac OS X's font rendering is worse, but simply because it's noticably different than all other text rendering on Windows. (Including that of iTunes, which uses Windows's standard text rendering.) Even Mac users who don't particularly care for Mac OS X's sub-pixel anti-aliasing simply get used to it after a while, because all text on Mac OS X is rendered that way.

      I also think that long-term, Apple's algorithm is going to work better on higher-resolution displays (including the iPhone's 160 pixels-per-inch screen). With higher resolutions, forcing strokes onto even pixel boundaries matters less.

      I can understand Aqua, but the other points are a little strange.

      Where does Aqua come into play in this discussion? It doesn't exist on Windows, and isn't part of SafariWin.
    31. Re:Excellent news :-) by cecil_turtle · · Score: 1

      Perhaps you are not used to being able to grab any edge of any window to drag and move it around the screen, but in my opinion it's a much better interface decision than having the annoyance of your cursor changing to arrows every time you're near an edge of a window.

      No, I'm not used to it nor does Safari for Windows provide such functionality that you describe. You can only grab the window by the top title bar and menu area. I actually prefer most Linux distros' approach of using a modifier (e.g., Alt) to grab ANYWHERE on a window to move it. Besides, if one has chosen an OS based on the characteristics of that particular OS (in this case, resizable windows from any border), then why would Apple develop a program that specifically goes against such conventions? I thought they were "UI experts"? Sorry if parent Anonymous Coward isn't the same AC as its grandparent (quoted), but I have no way of knowing.

      Most browsers don't require you to type ctrl+enter to append www. and .com. Just type the domain name and hit enter.

      Incorrect in two ways: 1) Browsers will first look for a host (i.e., on your network) named what you typed first, so it's a few second delay before they do anything else. 2) IE actually performs a search for what you type if the host isn't found, it doesn't append the www. and the .com. Ctrl+enter is a standard way to explicitly go to the site you want. Firefox even allows you to append .net and .org with different modifiers.

      Ctrl+t does open a new tab. Did you even try the keyboard shortcuts before claiming they don't work?

      My bad, there were so many ones that didn't work I must have gotten mixed up.

      are you telling me there's no application for Windows that lets you set any keyboard shortcut to perform any action, in any application?

      No, actually there are many freeware programs that do that.

      Use a custom CSS file for your ad-blocking needs. This one works well enough, I'm sure it works on Safari for Windows as well.

      Thanks for the tip, it does work, sort of. Not that I can really give Safari any credit for it though.

      But of course, with your attitude, nothing Apple does will ever be 'good enough' for you.

      Well that has been the case so far. My "attitude" is pretty open for trying new things and adapting, right now I'm in a dual-boot Linux / Vista system running in an XP VM trying out this new Safari browser and Fx 3 alpha 6. For a company so bent on removing choice from users claiming that their way "just works", Safari has been pretty disappointing. I haven't seen anywhere on the web (blogs, reviews, forum comments, etc) where Safari for Windows has been at all well received, just a bunch of Mac fanbois trying to defend the Mac way in a place where it doesn't belong. I hope Safari for Windows does solve some of these problems, it is needed as a development tool and I'm all for anything to help take market share away from IE and promote web standards, but it's not really a usable product as it stands now.

      I will give you two things that I think are slick in Safari though - resizable text areas, and the highlighting to draw your attention the active form input and text search.
  4. Apple downloads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Apple reports that it took Apple just two days to reach 1 million downloads of its newest Safari Web browser for Windows."

    Wow, they must have a fast LAN to download that many copies to themselves. Have any end-users downloaded it yet?

  5. Also by Quaoar · · Score: 5, Funny

    Congratulations to Slashdot and its 1 millionth Safari 3.0 story!

    --
    I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
    1. Re:Also by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 1
      I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!

      And fembots!

      Oops. Same thing.

      --
      "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  6. Competition by desenz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I might be way off, but it seems more likely to me that Safari will be grabbing its marketshare from firefox, not IE.

    1. Re:Competition by kanweg · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, in the sense that PC users who are adventurous enough to try Firefox might also give Safari a try and perhaps stick with it, yes. But Apple has something Firefox doesn't: iTunes. Apple can reach millions of PC users who may never have heard of Firefox, but may give Safari a try because they like iTunes.

      I don't cry any tears over a little loss of marketshare for Firefox. Let's rejoice the fact that the marketshare of standards-compliant browsers goes up. THAT's why it is important to eat away at IE's marketshare.

      Bert

    2. Re:Competition by master0ne · · Score: 1

      i was just about to post the same thought... when going up aganst a de-facto standard such as IE, introducing competors into the market doesnt decrease IE's marketshare (as the users switching from IE, they do so because there unhappy with IE... not just to support OSS, as such the number of users switching is independent of the number of alternitives (solong as there IS a alternitive that functions as expected) and more dependent on the users determinitation to goto sompthing better...) as such, adding safari, knoqueror etc to the windows platform will only serve to fragment the "competing" market and not impact the "dominate product" in any noticable way... however, i for one, welcome out KHTML coding overlords.....

      --
      Noone writes jokes in base 13!
    3. Re:Competition by efence · · Score: 1

      Can Apple push Safari via iTunes the same way as iTunes and iPod firmware updates? Not an unlikely scenario if it is to feature iTMS integration in the future.

    4. Re:Competition by Doctor+Crumb · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'd be willing to bet that a large part of that 1 million downloads is neither IE users nor FF users; rather it would be those people who run multiple browsers already for various reasons (cross-platform web development being one). We'll see what the browser market share numbers do, but I predict that there will be minimal switching going on.

    5. Re:Competition by dwater · · Score: 2, Interesting

      yeah, now those people don't need a mac to test on, so this'll reduce the number of macs sold.

      --
      Max.
    6. Re:Competition by dr.badass · · Score: 0

      I might be way off, but it seems more likely to me that Safari will be grabbing its marketshare from firefox, not IE.

      Given many Firefox user's penchant for craping all over anything that isn't Firefox, I doubt it. You could argue that Internet Explorer users are "too stupid" or unable to switch to anything else, but Firefox users are downright unwilling. I would say that Safari has a better chance at making inroads on IE's user base than on Firefox's fan base.

      --
      Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
    7. Re:Competition by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Yes but safari has something the other options don't; a marketing engine. Once they learn that there are other programs (an overrated response, most will download this when a popup comes into itunes and never realize they are using a different program) they will be more likely to use one of the other alternatives.

      The bigger change is open standards. But if too many users move to a single alternative browser run by a corporation we might be right back in the same boat we are with IE.

    8. Re:Competition by dkf · · Score: 1

      Can Apple push Safari via iTunes the same way as iTunes and iPod firmware updates?
      I'd guess it is unlikely unless they want to greatly annoy lots of existing iTunes users. Sure, it's theoretically possible that they might be able to use incompatibility stuff to encourage people to switch, but it's more likely that they'd get people to switch away from iTunes.

      If the percentage of web connections from Safari builds up to the 5-10% level, then start looking for subtle incompatibilities. Until then, Apple's best overall strategy involves staying out of that sort of game.
      --
      "Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
    9. Re:Competition by A+Friendly+Troll · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I might be way off, but it seems more likely to me that Safari will be grabbing its marketshare from firefox, not IE.
      According to Steve Jobs, that is exactly what Apple wants.
    10. Re:Competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >> Apple has something Firefox doesn't: iTunes. Yes, but then Firefox (should be Mozilla, but, lets not go there) has something, Safari does not - being a very good browser. That _does_ matter, right? RIGHT?

    11. Re:Competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >I don't cry any tears over a little loss of marketshare for Firefox. Let's rejoice the fact that the marketshare of standards-compliant browsers goes up. THAT's why it is important to eat away at IE's marketshare.

      Yea right...."The grapes are sour anyway".

    12. Re:Competition by master0ne · · Score: 1

      you are partially correct, firefox has a huge marketing engine the Get Firefox campaign, the ad in the NY times... etc... however, the real problem with IE isnt its dominance, is that its installed by default, not giving competition a chance, im sure Firefox, Opera, Safari, hell, probably even lynx! would have more market share if the customer had to Choose which browser to use... but arguing this point is like arguing that sony doesnt get enough marketshare because ford uses Panasonic sterios in all there cars.... Sony would have more share in the car stereo market if ford shipped all there cars w/o a stereo, and made the customer choose which after market product to slip into that ugly hold in the dash... so i do understand where MS stands on this option.... Also, the type of user that would "never realize they are using a different program" are the exact type of users that wouldnt use Safari after they "try" it because those users are trained to click on the "Big Blue e" to get on the inter-tubes!

      --
      Noone writes jokes in base 13!
    13. Re:Competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My dad's Ford Focus, the 2006 European model, came with a Sony stereo. :-)

    14. Re:Competition by shaitand · · Score: 2, Interesting

      'you are partially correct, firefox has a huge marketing engine the Get Firefox campaign, the ad in the NY times... etc... however'

      Firefox has a marketing engine, I wouldn't exactly call it huge. I don't think you could compare even a daily full page NY times ad to even one national television commercial. More importantly, Apple has itunes/quicktime. When safari is installed by default with itunes (and based on Apple's past history it will be) every teen in the US is going to install Safari on their computer. Usually that computer is also mom and dad's computer.

      It may not be quite as good as being default on the desktop but it sure beats banner ads and newspaper articles. It will also penetrate the clueless user market. They probably won't even know anything changed.

    15. Re:Competition by noidentity · · Score: 1

      I still use Mac OS 10.3.9, which prevents me from using the latest version of Safari. A few days ago a friend was over and complaining about problems Safari was having, so I downloaded Firefox 2. I haven't looked back. Funny how the latest Firefox works as far back as Mac OS 10.2, while Apple's Safari requires the latest Mac OS version. Even if the latest Safari did work on my machine, I doubt it'd compare with the features I'm coming to enjoy in Firefox.

    16. Re:Competition by kanweg · · Score: 1

      Good but ugly (buttons, menus...; FF icon is pretty, though). As you may or may not aware, the audience we're aiming for apparently never had much interest in quality. So, whether it _does_ matter ... .

      Bert
      Who thinks that Safari 2 is a pretty good browser

    17. Re:Competition by gig · · Score: 1

      > I might be way off, but it seems more likely to me that Safari will be grabbing its marketshare from firefox, not IE.

      I think you're way off.

      There are two kinds of PC users: one uses Explorer to browse the Web because it came free with their computer, and the other one knows better.

      If you know better then you are already using Firefox. However if you don't know better, you are about to get Safari free with your iPod.

      If you put Firefox and Safari side-by-side there are not that many reasons to switch. But if you put Explorer next to Safari there are plenty of reasons to not go back to IE.

      Also, as a Web developer, many times I have been asked by someone in a suit to make sure the Web site I'm building works in Internet Explorer. However, since January 2007 the same types are asking me to make sure stuff works in iPhone. And they didn't even get their iPhones yet. Safari for Windows is included with the iPhone.

      If you put an iPhone next to a PC running Explorer looking at the same Web page, you have to ask why the PC looks like ass. The iPhone is going to make iPhone users not want to use Explorer, and on the other hand the iPhone includes Safari for Windows. I bet you one year from now 90% of iPhone users use Safari, whether they are PC or Mac based.

    18. Re:Competition by gig · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Of course lots of Web developers are downloading Safari, that is the same type who knows what WWDC is and cares about what browsers are out there.

      Consumers are going to get Safari for Windows free with their iPod and iPhone, just like they get Explorer free with their PC.

      - 100 million iPod users
      - 300 million iTunes for Windows users
      - 400 million QuickTime for Windows users ... all about to get Safari for Windows for free. It's as good as Microsoft's pre-install or maybe better since there is a moment where each user chooses the Apple product.

    19. Re:Competition by gig · · Score: 1

      > The bigger change is open standards. But if too many users move to a single alternative browser run by a corporation
      > we might be right back in the same boat we are with IE.

      That is why it is good that Safari is based on an open-source Web rendering engine that is dedicated to standards.

    20. Re:Competition by shaitand · · Score: 1

      I'd be a lil more comfortable if Safari weren't a forked version of that rendering engine or there was something preventing Apple from adding proprietary extensions.

    21. Re:Competition by 'The+'.$L3mm1ng · · Score: 1

      If you know better then you are already using Firefox. However if you don't know better, you are about to get Safari free with your iPod.

      That might also be a good thing for Firefox. That way, some users switch their browsers for the first time in their life which makes the next time less hard. So they use Safari for a while, talk about their browser choice (which they normally wouldn't do) and get to hear that there's an even better browser: Firefox. Might lead to another switch, this time to Firefox.

    22. Re:Competition by yabos · · Score: 1

      Better yet, buy a Mac, test on OS X, Linux and Windows all at once via Parallels or VMWare or boot natively on either OS.

    23. Re:Competition by yabos · · Score: 1

      Just wait till FF 3.0, it will probably support 10.3.9 and up
      http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox3/Firefox_Requireme nts#Platform_Support
      Still better than Safari 3 support but at least they have a good excuse. Safari 3 uses a lot of the new framework changes in OS X Leopard which make backwards compatibility very hard.

    24. Re:Competition by Ctrl-Alt-Del · · Score: 1

      I'd be inclined to disagree; a lot of Firefox's initial growth came from people who used it and really "got" it, recommending it to other friends. Web developers, who by nature have to keep an eye on the browser market, were one of these groups. Safari is not aimed at those developers, unless Apple is considering converting them into iPhone developers in the absence of a proper SDK.

      Where I do see Safari gaining browser share is at the expense of IE. The reason for this is simple: Apple will undoubtedly bundle Safari with iTunes, and with a bit of decent marketing, should be able to convince a lot of people with iPods that maybe they should let it be the default browser. If Microsoft can turn an OS monopoly into Office sales, then there's no reason Apple can't turn an MP3-player monopoly into browser market share (and, they are no doubt hoping, into a few more Mac sales - if all you use your PC for are listening to music, Web surfing and email, then hey, Apple have most of your bases covered on Windows already - why not go the whole hog?).

      But taking market share from Firefox? Not likely.

      --
      "Life is like a sewer - what you get out of it depends on what you put into it" - Tom Lehrer
    25. Re:Competition by dwater · · Score: 1

      I don't see how that is better.

      --
      Max.
    26. Re:Competition by makomk · · Score: 1

      That's worrying. This ought to be moderated up, but it looks like it won't be...

    27. Re:Competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you can't get moderated up if you don't post in the first 10-15 minutes after the story comes out

    28. Re:Competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Heh, you're being a bit optimistic there. Do you really think web developers go out and spend hundreds of bucks on a Mac, just to test their pages?

      No, they just ask existing Mac using friends/colleagues to try out their site, or just ignore Safari and target IE/FF only. That's almost always the case.

    29. Re:Competition by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      It may be a fork, but it's still pretty open. You can grab the source, or browse it online at http://webkit.org/, and often see features a long time before they make it into Safari.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    30. Re:Competition by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Again, today. Apple could choose to be less gracious tomorrow and has carefully made sure they have that option across the board.

    31. Re:Competition by Doctor+Crumb · · Score: 1

      I hadn't thought of bundling like that; that makes apple's strategy make a lot more sense.

  7. Oh come on by bcmm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If these downloads manifested into regular Safari users...
    I think a very large number of people, including myself, downloaded it just to see what it was like and have no intention of actually using it.
    --
    # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
    Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
    1. Re:Oh come on by SplatMan_DK · · Score: 0

      Get WinAmp. It really kicks the llamas ass ... ;-)

      --
      My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
    2. Re:Oh come on by MMC+Monster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah. I almost downloaded it just because I was curious of how Safari would look on Windows. (I stopped the download when I started reading about how this was a real Beta and not a release candidate build that we (as of late) have called Beta.)

      Perhaps Apple will make Safari an optional download when people download quicktime or iTunes. If so, they will likely get a lot of IE converts.

      While a couple years ago I would have said that they would not get a lot of Firefox users. But since Firefox is now mainstream, they will likely get a lot of converts from people that think the Firefox icon is for the internet and have no idea what an application really is.

      --
      Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
    3. Re:Oh come on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Same here. I'm a browser junkie, so I had to download it. I was not impressed! I mean, I play with nightly builds of Firefox and SeaMonkey that are in better shape than the builds of Safari we've seen so far.

      The only reason anyone is taking Safari seriously is because Apple is behind it. If this were just another open source project, people would have just laughed at it and forgot about it.

      Even though Apple is behind it, I don't think it's a serious contender. It lacks the majority of the features which caused IE users to switch to Firefox in the first place. Why on Earth would they want to use Safari? Heck, Safari isn't even the best browser on the Mac. When I'm using a Mac, I find Camino to be a far more capable browser.

      It will be nice for web developers who only have Windows boxes, and that's probably the true target user base of Safari on Windows when you think about it. I doubt Apple really thinks Safari is going to take Windows by storm. In fact, the release of the flaky beta builds (which aren't even of beta quality) should be enough proof of that. Apple is about perfection and everything working the first time, with the Safari builds I've seen so far, it's nowhere near that. I personally know of people who have had issues even getting it installed on their systems. So the articles pointing out the problems Safari on Windows has are really telling it straight. If Apple were serious about Safari on Windows, it would have just worked. That's what Apple is all about.

    4. Re:Oh come on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Apple is about perfection and everything working the first time, with the Safari builds I've seen so far, it's nowhere near that."

      My theory is that Safari for Windows was rushed out so that Steve had at least something to show at the WWDC keynote. In that theory, the original plan was to show off ZFS in Leopard, but in Steve's world, that became impossible after that Sun guy stole his thunder.

    5. Re:Oh come on by syousef · · Score: 1

      I had every intention of using it. I downloaded and installed it at work only to learn that using a proxy caused a crash, and turning the proxy off required that I do so in IE and restart Safari. In any case proxies aren't optional where I work (and many others are in the same boat). What kind of piece of shit browser does not even support proxies in a public beta? Apple wasted my time. The experience irritated me and I probably won't be trying Safari again for a very very long time. I wonder how many others Apple's managed to piss off this way.

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    6. Re:Oh come on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh shut the fuck up. Their beta software has a bug, so you're really pissed? So pissed you're going to hold a grudge against Apple? Don't like buggy software? Don't install pre-release software, dumbass.

