Safari 4 Released, Claimed "30 Times Faster Than IE7"

CNETNate writes "Apple has released the beta version of Safari 4 for Mac and PC, with claims that its Nitro rendering engine is '30 times faster than IE7,' and three times faster than Firefox 3. Other new features include 'Top Sites,' which shows users the most frequently visited Web pages, 'Full History Search' for searching through not only the URLs and titles of visited pages, but also the complete text within the page itself — something Opera has been doing for a while."

Comments

Notes on New Features

[AKAImBatman]

Nitro JavaScript Engine

Anyone know if this is a new engine or just Squirrelfish renamed?

Acid 3 Compliance

Looks like Safari might be the first Acid 3 browser to the market. Opera's version 10 is Acid 3 compliant, but it's still in Alpha testing.

CSS 3 Web Fonts

I noted this feature in Opera 10. The