      Did you even file a bug report? Or just got pissed off and decided to whine on Slashdot? Why are you even trying to run beta software at work anyway?

      And before anyone accuses me of being a mac fanboy: IE, Safari and Firefox are all equally crap.

      -- Posted anonymously so as to not undo moderation in another thread.

    7. Re:Oh come on by Nosferatu+Alucard · · Score: 1

      I converted my family to Firefox by installing Firefox, then changing the icon to IE and renaming it Internet Explorer. Over about 6 months, I switched the titles, and then the icons back to the originals. They never noticed the difference in browsing, and I told them all individually about the icon. They now ask for it specifically and no longer use IE.

    8. Re:Oh come on by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      Perhaps Apple will make Safari an optional download when people download quicktime or iTunes. If so, they will likely get a lot of IE converts.


      Optional?

    9. Re:Oh come on by gig · · Score: 1

      Apple already said that Safari for Windows is going to be part of the iTunes/QuickTime download. It is going to be on the disc with every iPod and iPhone.

      iPhone users will need it most especially, because they will be looking at the Web in Safari on iPhone and it will spoil them for Explorer, which makes the Web look like ass. Further, a lot of Web 2.0 content that only runs in Firefox and Safari is going to sell itself as iPhone enhanced. You can't go back to Explorer if you're hooked on a couple of great sites that look a decade older in IE.

    10. Re:Oh come on by syousef · · Score: 1

      Anyone that begins with "Oh shut the fuck up" and admits to moderation tampering is an irritating child but I'll bite.

      The bug's well known. My filing a bug report will do nothing to help the team. If they didn't bother testing with proxies, I simply won't take their browser seriously. This release is nothing but a PR stunt.

      As for IE, Safari and Firefox being equally crap that simply isn't true. I can use all but Safari at work. You are a Mac fanboi if you're putting Safari which doesn't even fucking work with proxies on the same level as 2 browsers which do. Proxy support isn't a nice to have - its expected in this day and age. Get a clue.

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
  8. That's a pretty big "if" by dave420 · · Score: 1

    Seeing as many of those downloads will be from web developers and plain ol' interested folks wanting to see what all the fuss is about. If all those FireFox downloads were actual FireFox users, FireFox would be the most-used browser on the market, or at least have a larger-than-25%-or-whatever share. Downloads!=users, especially for software as buggy as Safari.

    (And I'm not flaming anyone or anything here, just pointing out the fact that 1m of anything only equates to 1m of exactly that, and nothing else)

  9. Re:I downloaded it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    nobody gives a shit about you, your opinion, or your blog. please die in a fire.

  10. I believe it by Azureflare · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I downloaded Safari when it was announced, and it's a really slick browser in windows. It's got a little quirks that are reminiscent of mac os x features that might be confusing to PC users, but honestly it's great being able to test safari, firefox, opera and IE all in windows now. It makes my job much easier as a web dev.

    I'm really glad that apple released this, and I hope it does well at establishing a good sized customer base. Competition is _always_ good, even if it draws market share from firefox.

  11. No competition for IE by Krommenaas · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Safari is no competition for Internet Explorer, since noone who is able and willing to download and install another browser is still using IE. It's main competitor is Firefox, but I can't imagine many FF users switching to Safari as it confirms every prejudice I as a Windows user have about Mac software: it looks grey and it works against me (e.g. no ctrl-enter, can't resize it easily).

    1. Re:No competition for IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try just hitting enter -- on the Mac version of Safari it has the same effect as ctrl-enter on Windows (auto-completes). Agree on the resize though.

    2. Re:No competition for IE by kanweg · · Score: 1

      Part of FF marketshare comes from Macinosh users who at work are condemned to using a PC.

      I sometimes use Firefox on my Macs when a site doesn't display properly, but I usually use Safari. Firefox doesn't look very pretty (I do like its icon, though). Similarly, the web app I work a lot with looks much worse than with Firefox (can we say ugly buttons and ugly menu's?)

      Bert

    3. Re:No competition for IE by shaitand · · Score: 1

      'Safari is no competition for Internet Explorer, since noone who is able and willing to download and install another browser is still using IE.'

      My prediction is that when Safari is available on windows (right now it is just an unstable beta) it will be as simple as not unchecking the box when installing ITunes. Every house with a teenager will have Safari installed.

    4. Re:No competition for IE by pafrusurewa · · Score: 1

      I predict that you will be right because that's exactly what Jobs said.

    5. Re:No competition for IE by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      Well, no. He didn't say anything definitive. He mentioned that Apple knows how to reach Windows users and used iTunes as an example. That might mean he's going to bundle Safari, it might mean he's going to put a link to download Safari on the iTunes download page, or it might mean he was just using it as an example of how successful Apple has been at getting Windows users to download an Apple app?

    6. Re:No competition for IE by gig · · Score: 1

      > Safari is no competition for Internet Explorer, since noone who is able and willing to download and install another browser is still using IE.

      You don't have to download Safari. It is on the disc with iPod and iPhone and installs along with iTunes and QuickTime.

      The vast majority of PC's already have QuickTime and iTunes on them. Now the vast majority will also have Safari. The user is left only to try it out and learn how bad Explorer is.

      We are also on the cusp of Web 2.0. I made two sites this past year that look like Web 1.0 in Explorer but in Safari or Firefox you get all kinds of extra features. Once you get used to the Web doing extra things for you in your iPhone it is going to be hard to go use Explorer on a PC.

    7. Re:No competition for IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it looks grey and it works against me (e.g. no ctrl-enter, can't resize it easily)

      can't FlashBlock, can't prevent image animation, can't block image domains....

    8. Re:No competition for IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait until it's bundled with iTunes and Quicktime...

  12. Canabalizing FF? by HockeyPuck · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's safe to assume that a certain percentage of windows users will never download a different browser b/c a) they don't know about alternative browsers b) IE is good enough c) don't care. How many of those users that don't fall into the above catagories downloaded firefox and then in the past couple of days downloaded Safari? Could sarfari be canabalizing FF users? Are we just seeing 'churn' here whereby people go from FF to safari and back again?

    I highly doubt these 1million were users that have never used a third party browser.

  13. Unfortunately... by Dan+East · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Unfortunately, the type of computer user that would download and evaluate different web browsers are the type of users that have likely already switched to Firefox. So if these people stick with Safari then it will be mostly at the expense of Firefox.

    The majority of people I know that use Firefox do so because I either told them to download it, or I downloaded and installed it for them. They will use whatever program gives them internet access that has a convenient shortcut on their desktop or quick launch menu, and as long as webpages and stuff appear when they click on things then that's what they will use until they replace their computer.

    Dan East

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:Unfortunately... by gig · · Score: 1

      > Unfortunately, the type of computer user that would download and evaluate different web browsers are the type
      > of users that have likely already switched to Firefox.

      Fortunately, Apple is not going after those users.

      The key to Safari for Windows adoption is that you don't have to download it. When you buy an iPod or iPhone, Safari will install along with iTunes and QuickTime on your PC. iPhone users will need it so they can run the same Web 2.0 sites on their PC as on their iPhone.

      The MAJORITY of the world's PC's have iTunes and QuickTime on them already. There are more iTunes users than Windows Media Player users, and WMP comes free with every PC. The number of iPods in the world is dwarfed by iTunes for Windows. It's like 4:1 iTunes for Windows : iPod.

      What Apple is doing with Safari is killing IE in the same way as they killed WMP. All the Web 2.0 developers I know already build their stuff for Firefox/Safari and W3C it is easy they are like twins. Similarly, music and video are authored for iTunes and MPEG-4. Microsoft is free to make viewers for Web 2.0 and MPEG-4 just like everybody else, that is the beauty of standards, however they have not even started yet and the game is pretty much over.

  14. Flawed assumption by OpenSourced · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If Safari can obtain a 10% market share on Windows, then it would further weaken IE's position and give standards-based browsers more leverage with developers.

    That is, supposing it gets the 10% market share from IE, and not from Firefox, for example.

    --
    Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
    1. Re:Flawed assumption by bonefry · · Score: 1

      That is, supposing it gets the 10% market share from IE, and not from Firefox, for example. The world is not black and white, and most likely market share will be taken from both sides.
      All that matters is that IExplorer's market share will certainly drop a little more.

      Losing market share doesn't really matter for Firefox as long as it has a loyal user-base and as long as web standards continue to thrive.
  15. For how long...? by Jugalator · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The interest seem to have been pretty high, but I wonder if anyone there could use it for more than a straight full hour.

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    1. Re:For how long...? by Ghandalfar · · Score: 1

      I'm using it as my new default. Switched from Camino back to Safari 3. I love every minute of it.

    2. Re:For how long...? by _xeno_ · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm assuming you're referring to using it on the Mac. The article title is about "Safari for Windows" so I'd assume the OP is referring to using it under Windows, and not on the Mac.

      That being said, I've yet to use Safari for Windows for more than, say, five minutes in one stretch. Firefox works better under Windows than Safari. Yes, Safari is faster, but it doesn't fit in with Windows quite right.

      Mac users frequently complain about direct-to-Mac ports of Windows software, and how they don't fit in and don't use the right keyboard shortcuts and the like. Well, Safari for Windows is the same - just in the other direction.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    3. Re:For how long...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For a straight full over? Jeez dude! I could tolerate it for 3 minutes, just to see how it looks then uninstalled it immediately right after.

    4. Re:For how long...? by jZnat · · Score: 1

      If I could install it via WINE, I'd let you know. In the meantime, I'll continue to use Konqueror and Firefox.

      --
      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
    5. Re:For how long...? by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      Yes, I was indeed referring to that. OS X is a whole other experience and we could just as well be talking about a different web browser altogether. The problem lies with the Windows release, and as soon as I went to a website from a Google search result, it crashed, and I've heard many similar reports.

      This has more implications than merely an unusually poor beta: I wonder how many early adopters of that million are now willing to give it another chance and return to it once it's out of beta, if it will ever be. (it may also just be that Apple won't support this Windows port well in the future)

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  16. Re:I downloaded it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Good take on the font differences here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/12.htm l

  17. Over a million in total so far? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's lots of nosy/curious people about!

    Of those downloads how many were from previous downloaders to get updates as the broken nature of Safati4Windoze was reported?

    I'll be more impressed when the usage figure from server logs become available. Some typical stats I have seen concerning browser usage (for an intensively used server) show browsers identifying themselves as follows:

    MS Internet Explorer 64.3 %
    Firefox 28.9 %
    Netscape 1.9 %
    Safari 1.8 %
    Mozilla 1.0 %
    Opera 0.8 %
    others 1.3 %

    We'll have to see how Safari for Windows changes figures like these in the next few months, eh?

    1. Re:Over a million in total so far? by larry+bagina · · Score: 1

      obviously skewed statistics from a popular site I know of:

      firefox: 61%
      IE: 20%
      unknown: 7%
      safari: 5%
      mozilla: 3%
      opera: 2%
      konquorer: .5%
      netscape/galeon/camino: ~0%

      And by OS:

      Windows: 64%
      Macintosh: 15%
      Linux: 12%
      Unknown: 8%
      Solaris: 1%

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  18. Wouldn't the number be only half as much? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Surely Apple isn't counting the number of times the first insecure version was downloaded by people who then turned around and downloaded the fixed second version when it became available 2 days later? I think Apple should just count the number of times the second version is downloaded to be more accurate.

  19. It may be even better than that. by Balinares · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually, the KDE guys (in particular, the ever awesome Zack Rusin) are working with the WebKit people in order to make WebKit work on the same rendering canvas that KDE uses (namely Qt's QPainterDevice). So Konqueror 4 will most likely use WebKit itself, rather than KHTML, on all three platforms, Linux, Windows and Mac.

    The reason why this is such great news is that this could possibly make WebKit, one of the most standard compliant engines out there, the number one option after IE (alongside with Gecko), which will hopefully prompt Web developers to, at last, respect the standards as the basics for any Web development.

    ... Just so long as WebKit doesn't end up deviating from the standards for whichever reason, anyway. Y'know. (Yeah, I've been in this industry too long to remain optimistic, I know.)

    --

    -- B.
    This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
    1. Re:It may be even better than that. by encoderer · · Score: 2, Interesting

      which will hopefully prompt Web developers to, at last, respect the standards as the basics for any Web development

      You don't think that developers would like to be able to develop against concrete standards today? We have to develop where the users are. And if the users are on IE, as unfortunate as it is, we have to develop there.

      In a perfect world I'd prefer everyone was on Firefox, but that's just my pref. If I could count on a critical mass having XUL and SVG, etc, it would free my hand up considerably. But when it really comes down to it, standards compliance isn't keeping me up at night. Any good JS framework is abstracting away the issue of browser compatibility.

      And while I might get flamed for saying this, I don't really care: If all this compliaince BS was actually to HELP developers, the OSS community would've adopted IE settings as the standard. I mean, why not? We can, in theory, set any standard we want. If FireFox used IE as the standard, and rendered like IE, BAM, we have easy web development and standard compliance. Unfortunately this is more about being adversarial. In some ways, I think, you have those in MSFT saying "We have 80% mindshare. *WE* are the standard" and you have those in other camps looking derisively at IE for being the Goliath that has a tendency to paint everything with a heavy brush.

    2. Re:It may be even better than that. by thegnu · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And while I might get flamed for saying this, I don't really care: If all this compliaince BS was actually to HELP developers, the OSS community would've adopted IE settings as the standard.

      Because it's not consistent, and it's broken. It doesn't act as you would expect it. Microsoft is a member of the W3C, who decides on webstandards. Then, IE breaks them (Microsoft owns IE).

      Microsoft helps make standards. Microsoft breaks standards. So, to reiterate, it's unfeaseable, and a stupid idea is why.
      --
      Please stop stalking me, bro.
    3. Re:It may be even better than that. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Any good JS framework is abstracting away the issue of browser compatibility.

      Not that much for CSS rendering incompability uh genius!?

      WTFFFF are you talking about?

    4. Re:It may be even better than that. by moderatorrater · · Score: 1

      I have to agree with you there; people who expect the current set of standards to actually be implemented by web developers are pie in the sky idealists. I love the idea of all the browsers working the same, but a divisive standard helps no one. In addition, if the Java Virtual Machine's different from one machine to another, I'm not sure how we can expect the same results out of browsers developed by completely different companies.

    5. Re:It may be even better than that. by dangitman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If all this compliaince BS was actually to HELP developers, the OSS community would've adopted IE settings as the standard. I mean, why not?

      Because the standards are there for a reason, and IE's implementation is broken. It might not be a big deal in the short-term - but if we pander to people who break the standards, where does it end? In 10 years, we have a thoroughly broken "box model" just because Microsoft uses a broken model today? It's about consistency and logic, not expedience. And if we start caving to Microsoft today, what does that bode for the future? they will just be more brazen, because they can expect any changes they make to be be added to the standards.

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
    6. Re:It may be even better than that. by LS · · Score: 1

      If it weren't for the adversarial existence of Firefox, what do you the IE 7 feature set would look like, if it even existed? Competition is a good thing, especially when pushing in directions outside of the status quo.

      LS

      --
      There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
    7. Re:It may be even better than that. by Balinares · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Several things there.

      1) De-facto standards, where a given arbitrary product is the reference, and codified standards, as described for open implementation, are VASTLY different things. Can you tell why? (Here's a hint: the answer contains the words 'lock-in'. I'll let you ponder that while ruing the lack of Firefox and XUL user base.)

      2) However, reference implementations are a good thing, because they, as you rightly point out, help developers. Not providing a reference implementation of CSS is possibly the biggest mistake the W3C made.

      3) In a perfect world, you'd be using just whatever the hell you want and it would make no matter. Gecko lock-in is not much better than IE lock-in. (Case in point: browse the commit logs of other browsers and count how many entries there are that go, "Emulate Firefox bug such-and-such so as to display somesite.com correctly". Seriously.)

      And lastly,

      4) I am slightly annoyed that you seem to assume I don't know about Web development. Because, meanwhile, in the real world, our issue tracking system is littered with tickets that read something like:

      "Dear Mr. Important-customer-at-huge-company,
      The issue you report looks like a bug in Internet Explorer. We'll allocate developer ressources to implement a work around for the next revision of the product. Kind regards, etc..."

      This costs money. This costs resources that could be allocated to building better mousetraps, to make awesome shit, to create stuff to be proud of and to drive things ahead. Instead... Working in this field today is trying to build castles on swamps, and it's a daily struggle to not cave in and just sell shaky wooden shacks (painted cheap gold as per marketing's instructions) like the rest of 'em.

      And this is not something I can do anything about.

      However, you can.

      Will you, in all consciousness, make the choice to be part of the problem? That choice is yours and yours only.

      --

      -- B.
      This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
    8. Re:It may be even better than that. by Nurgled · · Score: 1

      The other browsers have been copying IE's behavior and bugs for several years now. The problem is that they can only do this by investing considerable time in reverse-engineering, because unlike the actual standards the behavior of IE is not documented outside of Microsoft and is liable to change from version to version.

      However, WHATWG (now working alongside the W3C HTML WG) is currently working on writing a new version of the HTML specification that, as well as adding some new features, also includes a vastly more detailed description of what browsers must implement. The description of browser behavior is largely based on what Internet Explorer does, though that's by no means the rule. Their goal, as far as I can tell, is to write down the rules for rendering the content that's out on the web today, which includes lots of buggy crap that works okay in IE by mere coincidence.

    9. Re:It may be even better than that. by zstlaw · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As a professional web developer - standards compliance would be nice. It would allow mediocre developers to again claim to be web developers and compete with me but it means that I could spend more time developing application functionality and not handling formatting differences.

      My company only officially supports IE and yet there are rendering issues, CSS bugs, and scripting errors between IE versions. Even worse behavior varies on the same version of IE on different versions of windows (IE6.0.2900 handles asynchronous background scripts differently on XP and 2k, it also handles POST and GETs differently in the background leading to some bizarre delays and rendering differences on certain combinations of browser and OS).

      As a result we need to have more testers and test the same app on multiple machines as the behavior differs. And since most of the differences are rendering and behavior we can not automate the tests as the pages are usually still functional -- it means we essentially need 4 testers or 4 times as much time to do testing on different platform and versions all repeating the same tests. That is an awful waste of resources!

      A standard would mean that I could at least expect IE on 2k to act the same as on XP. And if it didn't I could report it as a bug. Frankly we are migrating to Firefox just because the dev tools are better and behavior is more consistent. We will still need to test on IE, but the existence of some nice debugging tools and unit testing plug ins for Firefox means that it is just getting better to develop on Firefox with basic automated testing then have testers check it on IE for various visual bugs and quirks.

      On a last humorous note - this chart of web development time is oddly accurate - http://blog.alsacreations.com/images/camembert.png

    10. Re:It may be even better than that. by shmlco · · Score: 1, Interesting

      "... In 10 years, we have a thoroughly broken "box model" just because Microsoft uses a broken model today..."

      If that's redefined as the standard then it's not broken, is it?

      Besides, MS's model makes more sense anyway. If, as a designer, I want a 300px-wide box, why can't I say so? The box is 300px, AND then... let's see... let's give it a 1px border and 10px inside padding. One 300px-wide column, done.

      With flakey standards, I may WANT a 300px-wide box. But I have to then subtract the borders, then subtract the margins, then write 278px. Look at it, decide to change the padding or border width, and I have to do the math again. Dumb.

      I thought that's why we had computers in the first place.

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    11. Re:It may be even better than that. by gig · · Score: 2, Informative

      > If all this compliaince BS was actually to HELP developers, the OSS community would've adopted IE settings
      > as the standard. I mean, why not?

      Because this would require cooperation from Microsoft and they do not cooperate.

      The WebKit and Gecko programmers work together on standardization. For example, WebKit introduced the canvas tag which is used in Mac Widgets, and Gecko implemented this also, however during the standardization process, the way the canvas tag "should" work was changed, and then WebKit adjusted its own canvas tag behaviors to match the standards.

      In other words, after canvas was standardized, the WebKit team did a bunch of work to implement the standard canvas tag, even though they themselves had invented the non-standard version. You are not going to see Microsoft do this kind of thing.

      If you look at Safari's user-agent string it says "like Gecko" ... the idea there is that if there isn't already a standard way to do something, WebKit does it like Gecko for the sake of Web content and Web authors.

    12. Re:It may be even better than that. by dangitman · · Score: 1

      If that's redefined as the standard then it's not broken, is it?

      So, you just go and break it for everybody who's been following the standard? Nice.

      Besides, MS's model makes more sense anyway.

      It doesn't to me.

      With flakey standards, I may WANT a 300px-wide box. But I have to then subtract the borders, then subtract the margins, then write 278px. Look at it, decide to change the padding or border width, and I have to do the math again. Dumb.

      Not dumb. the whole point of the margins is that they are outside the box. If everything is included in the box, then what is the point of having margins? You can,/b> specify a 300 pixel box. That box refers to the area you have for content, the base measurement. If we do things your way, then everything subtracts from the area of the box, so we no longer can rely on having 300 pixels for the contents of the box.

      I think the standards bodies thought this through more thoroughly than you or Microsoft did.

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
    13. Re:It may be even better than that. by gig · · Score: 1, Informative

      No, Opera copies IE's behavior and bugs. That is why you can ignore Opera completely as a developer, there is no future in authoring for it.

      WebKit and Gecko have quirks modes to work around the bad content on the Web, but they are not mimicking IE they are moving quickly towards HTML5.

      You can author a Web site while testing only in Firefox and then go look in Safari and if your code is valid you will see the same thing. There are no other browsers where this is true. It is because the WebKit and Gecko teams work both together and using standards.

    14. Re:It may be even better than that. by shmlco · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Look at "The box is 300px, AND then... let's see... let's give it a 1px border and 10px inside PADDING." and "...decide to change the PADDING or border width", and you'll see that I meant to write "subtract the padding", not margin.

      Sorry for the confusion, but I think there were enough hints there that you could have read for comprehension. Bt if you can't do the substitution in your head:

      "With flakey standards, I may WANT a 300px-wide box. But I have to then subtract the borders, then subtract the PADDING, then write 278px. Look at it, decide to change the PADDING or border width, and I have to do the math again. Dumb."

      Or try logically giving something a width of 100% so it fills the page, add 20px of padding INSIDE the container, and see what happens in a "standards" compliant browser. Whoops! We're now wider than the page! Dumb.

      Padding is INISDE the container. As such, it should be INSIDE the 300px width, and not added on to it. Sorry, but they missed the boat on that one. Same with float clearing.

      And as far as that goes, having absolute positioning automatically take its container out of the document flow and encompassing containers is stupid too. How many layouts with footers would have been a snap to do had it not been for that foul-up?

      The standards "bodies" are just that. Bodies. People. Who make dumb mistakes. Or who promote agendas of their own choosing. I can just see it now:

      "Fred, you can't do it that way. It screws up layouts."

      Tom sniffs, his nose raised in distain. "Sorry Tom, but people shouldn't be using CSS for layouts anyway. The page should be pure."

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    15. Re:It may be even better than that. by dangitman · · Score: 1

      And as far as that goes, having absolute positioning automatically take its container out of the document flow and encompassing containers is stupid too. How many layouts with footers would have been a snap to do had it not been for that foul-up?

      Agreed. but why are you using absolute positioning anyway?

      The standards "bodies" are just that. Bodies. People. Who make dumb mistakes. Or who promote agendas of their own choosing.

      True, but I'd rather have them screw it up than Microsoft. At least they have reasonable agendas that are declared for all to see. I don't feel comfortable having web standards being decided by Microsoft's agenda of "Whatever makes us money, screw everybody else."

      At least the standards bodies have more concern about an accessible web for all users, rather than a blinged-out web full of gimmicks for only a subset of users.

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
    16. Re:It may be even better than that. by 'The+'.$L3mm1ng · · Score: 1

      You guys are both right.

      There are times when you want to have exactly 300px on the inside and there are times when you want to have exactly 300px on the outside (e.g. if you are on the inside of that first box!). IE sucks for breaking the standard, but the standard sucks as well, for not providing enough choices.
      Nevertheless, while the standard makes more sense as it is, I more often want to set the width including padding and border, like my GP.

      Other things I miss are relative widths related to elements that are not obviously related (i.e. not a child or a parent or direct sibling), like "as wide as the box with the ID xyz", while of course the width of that box xyz is dynamic.

      And something like:

      $color1 = #990000;
      $color2 = #FFFFFF;

      something { color: $color1; }
      something_else { background-color: $color1; $color: $color2; }

      Designing with CSS is much more cruel than in the good ol' days when we could use tables. Then again, that's also the fault of IE for not supporting table-layout. Damn you, richest company in the world! DAMN YOU!

    17. Re:It may be even better than that. by RedSteve · · Score: 1

      You don't think that developers would like to be able to develop against concrete standards today? We have to develop where the users are. And if the users are on IE, as unfortunate as it is, we have to develop there.

      I think your distinction here is artificial, unnecessarily exclusive, and a little bit lazy. What you've effectively said is that you can afford to throw away 15% of any potential audience and/or market because it makes your life easier. So you save a few of hours of development time, but at the expense of those 15% who might be perfectly willing to read your content, buy your product, click on your adsense ads, etc.

      It is fully possible and reasonable to develop fully standards-compliant pages that display with a great degree of fidelity across platforms and browsers, and give all users the impression that this company has provided a great online experience for them. And the development process starts and ends with coding to the W3C standards first.

      If all this compliaince BS was actually to HELP developers, the OSS community would've adopted IE settings as the standard. I mean, why not?

      Because the objective, codified standard has already been set? And Microsoft helped to set it? And then they promptly and deliberately went out and broke it -- or at least interpreted the standard differently than everyone else did? Why should I forsake those user agents that DO follow the standards in consistent, predictible ways over the one that has shown a willingness to change things arbitrarily?

    18. Re:It may be even better than that. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Why would anyone want variables actually in CSS?

      dnl Meet the amazing m4 macro processor
      define(`_c1', `#900')
      define(`_c2', `#fff')
      There are many, many ways of doing CSS using templates.
    19. Re:It may be even better than that. by 'The+'.$L3mm1ng · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Why would anyone want variables actually in CSS?

      There are many, many ways of doing CSS using templates.

      Why would anyone not want to apply the same styling rules to every paragraph in a document? CSS reduces duplication of formatting code (a nice side-effect of seperating content and presentation), but does not offer many ways to reduce duplication in the rules needed to do so. In most designs you will define a set of colors, border widths, etc. and apply them to more than one element, so it would be quite straightforward for a styling standard to define them centrally and make them reusable later in the same file and, thus, easier to change. It's the same thing on a different level. If you have a template system, you don't *really* need CSS in the first place, just define a variable with a bunch of font attributes and the like and insert them into every <p> you're outputting.

    20. Re:It may be even better than that. by jp10558 · · Score: 2

      Can you come up with a site that looks the same in Safari and Firefox, but looks broken in Opera? I really am not aware of Opera mimicking or copying IEs behavior at all in standards mode - it may in Quirks mode to work with broken pages, but I can't see that Quirks mode would work in FF or Safari without doing the same...

      --
      Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
    21. Re:It may be even better than that. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      CSS reduces duplication of formatting code (a nice side-effect of seperating content and presentation), but does not offer many ways to reduce duplication in the rules needed to do so.

      Scripting/macro languages do.

      In most designs you will define a set of colors, border widths, etc. and apply them to more than one element, so it would be quite straightforward for a styling standard to define them centrally and make them reusable later in the same file and, thus, easier to change.

      <?php

      $vars['col1'] = "000";
      $vars['col2'] = "fff";

      function pp($vars, $css){
      foreach ($vars as $k => $v) $css = str_replace($k, $v, $css);
      return $css;
      }

      echo pp($vars, file_get_contents($argv[1]));

      If you have a template system, you don't *really* need CSS in the first place,

      It's a cleaner choice than mixing markup and presentation.

    22. Re:It may be even better than that. by nicolastheadept · · Score: 1

      Gecko 1.9 (Firefox 3) is perfectly standard compliant, passes the ACID test and everything. Its also incredibly stable: 3a5 hasn't crashed on me once yet, and doesn't do the stupid Apple text blurring.

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    23. Re:It may be even better than that. by Carewolf · · Score: 0, Troll

      No.
      1. W3C makes a standard
      2. Microsoft implements it in the most sensible way
      3. Gecko implements in a stupid way,
      4. W3C changes the standard to make the Gecko implementation law

      This happened with the box-model, with the DOM model, and many other W3C details.

      For a few other you can exchange step 1 and 2, where W3C decides to make a new standard that is different from the only existing implementation.

    24. Re:It may be even better than that. by shmlco · · Score: 1

      "Nevertheless, while the standard makes more sense as it is, I more often want to set the width including padding and border, like my GP."

      So the standard makes sense, but most of the time you use it the other way? Okay.

      The problem with the standard is that it breaks real-world conceptual models. If I have a wooden box that's a foot square on the outside, it's a foot square, and it takes up a square foot on the shelf. Add an inch of padding to the inside of the box, and what happens? Gee, it's still a foot square on the outside, and still takes up a square foot on the shelf.

      With the standard, I add or change the amount of padding inside the box, and the box now magically grows or shrinks, which makes stacking and arranging boxes (something else we do in the real world) much more difficult.

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    25. Re:It may be even better than that. by xilmaril · · Score: 1
      If all this compliaince BS was actually to HELP developers, the OSS community would've adopted IE settings as the standard.


      'We' did. Remember iframes? They're official now too. Because they were a really good idea for an addition to the standards. Now, by comparison, look at IE's broken CSS implementation, or its rules for allowing popups. 'We' (whoever writes these things, I dunno) don't allow this because they're a really bad idea for Microsoft, much less the picky standards-writing people of the world.

      Don't forget, IE's html-handling isn't just broken because it's different. Even ignoring web-standards, it's just plain broken. And it changes from version to version.
    26. Re:It may be even better than that. by IAmGarethAdams · · Score: 1

      Well I'm glad it passes a test that claims "Acid2 does not guarantee conformance with any specification." and not some of the published tests - example

      Maybe we just have a different definition of 'perfect'.

      And 'fanboi'

    27. Re:It may be even better than that. by 'The+'.$L3mm1ng · · Score: 1

      "Nevertheless, while the standard makes more sense as it is, I more often want to set the width including padding and border, like my GP."
      So the standard makes sense, but most of the time you use it the other way? Okay.

      I can see why you are confused by this. :)
      I guess why I have the feeling that the standard makes sense this way is because after inner width, there comes nothing, but after outer width, there still comes the margin. So they chose the tightest end, if you set the inner width to 300px you're going to have 300px inside, period. If you set the outer width to 300px then there might still be a margin that might get rendered God knows how. It's really just a feeling. And yet, of course most of the time I want to set the outer width, because I am the designer. The content guy on the other hand could make more sense out of 300px inside width than of 286px or something.

      Nevertheless, the best point for your argument is probably that with IE's box model, "width:100%" works, with the W3C's box model, it's practically unusable once there is a border or padding. Or is there something like "100%-14px"?

  20. I downloaded it... by owlnation · · Score: 1

    I'll also will be using it only very rarely.

    Why? 1) I was curious, and 2) I thought that maybe I could use it for those very rare pages I visit that don't work well with Firefox, rather than use IE. Although, I have to have a very good reason to visit pages that don't work with Firefox -- usually I just boycott that site, probably forever...

    Honestly, I probably would use Safari more, because it is faster, were it not for one simple fact:

    No Flashblock. No Adblock. No Use.

    Just that simple. You will have to pull these extensions from my cold dead mouse hand. (And yes, being also a Mac user I do know you can get add-ons for Safari, but they do not work well, not at all).

  21. KDE 4 Konqueror KHTML by twitter · · Score: 0, Troll

    These statistics make me wonder if Konqueror 4 will become another large competitor on Windows.

    KDE 4 on Windoze would be a large competitor for every class of program. Konqueror, through kioslaves and kparts, is the amazing unified desktop environment that Bill Gates was dreaming about ten years ago but never delivered. All kinds of documents can be opened with ease in tabs and split panes. All kinds of connections, from file to sftp work seemlessly and fish figures it out for you. But all of that is also available in every other program from KDE and KDE has just about every kind of program. I'm not sure how they will port all of that onto something as ugly as Windoze, but that's one of their goals.

    It all works better, of course, with free software. Xorg has network transparency, can run multiple instances, makes virtual desktops easier, and won't go thunk in the night when Bill Gates "upgrades" things to break your work. I'm not going to even think about the restriction laden world of Vista, except to note the evil direction and futility of porting to Windoze. As soon as you are there, those jerks have moved the gaolposts again.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

  22. Safari & XP64 not in love ? by Chatterton · · Score: 2, Informative

    I have just downloaded it when I saw this story, but safari doesn't seems to work very well with slashdot or other more simples web page on my XP 64 box :(

    See by yourself: Screen shot

    1. Re:Safari & XP64 not in love ? by Rizz · · Score: 1

      When did Slashdot put ads on the front page? Long live Firefox and Adblock.

    2. Re:Safari & XP64 not in love ? by Chabil+Ha' · · Score: 1

      At least the advertisement rendered correctly!

      Oh.

      --
      We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
    3. Re:Safari & XP64 not in love ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That looks like a bug in our new, built-in censorship engine! Nothing for you to see here, move along.

      ~ Safari Team

      PS. Don't bother sending a bug report, we already have it.

    4. Re:Safari & XP64 not in love ? by gig · · Score: 1

      That's not the way Slashdot looks in Safari v3 for Mac, or in v2 or in v1. You are hurting in some way that is related to running the very first beta of the browser on a new (and buggy) platform.

    5. Re:Safari & XP64 not in love ? by despik · · Score: 1

      You're running a non-English version of Windows, right? This is a bug that Apple should've caught in QA; in the meantime, you can fix it by going into Control Panel > Regional & Language Options > Advanced, and setting the Language For Non-Unicode Applications to US English. (The actual names involved might be different; I'm reverse-translating them back into English.)

      Some other crashes may also be fixed by copying the contents of the en.lproj and English.lproj folders into your language folders; for example, pl.lproj and Polish.lproj.

      --
      "I seem to have mastered a certain amount of control over physical reality."
    6. Re:Safari & XP64 not in love ? by TropicalCoder · · Score: 1

      I was grateful for that tip, since I am running a non-English version of WinXP Pro, but it didn't make any difference. I was using Safari to test my own web site, which meets W3C compliance for HTML 4. Most pages rendered horribly, often with missing text.

      There was another problem - when I went to the W3C verification site with Safari to double check a page, as soon as I tried to fill in the URL field Safari crashes every time. So I guess that's the end of my experimenting with at least this version of Safari. Anyhow - I wish them luck, and hope they take some market away from IE (but please not FF!).

    7. Re:Safari & XP64 not in love ? by despik · · Score: 1

      Did you reboot Windows after applying the changes? I don't use Windows myself, but this solution has been tested by a fair amount of people I know.

      --
      "I seem to have mastered a certain amount of control over physical reality."
    8. Re:Safari & XP64 not in love ? by TropicalCoder · · Score: 1

      I had rebooted - but perhaps the state of my computer was 'confused' at that time. I was in the middle of something and had a lot of applications open. It's working great now - at least - it displays my new site, which is the whole reason I wanted to try out Safari.

  23. Safari : not just for iPhone? by larry+bagina · · Score: 2, Informative

    I hate to admit it, but john Dvorak had an interesting theory[1]. Google pays the mozilla foundation $50 million/year or so for redirecting searches their way. I believe Google also had a deal with Opera (the latest version of Opera seems to default to yahoo, though). Is google paying Apple for Safari searches? If so, a windows port could bring in $10 million/year easily, enough to pay for the port and subsidize continued development.

    1. Actually, he had one interesting sentence, which I'm expanding on. The rest was lunacy.
    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    1. Re:Safari : not just for iPhone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      of course. google will pay anyone, even you, to direct searches to them. this isn't anything special. the firefox people don't get some super special top secret deal. it's called adsense for search. http://www.adsense.com/

    2. Re:Safari : not just for iPhone? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      "... mozilla foundation $50 million/year..."

      If that is true, then there is no excuse for them not to be doing some more advanced RnD.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    3. Re:Safari : not just for iPhone? by larry+bagina · · Score: 1

      Actually, they do have a special deal with Mozilla.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  24. Safari Really Annoys Me by JamesRose · · Score: 1

    Apple is being deliberately obtuse, their GUI doesn't fit, lots of interface works differently, and it renders some pages wrong. Stop building programs that are meant to train people into using your operating system- it's a stupid idea cos you just end up with a program that seems not to work properly. Whereas maybe if they went and built a really good program, and program that looks good and acts as you think it should, they may actually sell you the idea to change to their operating system as you give them confidence in Apple's ability to code good programs.

    With this deliberate attempt to convert people to the church of Steve there's no way Safari will be a good contender, that's not what its built to be.

    As a separate point, 1million downloads I'd bet quite a large chunk is the firefox users who want to just check it out (don't want to use it). They say it could take a chunk out of IE, no it wont because the people who were going to change did, they went to firefox cos its better. Safari isn't better, and its not hte only alternative, so IE cant lose the market share that doesn't use third party browsers, and wont loose the market share that doees, cos if they were going to move, they'd have gone to ff.

    1. Re:Safari Really Annoys Me by astrosmash · · Score: 1
      Safari/Win32 serves two purposes:
      1. It allows web developers to verify that their web sites work with Safari, which is important to both the OS X and iPhone platforms since most developers don't have an extra Mac kicking around for testing. It's clear that Safari/Win32 was designed to render as close as possible to the native OS X version as possible, right down to the font rendering.
      2. It allows people who are curious about OS X to try out a fundamental OS X application, and in that sense you'd want that experience to be as authentic as possible. If Apple was serious about challenging IE and Firefox on Windows they would've developed a Windows web browser, but obviously not what they're trying to do. It's simply about increasing OS X exposure to those who are curious.
      --
      ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
  25. 1M downloads != 1M users by brundlefly · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nobody can know for sure, but many suspect that this isn't one million accountants and ebayers downloading Safari. It's more likely a combination of curious iPhone developers, eager Apple fanboys, and a bunch of your average browser-tier developers.

    No story here.

    1. Re:1M downloads != 1M users by deAtog · · Score: 1

      While I agree with the parent, I'm a bit questionable about the numbers that were quoted. I'm willing to bet the majority of the people who downloaded Safari, downloaded it twice. Once when it was initially released and again for the recently patched release.

    2. Re:1M downloads != 1M users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I downloaded it twice. The first and the second beta. Also, I uninstalled and deleted it twice. Crap browser. Yet I'm also twice included in this statistic, in an entirely different manner! Someone should run a script which downloads Safari 24/7. Then some idiotic blog like Slashbot comes with great zeal with a story like this one. Then the person who 24/7 downloaded Safari shows some logs. And there was much rejoice *waves.

  26. Apples extra spice ... by SplatMan_DK · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The reason Safari for Windows might actually be a serious competitor on the browser market, is because Apple has something many others have not: Talented GUI oriented developers who can add that extra "spice" that will make ordinary people actually switch IE7 with something else.

    Think about it. People with technical insight choose FF/Opera over IE because it offers them features that IE doesn't have. People without technical insight just don't care about these features - they don't use plug-ins, skins, or strange shortcut keys.

    If I were to convince "regular non-technical users" like my mother, aunt, neighbour, etc. to switch to a non-IE browser, I would need something that appealed to them. Fancy plug-ins ad strange/smart hotkeys is not what they are looking for - they want a sleek, graphically appealing and (for them) intuitive user experience.

    Apple is in the business of delivering that EXACT experience! Not too many fancy settings and details, just the sleek and appealing interface that common people understand.

    If Apple play their cards right, they could be a serious challenge.

    Personally I'll stick with FF (on all 3 platforms I use) but I can certainly understand why the less technical "common users" would fall for the "Apple experience". They are really good at adding that extra GUI spice ...

    --
    My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
    1. Re:Apples extra spice ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How is flat grey considered appealing? The brushed steel look is SO 2001. What's next? Lens-flares?

    2. Re:Apples extra spice ... by SplatMan_DK · · Score: 1

      I already wrote, that people who think skinning is the hottest thing since the deep plate, will stick to FF or something. If you think the colour of your browser is a very important thing, then get a skinnable browser. Just remember that not everybody feels as strongly about the colours as you do.

      (Some people think that skinning is SO 2001 ... but hey, each to his own *s*)

      Bottom line: Safari for Windows has a GUI that is more appealing to some users than IE7. On top of that it doesn't use the infamous new "Ribbons". Using Safari makes these non-technical users feel more "at home" than IE7 does.

      --
      My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
    3. Re:Apples extra spice ... by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 0, Troll

      they want a sleek, graphically appealing and (for them) intuitive user experience.


      If Safari is your idea of well designed or graphically appealing you either have a massive Jobs stalking issue, or you are not a graphic designer.

      Sadly IE7 on Vista is far prettier than Safari or even Safari running on OS X. It is also more intuitive for non-tech people.

      If a developer or graphic designer submitted Safari as an example of their work to me I would fire them.

      (PS I am part of a UI research group, and Apple has a lot to learn still.)

      1) Mac users threw a fit when MS tried to impose Windows UI ideals on them with Office back in the 90s, and MS scrapped Office and redesigned it from the ground up for the Mac UI guidelines. Apple needs to learn the same lesson that MS already 'gets'.

      2) UI paradigm. Futhering the Windows UI, MS is pushing the UI paradigm with IE7 and Vista by getting away from old concepts like menus and wasted screen space, again Apple needs to catch up, especially if they are going to keep forcing iCrap on Windows users.

      3) Performance, Stability. Apple software on Windows is horrible. From bad video performance, glitching sound, to crashes, Apple software is by far the most poorly written software from a major Software vendor. (Maybe Apple does this on purpose to make Windows look bad, or maybe their developers are just really stupid.)

      4) IE7, IE8... People seem to forget IE7 has come 200x from IE6 in implementing standards. To the point where it pretty much supports everything out there, the only thing it does bad is that it will still try to render 'old' or 'incorrect' pages, and for end users, this is a 'feature' to them, rather than getting a blank page or goofy looking page as you get on Safari.

      Safari has nothing on IE7 for standards other than it DOES NOT render improperly coded pages. People forget that the ACID2 test is to see if the browser will ignore 'bad' code, not whether it supports 'features' of standards.

      Also IE8 gets another massive standards surge and is coming this year.

      For non-technical users, here is how it plays out...

      Apple can't keep putting out Quicktime, iTunes, and now Safari with Mac UIs and poor performance and expect Windows users to 'see the light' and run to Apple. Instead it makes users think Apple is retarded and run the other way, vowing to never buy a Mac and avoid their software at all costs. Most PC users wouldn't buy iPods if they were forced to use iTunes before deciding on an MP3 player.

    4. Re:Apples extra spice ... by SplatMan_DK · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Personally I would agree with many of your points. But you overlook several important things, and make a lot of very bad errors for a "researcher". The most important one of them is so obvious, that if an employee from "a UI research group" submitted a report to me with such an obvious error I would fire him. (I guess that kinda fits that you would fire a graphical designer who submitted Safari as an example of his work?)

      You seem so focus on the ideas and opinions you have picked up in your job as "part of a UI research group" that you totally ignore the point in my first post. And that makes you a horrible researcher - with all respect. You should be a little more willing to LISTEN if you are so proud of being "in a UI research group" (you ARE pretty proud of that, right?).

      My own opinions aside (and I already admitted to using FF on all my 3 platforms), the non-technical users I know *DO* think that Apples UI is sleek and user-friendly. As a researcher it is not your job to tell them they are wrong - it is your job to investigate WHY they have that opinion, and which good things can be extracted from that.

      The next time you hear someone state "I know a lot of people who think Apple makes good and userfriendly apps" you should investigate. Not engage in heavy criticism colored by your personal opinions.

      No matter how much you mock Apple or their software on the Windows platform, it will not change the fact that a very large group of common end-users I know actually think that Apples look'n'feel is better than many other applications. That is not an issue for debate - it is a simple observation of their views on software.

      --
      My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
    5. Re:Apples extra spice ... by jlarocco · · Score: 1

      People with technical insight choose FF/Opera over IE because it offers them features that IE doesn't have.

      You lose. People with "technical insight" don't run Windows. You must be talking about somebody else.

    6. Re:Apples extra spice ... by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 1, Interesting

      that if an employee from "a UI research group" submitted a report to me with such an obvious error I would fire him. (I guess that kinda fits that you would fire a graphical designer who submitted Safari as an example of his work?)


      I am part of a research group, and as insane as this must sound to you, I am a member of more than one.

      Also as shocking as this might sound, not all my participation in certain research groups is for profit, as they are not my main source of work or income. You see, I also own a few companies and yes we have software development teams as well as marketing and graphics departments.

      (Don't be shocked, but not everyone that reads SlashDot lives in their parent's basement.)

      As for things I say, some are opinions, some are based on research data, and some are based on my work experience or current projects I am dealing with in the industry. However I am paid well for my opinions, research and consulting knowledge; so I don't take offense to you trying to dismiss my comments just because opinion could be a piece of the amalgamation of facts, research, and personal experience.

      Besides, Einstein wasn't offended by such dismissals either when he used personal insight along with research. ;)

    7. Re:Apples extra spice ... by msuarezalvarez · · Score: 1

      I love when people compare themselves to Einstein...

    8. Re:Apples extra spice ... by SplatMan_DK · · Score: 2, Insightful

      People with real technical insight use whatever suits a particular purpose for a particular task in a particular situation.

      Personally, I am a Windows, OSX and Linux user. I use the platform that suits my needs in different situations.

      Your statement makes you sound like a short-sighted religious type, who refuses to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different platform... like a member of a fanatic sect who mocks or offends other people's choices. It's almost like OS racism. ;-)

      If you want to promote what you believe to be the one-and-only platform, you better start taking diplomacy lessons ... mocking others will only alienate yourself and the platform you think you are "helping".

      --
      My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
    9. Re:Apples extra spice ... by SplatMan_DK · · Score: 1

      *LOL*

      That is perhaps the most patronising, egocentric and self-promoting post I have ever read on /.

      And your reply doesn't even address the criticism I gave you.

      If you had taken the time to review my profile, you would have known better than to insinuate that I am a common geek livining in my parents basement. I have a decent insight in matters of both business processes and software development. And certainly in the analysis of design specs and user experiences.

      I don't know what kind of people pays you consulting fees for your self-centred and coloured views on IT matters. And I don't know what companies you own. But I certainly do know, that if your reports or your companies are anything like your posts on /. I would advise my customers to stay the hell away from them.

      Keeping an open mind is (or at least should be) the top priority for any researcher or consultant.

      Responding to criticism with something OTHER that a long self-centred babble about how cool you supposedly are should be the second one.

      I believe, with all respect, that you have failed on both accounts.

      --
      My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
    10. Re:Apples extra spice ... by SplatMan_DK · · Score: 1
      For a "UI researcher" you certainly make strange statements.

      Most PC users wouldn't buy iPods if they were forced to use iTunes before deciding on an MP3 player.
      Would you care to provide some sources that support that statement?

      Every iPod owner I know of, had tried iTunes before they bought their iPod. In fact, many of them bought an iPod *BECAUSE* of iTunes. For common users, using an iPod with iTunes is a lot easier than using almost any other MP3 player with Windows Media or the horrible 3rd party media players that some of them are locked to (Sony devices for example are locked to Sonicstage).

      iTunes is missing a lot of features, sure, but the features it DOES have are easy to use and understand. The media library is easy to browse, ripping is easy, updates in the iPod firmware are 100% fully automated, and the terms of use for DRM protected files bought in iTunes are the best in the industry. I personally hate DRM but that does not change the fact that Apples DRM terms are more "friendly" that anybody else's. Even streaming digital music over wireless networks is easy with an AirTunes device. It all simply works.

      Because I am a more technical minded user, I am not using iTunes as my primary media app but I can definitely understand why my mother/aunt/neighbour would prefer it over other apps.
      --
      My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
    11. Re:Apples extra spice ... by jlarocco · · Score: 1

      If you want to promote what you believe to be the one-and-only platform, you better start taking diplomacy lessons ... mocking others will only alienate yourself and the platform you think you are "helping".

      Eh, it was mostly just a joke/troll. Honestly, I don't care what other people use as long as they don't force it on me. :-)

    12. Re:Apples extra spice ... by SplatMan_DK · · Score: 1

      ^true

      :-)

      --
      My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
    13. Re:Apples extra spice ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't have a problem with colors as long as they're not distracting. I find the obtrusive grey VERY distracting. I care not's about skinnable browsers; but is it to much to ask that you don't make it stick out like a sore thumb?

    14. Re:Apples extra spice ... by onosson · · Score: 1

      I agree, most FF users probably prefer functionality and customization in their software, people who might move to safari (from my experience with it) will be those who prefer appearance and simplified interface. That's also why I have stuck with windows over mac up to now (please, don't flame me to death on that!)

      That said, I do like itunes over other audio players (and I've tried tons of them), but really only for one thing - the way the library and playlists work.

      So far, I'm close to making a mac my next computer purchase, but if safari was meant to make a convert of people like me, it hasn't worked in this case...

      --
      ? syntax error
    15. Re:Apples extra spice ... by GalacticCmdr · · Score: 1

      The reason Safari for Windows might actually be a serious competitor on the browser market, is because Apple has something many others have not: Talented GUI oriented developers who can add that extra "spice" that will make ordinary people actually switch IE7 with something else.

      If that is true then why does Safari on Windows suck so bad. The interface looks like some throwback to Borland's "stamped tinfoil" in the BCC 5.0 days. I do understand it is supposed to be part of the "Mac" experience, but it smacks too much of the same crappy Java Swing interface where every Java program looks and acts like a Java program instead of a native application (thank the gods for SWT).

      --
      Programming: Its not just a job - its an indenture.
    16. Re:Apples extra spice ... by mlewan · · Score: 1
      I think you are missing the point. Why does Apple launch Safari for Windows? It is hardly to tempt Windows user to switch to MacOS X. If Safari for MacOS X had been such a good reason to switch, it would have been suicide to release it on Windows as well.

      The main reason is probably that they want people to get used to the UI to entice them to buy iPhones, or at least make them prepared to do so. And, no less, to make it easy for all the millions of Windows developers to write applications for the iPhone. And those being the reasons, they can of course not adapt the UI to Windows' look and feel.

      For the other Apple applications on Windows with non standard UI, I think they fit reasonably well with the Windows platform, as the standards are much less followed than on MacOS, with applications using old APIs, their own controls, and so on. If their had been a user (not expert) outrage, Apple would have heard it and changed the UI.

      Saying that Apple's UI is not perfect is of course true. But how many application developers have a perfect UI? Personally I intended to buy Vista when it came out, but I first tried it out and was so horrified by the lack of progress compared to XP, that I decided against it.

    17. Re:Apples extra spice ... by mlewan · · Score: 1
      "And your reply doesn't even address the criticism I gave you. "

      I actually do not think your "criticism" was polite enough to warrant a point by point answer by the author of the parent article.

    18. Re:Apples extra spice ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, are you ever egotistical.

      And apparently deluded as well.

      Good luck with your pseudo-companies, anyone with a whit of tech knowledge would smell you out as a rat in mere seconds.

  27. Windows version crashes by zymano · · Score: 1

    When trying to use passwords Safari will crash.

    Their site says the fastest browser but i really doubt that.

    1. Re:Windows version crashes by SplatMan_DK · · Score: 1

      Lets wait with the "it crashes when I use function XYZ" panic until it is officially released. An unreleased product is bound to have lots of errors.

      --
      My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
    2. Re:Windows version crashes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Their site says the fastest browser but i really doubt that."

      And doubting it, then posting that doubt, is so much more expedient than actually testing it, isn't it, slacker? Don't sprain your finger on that mouse button, now.

    3. Re:Windows version crashes by zymano · · Score: 1

      I did.

      Not as fast as firefox.

  28. Downloads aren't users by caseih · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I downloaded Safari right away just because it was there. I ran it, thought, oh that's nice. Maybe good for testing browser compatibility some day. Then went back to Firefox. Same thing with everyone I know who downloaded it. Certainly Safari on windows will never be anyone's primary browser. But it will certainly find uses. Testing web pages, iphone development, and of course embedding the engine in iTunes (did it use IE up til now?). Jobs claimed Safari was the best web browser on all platforms. I call BS. Even almost all mac users I know use firefox or camino because they need features and capabilities that safari just doesn't have. As far as features go, Safari is at the very back of the pack (worst). Even IE 7 is much better in terms of extensions, core feature set. Safari for Windows is the Steve Jobs reality distortion field at its finest.

    I do love how Safari for windows uses the nicer Cocoa font rendering. Really makes Windows' native font rendering look blocky and horrible. Does anyone know how to tweak freetype on linux to render the fonts closer to OS X? I already have hinting turned off and that helps, but the contrast of the fonts still isn't right (OS X fonts render a bit heavier, which I like on the screen).

    I also personally don't mind the cocoa widgets either. Cocoa looks nice and is highly functional. That's all I care about. Although it definitely would look very out of place on Vista. But on XP, I think it's fine.

    1. Re:Downloads aren't users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I guess I'm a little different than most, I have firefox on my mac, but i only rarly use it if i can not view a page in Safari. I prefer the clean interface over the fancy gadgets. If I need a gadget I can always pull it up, but seriously, If i just need to browse the web I would rather have a faster/cleaner browser without all the extra baggage. The same reason I ran Firefox under windows, but now i have a better choice. not everyone wants gadgets in there web browsers, some people just want there web browser well, to browse web pages!

    2. Re:Downloads aren't users by value_added · · Score: 1
      Does anyone know how to tweak freetype on linux to render the fonts closer to OS X? I already have hinting turned off and that helps, but the contrast of the fonts still isn't right (OS X fonts render a bit heavier, which I like on the screen).

      This is what I use on a FreeBSD laptop.

      Edit the file (your location will be different)

      /usr/ports/print/freetype2/work/freetype-2.1.10/in clude/freetype/config/ftoption.h
      by uncommenting the following

      #define TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER
      and recompiling freetype. IIRC, the above involves patent restrictions so by default, it's not used. Additionally, you can uncomment

      #define TT_CONFIG_OPTION_COMPONENT_OFFSET_SCALED
      People claim the results are similar enough to what they get on a Mac, but I can't claim to know with certainty as I customise things to suit my environment and my own preferences. That said, much depends on the fonts you use, and more importantly, the configuration in your ~/.fonts.conf file.

      Firefox, I believe, has some settings you can tweak, but I can't provide you with those. Most (all?) config files seem to be checked/rewritten at startup so they're impossible to document properly.
    3. Re:Downloads aren't users by gig · · Score: 1

      > Certainly Safari on windows will never be anyone's primary browser

      Certainly Safari v3 BETA for Windows will never be anyone's primary browser.

      It has been stated many times in this thread already that anyone who could download a browser to replace their IE has already done so and is using Firefox. When you see that 15% of PC's have Firefox on them that is exactly the right number.

      The primary distribution for Safari for Windows is going to be with iTunes for Windows, the single most popular third-party application for Windows. It will be in the download, which is very popular, and on the disc that accompanies iPods and most especially iPhones, which people install first thing when they get their iPod or iPhone. The iPhone user will really need it because after using Safari on the iPhone, they are going to notice how bad Explorer is.

    4. Re:Downloads aren't users by Sibko · · Score: 1

      I'd really like to use safari's font in firefox, is there a way to do this? [I checked the font Safari is using, and apparently it's Times New Roman, same as Firefox, so I must be missing something here.]

    5. Re:Downloads aren't users by caseih · · Score: 1

      Sadly this doesn't do what I want. These options do affect the shape of the letters, but not the weight. Apple fonts are heavier, and some claim fuzzier. Freetype's default antialiasing is more windows-like (even with these options you mention) and not nearly as dark.

    6. Re:Downloads aren't users by Nalgas+D.+Lemur · · Score: 1

      I use Safari on my iBook. Last time I tried it, Camino actually had fewer features that I use than Safari. I still keep it around in case something doesn't work right in Safari, but that hasn't happened for a while, especially since I started using nightly WebKit builds and now the Safari 3 beta (which have all been rather speedy and accurate lately). Firefox does have a bunch of neat extensions and stuff, but I rarely have a use for them, and it irritates me how obviously non-Mac-native it's been when I've tried it in the past. I know plenty of people who like and use each of the three. I just can't see why I personally would use one of the others.

      I totally agree about OS X's font rendering and subpixel antialiasing compared to ClearType in XP, though.

    7. Re:Downloads aren't users by value_added · · Score: 1

      Sorry to hear. Between all the default settings in the /etc/fonts.conf and your own fonts.conf, it's entirely possible you've missed something. Maybe start with increasing the hinting? One thing I've noticed is that increasing the background ambient lighting (directly behind your monitor) tends to make fonts appear a bit heavier.

      Me, I have everything the way I want, but that's only after investing an inordinate amount of time, and then, the final Eureka moment occurred only after some accidental change I honestly don't remember. I default to what most people call "teeny tiny" fonts, so I doubt own settings would satisfy you.

      Good luck.

    8. Re:Downloads aren't users by caseih · · Score: 1

      I'll continue to experiment.

      In the meantime, I don't think hinting is the answer. From what I can see, Apple's font appearance in large part comes from the fact that Apple doesn't do much hinting at all, allowing the full shape of the character to come out, albeit some people don't like it fuzzy. I think the parameters I want to control include the contrast and grey curves of the antlialiasing.

      The closest I can come to getting Mac-like fonts is to disable hinting entirely.

  29. What ever happened to IE 7? by twitter · · Score: 0, Troll

    A new browser - that will target a different userbase to FF & divide the market up a little more, will make the web a better place for everyone.

    I agree, but the IE 7 story shows that you don't have to worry much anymore. Despite being a forced upgrade on most Windoze platforms, IE 7 still has less than 20% market share even for tech markets. Design to real standards and everyone wins.

    The only stuff that still sucks is video, but the average windoze user can't see it either. Patented and restricted junk works that way and will be ignored by the vast majority of people for the duration.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

    1. Re:What ever happened to IE 7? by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      Despite being a forced upgrade on most Windoze platforms
      hardly a forced upgrade, i haven't installed it myself but iirc you have to allow "windows genuine advantage notifications" onto your system (something i'd rather not do even though i use legit windows, it just seems like another thing that could go wrong) and i think you have to agree to a specific license agreement for it as well.

      and its not availble (at least without some cracking work) for windows versions other than XP SP2 and vista.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
  30. and in other news, 999,990 of those... by dAzED1 · · Score: 1

    and in other news, 999,990 of those were mac users installing Safari on the Windows PCs they're forced to use as desktops as work. The other 10 people were simply bored, and slightly curious.

    1. Re:and in other news, 999,990 of those... by jkro · · Score: 0

      These 10 downloads that is me. Sorry, I got really bored.

  31. Oh great... by popo · · Score: 1

    Yet another platform to test my CSS / javascript / DHTML / Ajax on...

    Sigh...

    --
    ------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
    1. Re:Oh great... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree, there are enough quirks already. Unless Safari for Windows renders exactly the same as Safari for OS X, which I doubt...

    2. Re:Oh great... by gig · · Score: 1

      > Yet another platform to test my CSS / javascript / DHTML / Ajax on...
      > Sigh...

      No no no no you have it all wrong.

      The reason we had to test in every browser in the past is because they were all completely unique. Firefox and Safari are the only example of the end of that fucking disaster. They are the Web 2.0 vanguard, either one without the other is nothing. They make each other better in every way, at every level from the browser developers working together to make standards work, right up through consumer choice in browsers.

      Right now there are two camps: Firefox+Safari+WHATWG+W3C and most everyone else. Get on board one train or the other.

      For a year now I have been developing sites with either Firefox or Safari, and when I take it into the other browser at the END, it just works. The only exception to this has been when my code was broken and one browser was letting me get away with something and the other browser didn't. After I fixed the mistake in the code, every time I then got the same exact thing in both Firefox and Safari. And I'm doing lots of unobtrusive JavaScript, lots of CSS all the way to 2.1, all by hand, no libraries or templates that have been pre-tested. The reason I can do this is that both the WebKit (Safari) and Gecko (Firefox) teams have been working together one level down in the browser guts.

      Further: Safari is years and years old. Only the Windows and iPhone versions are new. If you are dismayed about Safari testing going forward, it is worse because you have already been serving Safari users for years, including Steve Jobs and 89% of San Francisco, all the time with no testing. But you were probably alright even though you didn't know it, because Safari/WebKit goes well out of its way to be standard so that you don't have to test in it.

      The Web is moving off the PC with the iPhone for the very first time. It's not going to be possible to test in every browser in 5 years, if it's even possible now (you haven't been testing in Safari yet because you didn't have a Mac, right?) so get over that idea.

      What I'm saying is if you have any frustration with non-standard browsers and browser testing, don't take it out on Safari or Firefox or those development teams. That is totally misplaced. Write Bill Gates a letter and attach the CSS 1 and 2 specifications, that is much more like it. Recommend that he move the JavaScript team into the same building as the rest of IE's developers.

    3. Re:Oh great... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Safari for windows renders exactly the same as safari for OS X.

    4. Re:Oh great... by popo · · Score: 1



      Huh?

      Which perfect world are you from? Firefox & Safari are miles apart if you work with Ajax or you're protecting against XSS. And there are loads of weird .js differences.

      --
      ------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
  32. The other people downloading Safari 3.0 for Win... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The other people downloading Safari 3.0 for Win are the techs that provide support that have tried to get the user to switch to FireFox, and met resistance... Safari is another example that can be used to reinforce the "Listen, seriously, Explorer isn't the only Web Browser you can use.. Your computer won't go boom if you use something other than IE... See?" message I and others like me try to give our clients..

    Options are good, we like to have options..

  33. Downloads =! users by Coopjust · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Downloads DOESN'T equal active users. Just because you download a browser, doesn't mean you're going to use it regularly, or even past the first time.

    I myself grabbed it for some light web development. And while I've used Safari on the Mac (blazing fast), the Windows version was extremely slow. Within a few minutes (5 tabs, same as the ones in Firefox), it hit 300MB. And the Firefox was up to 140MB (a bloat by any standard), but it had been open over a day.

    It may be a beta (and therefore has bugs), but I'm not using Safari actively, even though I downloaded it. I don't think it has enough compelling features to steal marketshare from IE yet.

  34. Backwards by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It seems more likley to me, that a casual user who is just roaming along using IE today and blissfully unaware of Firefox would be more likley to stuble upon or otherwise install Safari - especially if it's installed as part of the iPhone setup, but even just normal Apple marketing may reach them. Firefx users might rty it but are less likley to switch since it offers less over what they already have.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  35. Let's see you do something a million people are in by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Of course not all those million people are going to keep using it, but just like Firefox download counts it shows a certain level of interest that is impressive (in the case of Safari an impressive number for something that was only mentioned at a keynote at a developer confernce).

    Who knows if Safai will stick with many people, but Apple did a good job of getting the word out it is there.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  36. A developers opinion by wynler · · Score: 1

    As a web (among others) developer, having Safari on my machine is great.  I'll never use it except for testing my sites to make sure they'll look and function the same on a Mac.

    It'll save me from having to pester friends with Macs to send me screenshots of the website and trying to fix it.  I now have access to all the major browsers on the same box.

    Downloaded 3.0 and 3.0.1.  Safari will never be used as my browser, but I'm glad it's available on Windows as a development tool.

  37. Tough to count the curious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Downloaded Safari out of curiosity to my laptop. Used it or a couple of hours. It sucked. Removed it from my system. Better qestion is how many people are actually using the thig after 3 or 4 months.

    1. Re:Tough to count the curious by JamesRose · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure we have the numbers in for that yet.... :P

  38. Yes we know.... by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    You are used ot ineriour font rendering, and prefer things that way - it was good enouh for Grandpa dammit!

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  39. A million? Doubtful by Ided · · Score: 0

    Lets not forget that 5 minutes after it's initial release all the bugs that were found. Those were just people going back trying to download Safari again and hope it fixed the disastrous browsing experience they just had.

  40. Konqueror? Don't make me laugh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If it ain't by Apple, it sucks. Take your amateur written, crap software and shove it.

  41. (Correction) looks much worse with Firefox (NT) by kanweg · · Score: 1

    the web app looks much worse with Firefox

  42. Re:Put into perspective :-) by runningduck · · Score: 1

    There is one major difference, enthusiasts were interested in downloading FF1.0 because they wanted it for their primary browser whereas people are curious about Safari on Windows. You could forward an argument that the same initial million that downloaded FF1.0 are core technologists and wanted to take a peak at Safari. I am sure that many of the curious will continue to use Safari, but there is not the pent-up demand and anticipation for Safari that there was for FF. Now we will have to see how Apple translates this initial surge into a sustained user base.

    --
    -rd
  43. Not if it takes it from FF by PlainBlack · · Score: 1

    The summary seems to automatically assume that the the people downloading and converting to safari are Internet Exploder users. It's more likely that they are alternative browser users like Firefox and Opera. The 75% that IE has left isn't likely to leave anytime soon simply because they either don't know that other browsers exist, what a browser is (the difference between IE and Outlook for example), or are too lazy to care.

  44. Re:KDE 4 Konqueror KHTML by Sensible+Clod · · Score: 1

    "Gaol" posts? I thought you were misspelling something else, but then I realized "gaol" is an old spelling of "jail". Interesting.

    --

    The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
  45. And Uninstalled 1 million times by gtinferno · · Score: 5, Funny

    There! I said it.

  46. iTunes bundle? by charliehamsandwich · · Score: 1

    One million downloads of Safari for Windows? My bet is that these were mostly curious users and that after the initial torrent, Safari downloads will taper off.

    My guess is that Safari for Windows will mature as a beta and than become a part of the iTunes download bundle. I remember back a handful of years ago when I refused to put Quicktime on my system because it seemed lame/apple-y-obtrusive on my pristine Win2k box. Fast forward a few years, I've got an iPod, and iTunes, and along comes Quicktime with every iTunes download/update.

    If Apple does the same thing with Safari as they did with Quicktime (i.e bundle it with iTunes), we could see a really large installed user base for WinSafari. And all the delicious Google ad search revenue that comes with it.

  47. Re:IF by iknownuttin · · Score: 3, Funny
    Yeah, and if your auntie had balls, she'd be your uncle.

    My uncle is a transvestite you insensitive clod!

    --
    I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
  48. Re:KDE 4 Konqueror KHTML by Columcille · · Score: 1

    You do realize that the unified nature of Konqueror, for which you give it such high praise, would be present with IE had Microsoft not been accused of monopolistic practices for doing that sort of thing?

    And referring to Windows as ugly while implying Linux isn't? At worst, XP was plain. Vista is quite nice looking. One of the big drawbacks of Linux is the frequently bulky/ugly interface. A lot of that is personal preference, but I daresay far more people would agree with me than with you.

    You lose a few more points by lamely saying "windoze" as if that somehow lends force to your argument. Call it by its name, or look like the teenager you probably are.

    --
    I love my sig.
  49. don't count my download by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've downloaded Safari, because as a web developer I find it convenient to see how my work renders on a mac without having to boot up a mac.

    I'm all for Safari competing with FF and IE, but only if it respects the windows interface. It's a good browser interface for OSX, but on Windows it stands out, it's completely inconsistent with the rest of the windows interface and the only good reason for a design decision like that is to make mac users moving to windows a little more comfortable during the transition, or vice versa.

    Apple's smug-arrogant attitude is funny when it manifests as a humourous TV spot or cinema ad, but when they let themselves start breaking unity of design then they need a spell on the naughty step.

  50. Safari v. Firefox downloads comparison? by cenonce · · Score: 1

    How long did it take the first version of Firefox to get to 1 million downloads as compared to Safari?

    That may say something about how the general public feels about open source offerings v. closed source offerings outside of Microsoft. Note: I am not making any comparisons about the quality of Firefox v. Safari (I use both, I like both), so don't blast me off Slashdot...

    I am just wondering what it says, if anything, about the general public's perspective.

    1. Re:Safari v. Firefox downloads comparison? by RootWind · · Score: 1

      I don't think it says anything about the general public's perspective besides the fact that Apple has brand power. The general public doesn't care if something is open-source or close-sourced. Ask a non-geek why they use the browser they use. I am pretty sure open-source vs. closed-source won't be one of the reasons. I would imagine that if Sun was the one who released Safari (even with a press event), no one would care. Heck, if Apple released a modified Firefox or Opera, I bet it would still get the same amount of downloads, if not more.

  51. Buggy As Hell...Sorry by blueZhift · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Over a million downloads of Safari for Windows probably means a whole lot of disappointed people at this point. I personally have had nothing but trouble with Safari, textless menus and lockups. I finally gave up and uninstalled the thing. I know that betas are test versions, but honestly, Safari for Windows feels more like alpha class software right now. The general public should not be using this right now. I think they rushed this out in this bad condition because Steve Jobs wanted to talk about it and Safari as the host for 3rd party apps on the iPhone. It's always a bad thing when software is released to the public too soon in order to satisfy some marketing goal.

    1. Re:Buggy As Hell...Sorry by kloeck · · Score: 1

      Same experience here! The first website was not displayed correctly, on the second website safari died, then I uninstalled it. I might try the RC again, but I will now definitely wait a while for user reports before I buy the iPhone. 1 Million downloads means 1 Million disappointed people, and a tarnished reputation for Apple, that will rub off on their other offerings. I think this was a huge mistake.

  52. Re:KDE 4 Konqueror KHTML by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > One of the big drawbacks of Linux is the frequently bulky/ugly interface.

    Linux doesn't have a GUI, what the hell are you talking about?

    When KDE is ported to Windows, will Windows inhereit this supposed big drawback?

  53. Enjoy your burry text... by Blahbooboo3 · · Score: 1

    Maybe some of us working on LCD computer screens don't like blurry text? I am not a "printer" so I could care less if my fonts are sharper than printed. The lack of font on-screen sharpness is one of the reasons I still haven't switched to macs.

    1. Re:Enjoy your burry text... by Goaway · · Score: 2, Funny

      Why are you going on about printers?

    2. Re:Enjoy your burry text... by Blahbooboo3 · · Score: 1

      Apple's on-screen font smoothing is designed to better replicate the actual printed text appearance. Microsoft ClearType makes text as sharp as possible for best on-screen display and doesn't try to match what it would exactly look like printed.

  54. Re:KDE 4 Konqueror KHTML by Goaway · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All your other blue-eyed optimism aside, this is particularly funny:

    and won't go thunk in the night when Bill Gates "upgrades" things to break your work

    You know, it's really open source software that's known for making arbitrary upgrades that break backwards compatibility (and keeping version numbers below 1 so they have an excuse - hey, it's just beta!), while Windows goes to great pains to preserve backwards compatibility at all costs, even at the detriment of the system as a whole.

  55. Half a million downloaded it... by Thabenksta · · Score: 5, Funny

    Then the same half a million downloaded it again the next day for the bug fixes.

    --
    There's nothing wrong with anything - Phillip J. Fry
  56. Fanboy orgasm?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    This number just proves that 1. There are only one million Mac fanboys who occasionally use windows 2. This number would not go up further, because all the McBoys have downloaded their share of the browser. But because its tied up with iTunes, a lot of dumb users (which, like, includes, like, all iTune users) would not even know if they have an option NOT to install safari on their windows box, I expect the number to keep increasing, but with no real market share. Now mod me down.

    1. Re:Fanboy orgasm?? by Cygfrydd · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Why waste mod points on an AC?

      @yg

  57. Regular Users? by morari · · Score: 1

    Doubtful. I only downloaded it to test websites I build. I never much liked it on Mac OS and I like it even less out of its natural environment.

    --
    "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
  58. Apple, Schmapple. by flicman · · Score: 1

    I downloaded the Safari Beta.

    Three times. Make sure I'm counted in the MILLION INSTALL MARCH figures.

    First time: locked up my system during install.

    Second time: installed fine, but there was no menu bar text and my keyboard was somehow disabled, because when I found the search box in Apple's default page (the cursor was 15px down and right of where it should have been), that didn't take input the same way the address bar didn't take input.

    Third time: after a fresh restart and a check to make sure that there was no residual information from either previous install - almost the same result as my second try. This time, though, the menus dropped down when I clicked where they should be, but there was still no text in any of it. Still no use of my keyboard.

    I get that a Beta is a Beta, but since when is Apple in the business of releasing shitty software? I know this won't cool the HARDCORE MAC FANBOYS' ardor for their beloved white boxes, but maybe people who just like their iPods will start to understand that Apple has surged all the way to 5% of the market (or whatever) for a reason - they're just not ready to write software that runs outside their little sandbox.

    1. Re:Apple, Schmapple. by argent · · Score: 1

      Um. Why did you download the same file three times?

      Did you suppose that you would magically get *different files* if you downloaded them twice?

  59. Safari for Windows Downloaded Over 1 Million Time by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 1
    Safari for Windows Downloaded Over 1 Million Times

    10 Million more Windows crashes reported.

    Of course, the question is: Who gets the blame over this. Microsoft, or Fake Steve Jobs?

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  60. Why assume Firefox? by ei2 · · Score: 1

    Im not sure why everyone assumes you would use FF if you knew it existed. Ive been a web dev for a long time, and still use IE as my default browser. It works with the add-in software I have, and Im seeing web sites as MOST people see them - kind of a clincher in the profession if you ask me. Of course I have all major browsers installed, and the new Safari is nice for testing on my PC for sure.

    FF is not the end all be all of browsers - this is slashdot, so I know Im being blasphemous!

    But hey, I still use tables for layout, so what do I know...

  61. Re:KDE 4 Konqueror KHTML by Columcille · · Score: 1

    an interface doesn't have to be graphical, that's why it's called a command line interface :P But yes, I was referring more specifically to the gui's made available via KDE, Gnome, Fluxbox, etc etc.

    --
    I love my sig.
  62. Re:I downloaded it... by E+IS+mC(Square) · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Only in a Mac Land, the trolls are funny. Way to go Mac Moderators.

  63. Why Switch? by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 1
    Why switch to Safari if you already have Firefox?

    And neither runs ActiveX, meaning IE won't go away any time soon.

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
    1. Re:Why Switch? by argent · · Score: 1

      Safari is faster, more standards-compliant, and potentially more secure than Firefox.

  64. Still Won't Install With Crossover by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I still can't get the Windows version of Safari to install under Linux using Crossover, so I suppose I'll miss out on the Safari experience.

    I enjoy using Konqueror, but I wish it was able to use the Mozilla extensions. I find myself using Mozilla more and more because of the additional functionality the extensions offer. Rather than hack Konqueror to use off-the-shelf Mozilla extensions, perhaps someone could just write an extension to Mozilla to allow full integration into KDE?

  65. My experience with Safari by himanshuarora · · Score: 2, Informative

    Step 0: Use Firefox. Step 1: Read on Slashdot, "Safari on Windows" Step 2: Google, "Safari download" Step 3: Safari downloaded. Step 4: Safari installed. Step 5: Wow! Safari is so coool. Step 6: Import bookmarks from Firefox. Step 7: Open 5-6 heavy websites, like Calendar, Gmail on both Firefox and Safari. Step 8: Safari is able to render the pages better, wow!! Step 9: Close Firefox. Step 9: After 5 minutes, safari crashed. Step 10: Open Firefox, forget Safari. Step 11: Happy!!

    --
    Spam: Any activity on internet to gain popularity without paying to advertising companies like Google.
    1. Re:My experience with Safari by himanshuarora · · Score: 1

      Ooops forgot to put brs.
      Step 0: Use Firefox.
      Step 1: Read on Slashdot, "Safari on Windows"
      Step 2: Google, "Safari download"
      Step 3: Safari downloaded.
      Step 4: Safari installed.
      Step 5: Wow! Safari is so coool.
      Step 6: Import bookmarks from Firefox.
      Step 7: Open 5-6 heavy websites, like Calendar, Gmail on both Firefox and Safari.
      Step 8: Safari is able to render the pages better, wow!!
      Step 9: Close Firefox.
      Step 9: After 5 minutes, safari crashed.
      Step 10: Open Firefox, forget Safari.
      Step 11: Happy!!

      --
      Spam: Any activity on internet to gain popularity without paying to advertising companies like Google.
  66. Re:Let's see you do something a million people are by asylumx · · Score: 1

    You mean by getting it posted on slashdot? If I hadn't seen it here, I wouldn't even know it came out for Windows. Slashdot should start charging for these ads... I mean stories...

  67. Safari's fonts, color space support by kherr · · Score: 2, Informative

    Safari offers two things that no other browser offers: Apple's font rendering and color space recognition of images. Lots of Windows people seem to hate Apple's font rendering, but as a Mac user I prefer it. Windows font rendering seems ugly.

    The color space stuff is a big deal to photographers, and it's very annoying that no other browser seems to respect the ICC color profile in images. I've seen a lot of discussion about Firefox versus Safari on the Mac and why Firefox seems to "wash out" images. It's really a shame Firefox doesn't respect ICC color profiles, it's such an obvious thing for a browser to do.

    So maybe yeah, Safari isn't as "powerful" as Firefox or MSIE. But it offers an easy-to-use, standards-compliant browsing experience with a level of display rendering not found in other browsers. Many people may not be impressed, but just as many may find it more to their liking. Time will tell.

    1. Re:Safari's fonts, color space support by griblik · · Score: 1

      Lots of Windows people seem to hate Apple's font rendering, but as a Mac user I prefer it. Windows font rendering seems ugly. Funny you should say that, I'd just changed that on my kit when I read your post.

      Probably old news to many here, but try going to your desktop properties, hit the appearance tab > Effects > Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts > Cleartype - ok and apply. Your font rendering should look a hell of a lot better. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it looks like a modern professional job.

      I've no idea why that's not turned on by default, because as you say, the default font rendering in Windows is butt ugly.
      --
      Warning: May contain nuts
    2. Re:Safari's fonts, color space support by gig · · Score: 2, Interesting

      > Safari offers two things that no other browser offers: Apple's font rendering and color space recognition of images.

      In other words, publishing production standards instead of PC production standards.

      This will be especially important when we have 300 dpi displays, because at that point, all of the "screen" based media becomes obsolete and the screen becomes just another print medium. We will show things in inches/cm and the computer will use as many pixels as it can. That is the whole idea behind the PDF-based graphics in Mac OS X, it's already a print medium just waiting to grow up.

      Microsoft seems to have missed the memo. They're still relying on Verdana's squareness to hide their font rendering flaws. Any Adobe app has better font rendering than Windows.

    3. Re:Safari's fonts, color space support by toddestan · · Score: 1

      To make the Windows font rendering look even better try the tuner:

      http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tune r/Step1.aspx (probably needs to be done in IE)

      I don't really get the Apple font smoothing. If I wanted my LCD to look like a CRT I would just use the CRT.

    4. Re:Safari's fonts, color space support by larry+bagina · · Score: 1

      cleartype is only intended for LCD monitors. (although, having tried it on a CRT, I think it was a slight improvement).

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    5. Re:Safari's fonts, color space support by TropicalCoder · · Score: 1

      Wow! What a difference that made on my LCD monitor. So much more readable. Thanks for the tip.

    6. Re:Safari's fonts, color space support by tuxedobob · · Score: 1

      Well, if your monitor had told your computer what kind it was...

      Or do you just not like the antialiasing at all?

    7. Re:Safari's fonts, color space support by toddestan · · Score: 1

      I don't like Apple's antialiasing. Windows does a pretty decent job of rendering the text to look nice, particularly on high DPI screens (such as on laptops) making it easier to read. Apple's is just too blurry, like a lower quality CRT.

  68. useless crap by stud9920 · · Score: 1

    tried it.

    No pornzilla; No navigation with mouse buttons 4&5. Useless crap.

  69. Windows isn't done . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    . . . until Lotus doesn't run.

    And numerous other instances that give lie to your statement that "... Windows goes to great pains to preserve backwards compatibility at all costs ..."

    They do when it benefits them. They don't when it hurts a competitor. It's business, not a charity, not a religious quest.

    Expect MS to protect their market share in the typical way they have done in the past, not by being far and away the best choice there is, driving the market to them, but by seducing the customer with marketing hype and entrapping them with licensing and non-open protocols and formats.

    1. Re:Windows isn't done . . . by Planesdragon · · Score: 1

      And numerous other instances that give lie to your statement that "... Windows goes to great pains to preserve backwards compatibility at all costs ..."

      The phrase was "DOS isn't done..."

      Windows is not DOS. In fact, virtually every single design bug in windows can be attributed to either a desire to maintain backwards compataibility, or a final decision to draw a line and say "NO! Bad developer!"

    2. Re:Windows isn't done . . . by LocalH · · Score: 1

      And it was completely false anyway, they never actively worked to break 1-2-3.

      --
      FC Closer
  70. right mouse button does nothing! by DragonTHC · · Score: 1

    this is a niche product for niche people.

    controls are dumbed down too much for me.

    --
    They're using their grammar skills there.
    1. Re:right mouse button does nothing! by geekoid · · Score: 1

      "controls are dumbed down too much for me."
      That makes you the niche market.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    2. Re:right mouse button does nothing! by zugurudumba · · Score: 1

      That's because Apple computers use single-button mice.

      --
      Sig
    3. Re:right mouse button does nothing! by tuxedobob · · Score: 1

      Replace your mouse. Right-click works fine (at least in the Mac version).

  71. Re:KDE 4 Konqueror KHTML by Shulai · · Score: 1

    There is a difference in philosophy: Windows must keep compatibility because of angry customers willing to keep using a bunch of valuable software they bought. On the other hand, as you can upgrade your FOSS without licensing costs, they don't care so much about that.

    Anyway, I guess most Microsoft upgrade breakages are because of sloppiness, not because planned behavior changes.
    Breakages in daily updates are a different matter, I guess based not only on sloppiness, but on keeping building their castle of cards becoming impossible. There you appreciate FOSS fixing problems before compatibility inconveniences become compatibility nightmares.

  72. I dont know about you guys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    but as a web developer i fear new browsers!

    each (ie, ff, O ... etc) seem to follow 'standards' in slightly different ways and it becomes a very painful job to determine why some code works on one and not on others... more players means more problems

  73. Why? Safari is just an SDK! by mattgreen · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Or at least that is what I was told by several people numerous times in the last Safari thread. Why are end users downloading and running this "SDK" as if it is an actual browser?

    Either its a browser or its an SDK. It doesn't change its role based on whether the news is good or bad.

    1. Re:Why? Safari is just an SDK! by argent · · Score: 1

      It doesn't change its role based on whether the news is good or bad.

      No, it changes its role depending on why you're downloading it, and who you are.

      I don't know how many people read slashdot, but if the idea that some of them might have different opinions than others disturbs you enough to post about it, you have lived a suspiciously sheltered life.

  74. Re:KDE 4 Konqueror KHTML by jZnat · · Score: 1

    For the reasons you state, I somewhat agree; KDE 4.0 probably won't be nearly as good on Windows (or Mac) as it will be on Free operating systems (i.e., ones using Xorg or X11 in general), but it's worth trying. Show Windows users all the great things they are missing when their software is free and other developers can add on, fix, secure, and generally improve on others' work in order to release the best software possible. Also, it's good for us who may be forced to use Windows temporarily in some situations beyond our control.

    --
    'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
  75. Not true by geekoid · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sorry to reply twice, but I got curious because I didn't notice the right mouse not working. I went and tried it. The right mouse button works just like it does for Firefox.

    What the hell are you tlkaing about?

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    1. Re:Not true by zugurudumba · · Score: 1

      Forgvie him, he was jsut udner the wethre.

      --
      Sig
  76. I like it by chifut · · Score: 1

    I like the look and feel of Safari. Yes, shortcuts don't work, it doesn't have the flashblok and etc.. but I use it just from from time to time.. to get a little change.. Gmail works fine with it and there is no need for adblock/flashblock there..

    It's a change, from the clumsy Firefox.. Everything is so smooth with Safari.. When I saw Safari, I said to my self - if I had the money to spend, I'd buy a Mac..
    I wonder how many people will buy a Mac, just because they saw Safari on Windows.. I know I would.

    Ha, there is a nice feature right there - in Safari you can resize your textboxes (the multi-lines ones..). That's awesome!

  77. Re:KDE 4 Konqueror KHTML by Aladrin · · Score: 0

    KIO Slaves are one of things that keeps me using Kubuntu as my main OS. Unfortunately, they don't work with non-KDE programs without some serious kludges, like a special FUSE app. (I'm not sure 'app' is the right word, but 'driver' isn't, and 'plugin' isn't... 'File system' seems awful redundant.)

    The ability to quickly access files on other computers without mounting or any preparation whatsoever is a great timesaver for me. Topped off with the fact that I love Quanta (after trying many other editors) and K3B, the only thing left is complete compatibility with games... Wine just isn't good enough for this yet. Major games like WoW play well, but still with nowhere NEAR the speed and special effects that Windows has natively. It's getting there, but it's not enough yet.

    Konqueror though... Well, it even renders Slashdot funny, when Safari doesn't. It cuts off the ends of posts constantly, and things like the reply links don't appear quite often. No other browser has this problem. It's got a long way to go to even catch up with Safari, which is kind of sad.

    --
    "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
  78. i would like to try safari by yaiba · · Score: 0

    if it works in Linux (via wine) anyone tried it?

    1. Re:i would like to try safari by nikostheater · · Score: 1

      I tried to run Safari in PClinuxOs but no luck...

      --
      Bill Gates said:"I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine" My favorite number is 09 F9 11 02 9D 74
    2. Re:i would like to try safari by gchat · · Score: 1

      I tried to run Safari in PClinuxOs but no luck... Wait... you mean you could run it on PClinuxOs? I was lucky enough that my install was broken!
  79. The first hit is always free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You must not be a very good businessman. Those VM images expire.

    Think about it, why are you doing Microsoft QA?

  80. Re:KDE 4 Konqueror KHTML by symbolic · · Score: 1

    I'm a linux fan (for 10+ years), but what has kept me from taking Konqueror seriously were some rather unfortunate development decisions with respect to the UI. One thing in particular that drove me away was the bookmarks menu that hijacks the entire screen. I realize that some people actually like this (I for the life of me can't figure out why), but it was enough of an irritant for me to consider something else. Firefox has been my preferred browser ever since.

  81. Re:I downloaded it... by sco08y · · Score: 0, Troll

    Only in a Mac Land, the trolls are funny. Way to go Mac Moderators.

    Which one was the troll? The guy pimping his blog (if he honestly wanted to debate he'd post it to /.) or the guy pointing out, correctly, that we don't care about his blog?

  82. And therefore... by Space+cowboy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ... from a Mac user's perspective, looks about as appealing as old 80x25 terminal text. Text on a PC looks anaemic and blocky compared to properly-rendered text on a Mac.

    Now this is just my opinion, and let's face it - it's all totally subjective anyway - but there's no way I'd be happy with that sort of text output.

    Simon.

    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
    1. Re:And therefore... by poopdeville · · Score: 1

      This isn't really a subjective issue. According to classical typographic theory, Apple's approach improves readability while Microsoft's hinders it.

      --
      After all, I am strangely colored.
    2. Re:And therefore... by Blahbooboo3 · · Score: 1

      Yet, side by side under windows, the text while reading it on my 1600x1200 LCD at about 1-2 feet away, the text is much blurrier in Safari than Firefox. Happy to post screen shots for you if you like :D

    3. Re:And therefore... by SEMW · · Score: 1

      This isn't really a subjective issue. According to classical typographic theory, Apple's approach improves readability while Microsoft's hinders it. Well, yes, that's correct; but the point is that classic typography theory evolved several hundred years before computer screens, and breaks down in several places with them; mostly due to the much lower resolution of screens (72-100 dpi) as opposed to paper (>300 dpi). For example, classic typography theory holds that serif fonts are easier to read than sans-serif fonts; but in a low resolution situation (i.e. small fonts on a computer screen), serifs can hinder readability in many cases. Classic typography theory was not developed with the use of a grid of pixels in mind.
      --
      What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
    4. Re:And therefore... by larry+bagina · · Score: 1

      Donald Knuth wrote the book on computer fonts and typography. You can disagree with him if you want, but the Apple approach is inline with his research.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    5. Re:And therefore... by poopdeville · · Score: 1

      Certainly, this is even true with respect to the OS X port of Firefox. Firefox's font rendering is sharp to the point of blockiness. And it's harder to read than Safari's rendering of the same typeface.

      --
      After all, I am strangely colored.
  83. People will download anything by Animats · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm always amazed at what people will download. I used to have a plug-in for Softimage|3D, the high-end animation system, on my web site. To download it, you even had to fill out a form. Yet thousands of people downloaded it, more than could possibly use it for anything. Even after I added large type warnings that you must have Softimage|3D to use this thing, there were still people downloading it. Even after Softimage|3D was discontinued.

  84. not using firefox since.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ..it bugged out a couple of times, got slow and stuff. not saying safari was an ace at the time but safari suddenly improved greatly and hence I use it primarly now.

    m10

  85. Downloaded and Uninstalled in 5 mins by mesostructure · · Score: 1

    Yesterday I downloaded it, installed it, used it to browse a couple of most common web sites (CNN, Yahoo, Google, Slashdot!, etc). Well, it's as bad as iTune and Quicktime for Windows. Slow, ugly, and the most important thing for a browser, page rendering. I know it's a beta, but it's from Apple, not from some kids lived in the basement. Used it for 2-3 minute, got enough of it, I uninstalled it (uninstall was pretty quick!).

    --
    Default your Oracle EBS with success !
    1. Re:Downloaded and Uninstalled in 5 mins by tuxedobob · · Score: 1

      Your S key seems to be broken at the end of words?

      Slow, ugly, and the most important thing for a browser, page rendering.

      Did you want to say something about the page rendering or just felt like typing those letters?

  86. I doubt it by DrXym · · Score: 1

    I used Safari for about 10 minutes, realised it was a pre-alpha mess and have no intention of using again. I expect if 1 million people did download it (which sounds like puffery), that many were like me. Perhaps if Apple pull their finger out and produce a Windows look & feel version I may give it another shot. Otherwise I don't see much draw.

    1. Re:I doubt it by gig · · Score: 1

      > Perhaps if Apple pull their finger out and produce a Windows look & feel version I may give it another shot. Otherwise I don't see much draw.

      Which of the various Windows looks and feels would you like Apple to use? Even if you only target Vista you have at least two entirely different looks.

    2. Re:I doubt it by DrXym · · Score: 1

      It's easy. Use the theme engine and no matter how your widgets are implemented, they will render in the current theme and the correct metrics. XP and Vista have a single uxtheme.dll with documented functions that allow for this. For example Firefox and Java do not use native widgets yet they still render in the correct way - because they use the theme engine.

  87. Re:I downloaded it... by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

    Hm? PithHelmet works great with Safari on the Mac to block ads.

  88. Re:KDE 4 Konqueror KHTML by Goaway · · Score: 1

    There is a difference in philosophy: Windows must keep compatibility because of angry customers willing to keep using a bunch of valuable software they bought. On the other hand, as you can upgrade your FOSS without licensing costs, they don't care so much about that.

    No licensing costs, sure, but it is only free if your time is worth nothing to you.

    In the best case, you can recompile a fresh version. In the intermediate case, you have to deal with all the changes in the new version of your software, update configurations, fix breakages, teach your employees the new version... And in the worst case, the software is abandoned and not updated for the changes in its dependencies, meaning you either have to spend a huge effort to learn and update the code, or you're just dead.

  89. No, free software does not do that. by twitter · · Score: 1

    You know, it's really open source software that's known for making arbitrary upgrades that break backwards compatibility ...

    That makes no sense and contradicts experience. I've been using PCs since 1989 and have no attachment to any tech company outside of using their stuff. Non free software is more jerky and harder on the user by far than free software.

    In six years of Debian desktop use, this has hardly been an issue for me. I've done dist-upgrades for three different releases and they all worked. The last two times, from Woody to Sarge and then from Sarge to Etch, were perfect. All along the software has played nice - Gnome works well under KDE, KDE under Gnome, everything under Window Maker, Enlightenment etc. I can not only cut and paste across applications, I can do it across the network, through multiple hops.

    I can compare that to more than ten years of Windoze desktop use before XP and what people tell me about it since, but there's really no comparing the two. The M$ upgrade train is effective. Everything you have degrades, even if you are able to use it, and the effort required to keep things up forces you to buy new shit which breaks your old work. The platform itself has been devastated by M$ and is now basically M$ only. M$ has driven all competition away whenever there's a buck to be made and they do it at everyone else's expense, especially the poor end user who ends up having to redo all of their work.

    The only problems I have with free software is when I try to mix it up with non free. The non free people are unable to co-operate and their shit gets broken when changes are made. It's brittle and the more of it you have, the closer you get to the M$ experience.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

    1. Re:No, free software does not do that. by Goaway · · Score: 2, Interesting

      In six years of Debian desktop use, this has hardly been an issue for me. I've done dist-upgrades for three different releases and they all worked.

      Because you are using mainstream software supported by your distro provider. Which they have to do because if they didn't, stuff would keep breaking. Distros exists largely to deal with this very problem! The fact that they manage to work around the problem in a large number of cases doesn't mean there isn't an underlying problem being worked around.

  90. Integration != Anti-Trust. by twitter · · Score: 0, Troll

    You do realize that the unified nature of Konqueror, for which you give it such high praise, would be present with IE had Microsoft not been accused of monopolistic practices for doing that sort of thing?

    No, M$ was convicted of monopolistic practices for systematically undermining competition, not for adding features. Changing defaults against user preferences, handing other developers SDKs and APIs that are second rate, outright sabotage and vendor manipulation are the things that got them in trouble along with dumping. It's not that they made a browser and integrated it, it's that they forbid retailers from installing alternatives, and sabotaged those alternatives.

    Anti-trust concerns are a lame excuse for not having features, but they clearly don't care about monopoly practices. They are currently screwing anti-virus and security software makers like they did Netscape. The Plays for Sure digital restrictions fiasco has been called one of the largest vendor betrayals in history. The reason M$ does not have a nicely integrated desktop is because they are wasting their time and money on sabotage and digital restrictions.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

  91. Re:KDE 4 Konqueror KHTML by twitter · · Score: 1

    Konqueror though... Well, it even renders Slashdot funny, when Safari doesn't. It cuts off the ends of posts constantly, and things like the reply links don't appear quite often. No other browser has this problem.

    I have not noticed those problems on Etch. There were some minor issues with discussion 2, but those cleared up long ago.

    It takes months to discover the KDE way of doing things, but it's almost always easier. Simple things, like split panes, go a long way in many situations but people who have not used them since Win3.1 will take a while to discover how useful they are.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

  92. Re:I downloaded it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds like you haven't look hard enough. No problem here with Safari plugins here on Mac, and if you don't like ad-blocking plugins, you can use custom CSS file to block 90% of ads.

  93. Re: Safari for Windows Downloaded Over 1 Million T by nebulus4 · · Score: 0

    "10 Million more Windows crashes reported. Of course, the question is: Who gets the blame over this. Microsoft, or Fake Steve Jobs?"

    When a browser is able to crash the OS then hell yeah, you can blame it on Microsoft or whoever made the OS.

    --
    "It would be wrong to refuse to face the fact that everything is fundamentally sick and sad."
  94. How Apple cheated on benchmarks by g8oz · · Score: 4, Informative

    Basically the Safari fires the onload event before the document is ready. This gives the mistaken impression in some test suites that it is faster than it really is.

    http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/safaribenchmarks.html

    1. Re:How Apple cheated on benchmarks by 1110110001 · · Score: 1

      But the numbers are not completely wrong. I.e. Safari has a very fast Javascript engine. I've written an animation similar to the old tunnel effect in a DOS screensaver: http://leaf.host.edtinger.at/temp/tun.html - Click on the block to start the animation. You'll see how slow Firefox or IE is compared to Safari or Opera. I guess you could also create some complex HTML/CSS for a subjective comparison of the rendering engines.

  95. I tried it. by MulluskO · · Score: 1

    It has really nice font smoothing. Superior to firefox+windows in that respect. The address bar as progress bar is neat also.

    That said, I'm probably among the 100 people in the world that actually use the keyword feature of firefox. Meaning I type 'wiki term' in my address bar and it searches wikipedia for that term, with similar keywords for other common searches. This page gives you an idea of what you can do with the firefox keywords. I prefer not to display the search bar.

    Safari won't let you set up keywords for searching different sites from you address bar, and that's a deal-breaker for me.

    --

    Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
    1. Re:I tried it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't know if the Safari plug-ins available for OSX work for Windows yet, but there is a plug-in for the OSX version called SafariSIA (Search in Address Bar) that does this exact thing.

      http://www.allocsoft.com/safarisia/

    2. Re:I tried it. by DaveCBio · · Score: 1

      Are you kidding? The default font smoothing looked like total ass on my LCD. I had to turn it down to the light setting.

  96. Re: Safari for Windows Downloaded Over 1 Million T by SEMW · · Score: 1

    I think you misunderstood: Windows send crash reports to MS for all application crashes, not just Windows crashes.

    --
    What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
  97. Re:I downloaded it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It isn't a bad review and the parent definitely isn't off topic.

  98. 1 million downloads... by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 1

    ...maybe 500,000 installs (seeing as how they probably had a lot of duplicate downloads due to the bugfix release)

    ???,000 installs. 1 download != 1 installation.

    ???,000 switchers. Probably most people installed it to try it, not to immediately and forever switch. How many will adapt it as their default browser? Perhaps a very small number, considering the quality of the competition and the bugginess of the beta.

    Also, didn't Steve Jobs announce in the WWDC 07 keynote that they now had something like 900,000 developers? Wouldn't that seem to imply that about that many might need to download Safari for development and testing?

    1 million in 2 days sounds like a lot, but let's look at real web usage statistics (hard as they may be to come by, given user agent spoofing), and not get caught up with the number of times the installer has been downloaded.

    --
    You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
  99. Downloads don't equal usage by Count_Froggy · · Score: 1

    I dowmnloaded Safari twice; first to see what the hype was about and the second time because of the almost immediate bug-release fixes. One of the first things I tried was to open an html file (as it so happens, my bookmarks.html file from Firefox) on my hard drive, just like IE, Firefox, Opera, SeaMonkey, Dillo, Konqueror, and any number of other browsers (on multiple OS's). Safari kept telling me it couldn't open it. I have already deleted it from my machine. I'll try it again when it works!

    --
    If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?
  100. Re:KDE 4 Konqueror KHTML by Swift2001 · · Score: 1

    Actually, if there's one fatal flaw in Windows, it's an excess of backwards -- and longitudinal -- compatibility. It leaves it with kludges all over the place, and inevitable security holes.

  101. Link please? by commodoresloat · · Score: 1

    Can you provide a link to this softimage thingy? I'd like to download it to check it out.

    1. Re:Link please? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed, this sounds like awesome software. I want to download it a couple of million times!

  102. Re:I downloaded it... by E+IS+mC(Square) · · Score: 1

    So, now you can not even see which one was moderated funny? Thanks for confirming my belief that this is example of blatant fanboism.

  103. Also noteworthy... by midkay · · Score: 1

    Safari for Windows uninstalled over 999,000 times!

  104. Big logical leap... by jonadab · · Score: 1

    > If these downloads manifested into regular Safari users,

    Umm, yeah, because we all know that most of the people who download a new software release the first week it's available are regular users -- not, say, people who pay close attention to tech news because it's their job. No way could this be 10% of the world's web developers saying, "Oh, hey, I should grab that and test my stuff in it."

    I'm not saying Safari *won't* end up being adopted by end users, but the first few days it's available? Come on, end users haven't even heard it's available yet. 90% of those downloads are from people who found out by scanning or even reading coverage of WWDC. Practically all of them keep multiple browsers around all the time. The first week's download numbers are an indication of interest in the tech community, but that's all.

    You want to see if regular users are picking it up, wait until the developer rush dies off and *then* look at the download numbers. You want to see if people are starting to use it as their regular browser, you don't look at download numbers, but at access logs and so forth -- and you compare against the same week/month/quarter of the previous year, at the same sample of sites.

    --
    Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
  105. Ah, but that's the advantage of free software. by twitter · · Score: 0, Troll

    The fact that they manage to work around the problem in a large number of cases doesn't mean there isn't an underlying problem being worked around.

    Yes, but the problem can be fixed because the underlying software is free. This is not something that can be done in the non free world. What little can be done is a matter of configuration tweaks that must be duplicated by each and every user. As a free software user, the issue does not exist.

    As a developer, the issue is trivial. Improvements to gcc, fftw, libgd and other packages have not been a problem for me. I can compare this to changes on M$'s platform. While some APIs did not change much, the toolkits changed a lot. By the time you get to the abstraction layer of VB not.net, your code is broken with every release.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

    1. Re:Ah, but that's the advantage of free software. by Goaway · · Score: 1

      As a free software user, the issue does not exist. ...As long as you use mainstream, approved software. As soon as you don't, trouble starts encroaching.

      As a developer, the issue is trivial. Improvements to gcc, fftw, libgd...

      I have several times had to change my projects because of changes to specifically gcc and libgd, among many others. For a couple of projects, I have just not found the time or energy to fix them, and just let them bit-rot.

    2. Re:Ah, but that's the advantage of free software. by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      from what i can gather c++ in linux is a mess!

      they keep putting out new versions of the standard C++ library. Code using different versions of that libary can't be loaded by the same process without risking crashes even if the library interfaces stick to plain C constructs. Worse they keep making the complier stricter so you can't just recompile stuff to get it to the same libstdc++ version.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    3. Re:Ah, but that's the advantage of free software. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      There are two problems. The first is that GCC has, over the last few years (since version 3, largely), made an effort to conform to the language specifications properly. Previously, it would emit working code for a lot of non-standard code. Each new release has turned some of these into warnings, and then errors. This made a lot of old code not compile.

      The other problem is that the C++ ABI defined by GCC changed with version 3.2 and 3.4/4.0 (3.4 and 4.0 are compatible, but the two branches were available concurrently). It is possible to have libraries compiled with both versions of the ABI on the same system, and you need to do this if you have applications that were compiled with the two versions.

      These two combined to produce some problems. Some libraries relied on old compiler behaviour, while applications that depended on them depended on newer compiler behaviour (or vice versa) meaning you couldn't compile the app and library with the same version of the compiler, and thus had an ABI mismatch (although, I believe, you can still tell the new compiler to use the old ABI if you want).

      For the most part, it wasn't an issue. I don't use Linux, but FreeBSD also allows GCC to define its ABI and I didn't notice any problems from the ABI change.

      The reason Windows doesn't have this issue is that Microsoft had a C++ compiler long before C++ was standardised (in 1998), and forced other compilers to use their ABI if they wanted to be able to link to the Microsoft Foundation Classes. I don't know if Microsoft has had any problems with their ABI not supporting language features (the GCC changes were required because of this), but since their ABI dates back to several years before the standard, and their compiler was only about 60% compliant until very recently, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they did, although I don't know what they'd have done about it.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  106. i bet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    steve jobs is using the botnet the fbi found to bolster his safari download numbers...wasnt that number around a million too?

  107. Exactly by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    You mean by getting it posted on slashdot?

    Part of it, yes.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  108. Re:KDE 4 Konqueror KHTML by jZnat · · Score: 1

    Win 3.1 had split window panes? Wow, I was missing out on something back in the day (seriously; I use them in vim most often, though). Hmm, oh well...

    --
    'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
  109. Re:KDE 4 Konqueror KHTML by GiMP · · Score: 1

    And referring to Windows as ugly while implying Linux isn't? At worst, XP was plain. Vista is quite nice looking. One of the big drawbacks of Linux is the frequently bulky/ugly interface. A lot of that is personal preference, but I daresay far more people would agree with me than with you.


    The things that people will complain about! Be luckly that you're not still working with 16bit Windows applications, cooperative multitasking, or Xaw widgets. Sheesh, kids these days!

    If that one of the biggest drawbacks of the Linux desktop, then I think "our" job is done. Besides, its personal preference, which interestingly enough, is provided to you in Linux. You have an almost limitless ability to customize your widgets and window borders, it can look like XP or Vista if you want it to. Personally, I use the Human theme from Ubuntu with Beryl.

    Really, Linux won the "pretty graphical interface" award before Y2K, when GTK1 came around to replace Xaw/Athena. Even as ugly as GTK1 was, it was still well beyond Microsoft's toolkit, graphically. The Linux desktop, graphically, was second place only to OSX until Compiz came around... and with that, Linux still beat Microsoft to the table.
  110. Re:I downloaded it... by Wingsy · · Score: 2, Informative

    Someone please tell me what I'm missing here. From what *I* see, there is absolutely NO comparison as to which is more readable. Safari is more readable on MY Windows XP Pro than either IE or FF, by a mile. I have a vanilla install of XP. Haven't done a thing to it. It's about as stock as you can get. I installed FF and Safari, then went to cnn.com. I have a screen shot of all 3 browsers side by side, and at the risk of eating up all my download allotment, here is the URL: http://idisk.mac.com/Wingsy-Public/ScreenShot001.b mp Is there anyone out there who can honestly say that FF or IE is more readable? They both look like they came right out of a dot matrix printer. Can someone post a screenshot where they think Safari is the least readable (if it's different from mine)?

    --
    If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
  111. India called... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And they said your job is on a boat on its way there!!!

  112. Does this figure include... by Bones3D_mac · · Score: 1

    ... the number of users who re-downloaded the beta following the recent security fix? The legitimate figure is probably closer to 500,000 users who downloaded it twice.

    --


    8==8 Bones 8==8
  113. Actually... by diesel66 · · Score: 1

    She'd be 'your fucked up aunt with balls'.

    --



    eleven plus two / twelve plus one
  114. it's worse than i feared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    oh, i hope the average web developer is smarter than you.

  115. standards are not bullshit by Gary+W.+Longsine · · Score: 1

    Please consider studying a bit on the importance of open standards in the technology world. Many of the things that people take for granted today exist due to open standards, and might well not exist without them, or might exist but not be affordable to you. The issue is not about snobbery, that's just a FUD smokescreen you're blowing. You may like Microsoft and their products, but they have a long and well documented history of trying to crush open standards in order to prevent competition in the marketplace of software and technology. You may like Internet Explorer, but it has a well documented history of broken support for open standards. These things are not "bugs" or they would get fixed. The fact that they don't get fixed, for years and years, is indication that to some degree Microsoft intends IE to depart from the open standards, so that the "MUCH MUCH LARGER GROUP OF PEOPLE", sheeple that they are, will follow the herd to Microsoft land, and help cement Microsoft dominance by building broken web sites. If you own significant amounts of MSFT, then perhaps buy building broken web sites you are contributing to your own success. However, if you owned that much MSFT, you wouldn't be building web sites, would you?

    I suggest starting here:
    Open Standards: Principles and Practice
    Open Standard

    --
    If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
    1. Re:standards are not bullshit by dangitman · · Score: 3, Informative

      "help cement MSFT dominance by building broken web sites" you say.... ... To me, a "broken website" is one where only 15% of my users can use it.

      What kind of nonsense is this?

      If you build a standards-compliant website, it will work in IE. It won't be broken. It may have some layout differences, but it will work. So, what's all this crap about people not being able to use your website if you code to standards? It's more likely to break for everybody else if you ignore standards and build in IE-specific stuff.

      Also, non-IE users make up a lot more than 15% of the market. you must have a pretty skewed audience there if you have 85% of users on IE.

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
    2. Re:standards are not bullshit by kiddygrinder · · Score: 1

      You are correct of course, but you have failed to take a long term view. If ms were allowed to take control of web standards web development would get really hard. MS hate the web, they hate the thought that people could just, for example, develop and online text editor that is as functional (probably a long way off, but they still don't like it) as word that is platform agnostic and could allow people to just use any platform they want to access it. Why do you think ie development was so stunted while firefox was not around? Not because they didn't want to drop a couple hundred thousand a year on improving it that's for sure. IE is still the unofficial standard, but we require an "official" one so that microsoft doesn't fuck it up for everyone.

      --
      This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
    3. Re:standards are not bullshit by shmlco · · Score: 0

      "It may have some layout differences, but it will work."

      If it doesn't look the way it was designed to look, then it doesn't "work".

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    4. Re:standards are not bullshit by dangitman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If it doesn't look the way it was designed to look, then it doesn't "work".

      You clearly don't understand authoring for the web. It's not about how it looks, it's about conveying information. What does "how it looks" mean for someone who is blind, and uses a screen reader? Even in Internet Explorer, users can change the text size, or base CSS, which will change how your site looks.

      If you want everything to look the same, you should be a graphic designer, not a web designer. Wepages are supposed to look different for different viewers, based on their preferences.

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
    5. Re:standards are not bullshit by shmlco · · Score: 1

      "It's not about how it looks, it's about conveying information."

      Then you're not a designer, graphic OR web. "Conveying information" is more than just piling a bunch of content onto a page, pushing it down the pipe, and hoping for the best. Design itself conveys information and sets the mood and tone and style of your site.

      And yes, the screen reader will ignore the design... but that's okay. As near as I can tell, SR's account for about 0.01% of the browsers on the web, I can can afford to design for the majority as long as SR's are supported too. Content font preferences can be set--and remembered--via widgets.

      Web pages are an interaction between the publisher and the user. And some of those users actually appreciate good design, much in the way that some users appreciate the differences between a PC and a Mac, or a Ford and a BMW.

      And some don't (How's that Dell you're typing on?). But hey, horses for courses. The web's a big place. The publisher makes choices. If the users don't like those choices, they're free to go elsewhere. Some do. According to our logs, however, most don't.

      Pages are not always supposed to look different for everyone. That puts a "rule" in place which you're assuming holds true for everyone under all circumstances. (It also tends to tell me which side of the debate you'd been on had you been part of the standards committee.)

      Content is content. Design is design. Together, the two can be greater than the sum of the parts.

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    6. Re:standards are not bullshit by dangitman · · Score: 1

      Then you're not a designer, graphic OR web.

      Actually, I am. I've had a fairly long career as a graphic designer and photographer. but web design is not the same as graphic design. I don't approach designing websites the same way I design for the printed page.

      Design itself conveys information and sets the mood and tone and style of your site.

      Right - but why do you have to use absolute positioning to do that? Why do you have to use methods that fail under different browsers, or fail when the text size is changed? You can easily convey tone and style while creating good, standards-compliant browsers. But you won't succeed if you try to make the page look *exactly the same* in each browser.

      Web pages are an interaction between the publisher and the user. And some of those users actually appreciate good design, much in the way that some users appreciate the differences between a PC and a Mac, or a Ford and a BMW.

      Indeed. I love good design. And good design for the web is design that adapts to different browsers and user preferences. Bad design is stuff that tries to look the same everyehere. Your problem is that you are ignoring your medium. When you design a car, you design for a vehicle, not a washing machine. When you design clothes, you design for clothes, not for bridges. When you design for the web, you design for the web. You don't try to pretend it's a printed document. You workj with your medium, not against it.

      Pages are not always supposed to look different for everyone. That puts a "rule" in place which you're assuming holds true for everyone under all circumstances. They are supposed to look different if the user wants them to. For example, if a user is color-blind, they might change the colors that the page is rendered with. You can't control that, so you may as well live with it.

      Content is content. Design is design. Together, the two can be greater than the sum of the parts.

      Indeed. So I wonder why you are ignoring that, and pretending the web is something that it is not?

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
  116. I wonder...wine by master5o1 · · Score: 0

    I wonder how many people downloaded it for their Linux boxes just to test it on wine... finding out that it doesn't work (some wine error about C++).

    I have 3 out of the 4 main browser engines on my ubuntu box (firefox, konqueror, opera). This is because I like to make some webdesigns.. mostly crap, meh.

    --
    signature is pants
  117. Non free features can go away like that. by twitter · · Score: 1

    Win 3.1 had split window panes?

    The file manager did as did most competing file managers of the day. You could split it horizontally or vertically and subdivide the result, then drag and drop files and directories around your system and over the primitive networks of the day. For some reason, this was dropped by the replacement in windows 95 and beyond.

    The equivalent capability was not dropped from free software and the KDE people seem to have generalized it into almost all KDE software.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

    1. Re:Non free features can go away like that. by jZnat · · Score: 1

      Well, the consistency of KDE is one of my favourite features, and the more useful features apps can share, the better!

      --
      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
  118. It's just something new by OrangeTide · · Score: 0

    Everyone wanted to check it out because it's new, not because it's any good. You really are better off using Firefox, IE or Opera (in that order), unless you want to make your browsing experience more of a hassle than it already is.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  119. Totally ignoring the point by Foerstner · · Score: 1

    I know it's a bit much to expect everyone to watch the Apple Developer's conference webcast, so I'll summarize the it for you:

    Safari for Windows exists so that web developers can test/fix their sites without actually buying a Mac/iPhone

    Apple doesn't care if you use Safari as your default browser. Safari makes no money for Apple. Macs and iPhones make money for Apple. Apple wants to keep its Mac and iPhone customers happy; hence, it wants as many websites as possible to work in Safari. Safari:Windows mimics Safari:Mac, including font rendering, resizing, and keyboard shortcuts so you can see how your site behaves on a Mac.

    --
    The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
  120. no, standards are about cooperation & free mar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    What you are missing is that Microsoft intentionally ships a browser that departs, intentionally, from open standards. It's an effort to control the standards to lock out other users, and it's an intentional abuse of monopoly power. They know that so long as they control the vast majority (recently 95%, but now down to about 80%) of the browser market, they can largely prevent other platforms from rising in influence. Furthermore, "OSS Snobs" may well exist, but this question has nothing to do with religious issues. You see, the vast majority of the people developing web sites didn't choose to "develop against IE". They were forced to expend greater effort to build web sites to support a single broken browser than they would have spent to use standards that support all browsers on all platforms. They did this not through a free choice, but through coercion by Microsoft, which abused its dominant desktop position, to the detriment of the entire community of users and developers.

    YOU CAN YELL ALL YOU WANT, BUT YOU ARE STILL WRONG

  121. Flamebait? by Gary+W.+Longsine · · Score: 1

    Seriously, mods, that is an abuse of the mod system. You will be punished by the meta-mods.

    --
    If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
  122. By Mac users running Windows on their system. by Hohlraum · · Score: 1

    The forgotten detail.

  123. Re:KDE 4 Konqueror KHTML by makomk · · Score: 1

    He may have a bad reputation, but he's right about one thing - KDE is desktop-web integration as it should've been done. For example, you can take any kioslave-supported file source (normal files, HTTP, SFTP, and CD audio tracks, for example) and use it in any kioslave-supporting application (KWord, image viewers, website file upload forms, ...). The web browser and file browser are integrated in a way that's logical, not particularly vulnerable to security holes, and allows fully-tabbed directory browsing (with the ability to open any supported file in a new tab).

  124. Apple Software On Windows? No Thanks. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    After seeing what Quicktime and then iTunes can do to a Windows install, I'm sure Safari is just as bad a virus as the other Apple software products. It will never touch any Windows installation I use.

  125. Tried it, didn't like it. by DaveCBio · · Score: 1

    I am a Windows user for the most part and have used IE and FF for years now. The best things about Safari are the search and the speed. However, those features aren't nearly enough to make me switch. I just don't like the way it works. Even little things like hitting Ctrl+Enter and all the text in the address bar highlighting on the first click are missing. It's like a pulled muscle in that you don't know how often you use features until they are gone. Overall it's an adequate browser, but it doesn't even come close to making me want to use it regularly.

    1. Re:Tried it, didn't like it. by tuxedobob · · Score: 1

      Even little things like... all the text in the address bar highlighting on the first click are missing.

      It always pisses me off when fields do that. If I want to select everything, I'll select it. Just put the cursor where I clicked, dammit.

  126. How Does He Know It? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This article is by Jim Dalrymple, a notorious spin doctor for Apple. Nowhere can he cite his sources. He's known to closely collaborate with Lynn Fox but where are these statistics? I smell a stinking rat here - a typical Lynn Fox PR trick.

  127. Re:I downloaded it... by Anml4ixoye · · Score: 1

    Pimping my blog? Last time I checked, I can't post images of the differences in a /. post, and besides, since I had already written up my comments 2 days ago, it didn't seem right to just repost them.

    No problem, I'm happy, got my first -1 post. That hasn't happened in a *long* time. Guess the Mac fanboys are much worse then the Linux ones.

  128. Re:I downloaded it... by Anml4ixoye · · Score: 1

    Thanks for posting that. I think I agree with you, and I wonder if the difference is that I'm running Vista, not XP. Given your screen shot, I like Safari's better.

  129. It was downloaded for testing by VGfort · · Score: 1

    I'm sure most people that downloaded it, got it just for testing their sites in it more than using it.

  130. Re:KDE 4 Konqueror KHTML by twitter · · Score: 0, Troll

    He may have a bad reputation ...

    That's news to me.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

  131. Divided By? by joshzweig · · Score: 1

    I'm assuming this includes multiples for people who downloaded the program eight times to try and make it install right?

  132. Which browsers implement aural CSS again? by tepples · · Score: 1

    It is fully possible and reasonable to develop fully standards-compliant pages that display with a great degree of fidelity across platforms and browsers What is the standards-compliant, cross-platform way to add sound effects to scripts for those users who request notification sound effects? Which web browsers implement the aural parts of CSS with any degree of fidelity?
  133. iTunesHelper and iPodService by tepples · · Score: 1

    You do realize the iTunes already comes bundled with 99% of safari already, right? What do you think the iTunes music store is running on....webkit. I can't believe people didn't realize this already, apple has had at least some limited version of webkit running on Windows for a very long time. I don't have an iPod. I play my ogg, mp3, mod, and s3m files on a Nintendo DS using the R4 media player card. I don't want processes called "iTunesHelper" and "iPodService" taking up RAM on my older machine, which is already near its motherboard's RAM limit, while I am doing other things. That's why I uninstalled iTunes the last time I installed QuickTime.
    1. Re:iTunesHelper and iPodService by IntergalacticWalrus · · Score: 1

      There's a QuickTime standalone download you know.
      http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

  134. Two days to reach one million downloads by Zhe+Mappel · · Score: 1
    Two minutes to reach one million uninstalls.



    Then again, two million may just parse the size of fanboydom (including both pre- and post-op Switchers), so let's not be hasty. Surely somebody's out there suffering along with Windows Safari and congratulating himself for running badly-performing, under-featured beta code. Lord knows, he's probably blogging about his own ultimate funkiness right now...

  135. None. But should that limit page _display_? by RedSteve · · Score: 1

    It is fully possible and reasonable to develop fully standards-compliant pages that display with a great degree of fidelity across platforms and browsers
    What is the standards-compliant, cross-platform way to add sound effects to scripts for those users who request notification sound effects? Which web browsers implement the aural parts of CSS with any degree of fidelity?

    Since when do you display a sound in any browser? Sounds may be played, but unless you've got a gift for sensing auditory feedback through your eyes, my comment doesn't really apply.

    That said, I suppose you'd approach incorporating aural feedback into your page the same way you would any other standard would be incorporated: by invoking a standard declaration in a style sheet or a standard element on a page. That way, user agents that didn't understand the syntax would at least finish processing the page and just leave out the piece it didn't understand, as any well-behaved, standards-compliant user agent should -- the point being that one element of a page should not keep the entire page from rendering.

  136. Doesn't limit display, but it pisses marketing off by tepples · · Score: 1

    I suppose you'd approach incorporating aural feedback into your page the same way you would any other standard would be incorporated: by invoking a standard declaration in a style sheet or a standard element on a page. But in 2007, any web site that wants to play a sound without waiting for 2009 when someone actually gets around to implementing aural CSS has to do so with <object> elements controlled by scripts: either Flash, QuickTime, or Windows Media Player. The problem with standards is that there are so many to choose from and that many of the ones that look useful never get implemented.

    That way, user agents that didn't understand the syntax would at least finish processing the page and just leave out the piece it didn't understand, as any well-behaved, standards-compliant user agent should -- the point being that one element of a page should not keep the entire page from rendering. But if no available user agent understands the aural CSS semantics, then marketing will complain that its sound effects are not getting used at all. Tough shit if you run a recording artist's web site and want to let the viewer turn on background music.
  137. Converts from Seamonkey by tepples · · Score: 1

    FF 1.0 went from 0 to a huge userbase very quickly. Firefox for Windows drew users from Seamonkey for Windows, then called Mozilla suite 1.x and Netscape suite 7.x. Safari for Windows doesn't have a previous WebKit or KHTML browser for Windows to draw users from.
  138. Won't this hurt Mac sales? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can see how this fits in with the iPhone strategy, but as a web developer I have the only Mac in my office for compatibility testing. I was about to recommend that we buy another for our tech support desk, and maybe one more for our QA team (we currently share the one machine). I don't think I could justify the purchase now.

    It may not be a significant portion of the market, but still...

  139. non-emotional examples in defense of standards by Gary+W.+Longsine · · Score: 1
    OK, you clearly have a strong emotional attachment to Micosoft's Internet Explorer. Let's consider standards in the abstract, so that you can see what the discussion is really about.
    1. If your country didn't have a standardized currency, then every bank would print its own money. You might not be able to buy things with your money at places you want to shop, or you might need to pay a 10% conversion fee to use money from your own bank. The bank you use might be determined for you by a co-marketing agreement with the company that you work for. Oh, you can use a different bank if you want, but you have to pay a 10% conversion fee every time you get a paycheck.

    2. If cars didn't run on standard fuel, you might need to carefully plan your trips so that the type of fuel used by your car was available along your route. There would be some routes that you couldn't take, because your type of fuel wasn't available. You might need to own more than one car, or pay several thousand dollars for a conversion kit to use a different brand of fuel with your car.

    3. If standards for electric generation and distribution didn't exist, then you might need to buy appliances which were custom made for your electric utility company. They might control the appliances you can buy through special co-marketing agreements with appliance vendors. In your neighborhood, you might not be able to choose between a Kitchen Aid mixer and a Sunbeam because your utility company chose for you.
    I didn't label you a Microsoft fanboy, you merely said that I did that. Putting words in my mouth is a logical fallacy knows as a straw man argument. As it happens, I have recently begun to chastise people for using the term "fanboy" in these discussions. It has become entirely too frequent a ploy used by those who are unable to construct a decent argument. Calling someone a fanboi is merely an ad hominum attack, by the way.

    Microsoft is a giant bureaucracy. I don't love it or hate it. I understand it better than you do, perhaps because it's not an emotional issue for me. You may be projecting.

    Come in off the ledge. IE is broken in some well documented ways (see: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish). Fortunately, for the most part, most of those broken things can be accommodated with "hacks" such that web sites can be constructed in a standards-compliant way, and still render correctly in IE (by emitting bug-for-bug-IE-compliant HTML to IE, and normal unbroken code to other browsers). I'd guess you even know what some of those are.

    If you cared about your customers, you wouldn't build web sites that exclude 15% of them, unless you are simply hostile in general, which might well be the case, i don't know. Since you're posting as a logged in user, I'd like to think you value your reputation a little more than that.

    Ratchet down the vitriol a notch or two, and seriously, step back and think about the importance of standards. . I'm really not kidding. If you build web sites with an attitude like yours, you're going to be in serious need of an attitude adjustment about this time next year when twenty to thirty percent of web users are running web browsers which are standards compliant and those users are demanding support for standards compliant browsers like FireFox 3, Safari 3 on Windows and Macintosh, Opera 9, and the Nokia WebKit-based browser.

    Finally, you have not elected to click my "friend" button, and you are doing a bit of yelling. I would appreciate it if you didn't abuse the term "my friend" by using it as a snide remark. If you want to convince me of the truth of your claims, then make a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
    --
    If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
    1. Re:non-emotional examples in defense of standards by encoderer · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      What part of me saying "I wish firefox was the dominate browser" made you think I had an attachment to IE? .... The problem for you is that it's a lot easier to dimiss what I say by just labeling me some MSFT fanboy that isn't objective.

      That's interesting because it's so blatently obvious that YOU'RE the one that left his objectivity at the door. YOU'RE the one with deeply entrenched feelings, one way or the other, for a web browser.

      So I didn't read much past the first sentence of your (hideously long) post. It's clear that if you were so incredibly wrong in your very sentence it probably wasn't going to get much better after that.

      PS. I'm writing this on FireFox.

  140. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  141. Re:I downloaded it... by mathfeel · · Score: 1

    Is it just the choice of default font? I could imagine safari, in order to keep its mac look, installed some darker fonts. It's the first thing i do after a fresh FF installation. Am I the only one who don't like Arial?

    --
    The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
  142. Safari JS Debugging by LKM · · Score: 1

    You probably already know this, but Safari has some pretty cool JavaScript debugging options: Drosera, Web Inspector.

  143. Re:I downloaded it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You have clear type turned off in IE, turn it on then post that image.

  144. Windows Programmers Testing for Mac without a Mac by acroyear · · Score: 1

    I downloaded Safari for two reasons. One, mere curiosity. I just wanted a sense of what a browser looks and acts like when there's no right mouse menu, limited menu choices, etc.

    But the real reason is that I do web applications and web site programming and nobody in my company has a Mac. I used it to test whether or not the DHTML/AJAX, CSS, and other browser-conflicting codes we used will actually still work, based on the assumption that what I saw in Safari for Windows would be what Safari for Mac would see.

    Fortunately, I didn't see any problems in my code that needed to be dealt with. It rendered and ran everything correctly.

    --
    "But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
    -- Joe
  145. With K-Meleon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... your aunt is your uncle! K-Meleon makes your whole family tree turn into a circle.

    http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/

  146. Re:I downloaded it... by Wingsy · · Score: 1

    I don't have anything turned off, or on. I haven't touched it.

    --
    If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
  147. CRASH! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nice... Safari crashes the instant I load my company intranet site (developed in asp.net) and running on a Windows 2003 server... every single time.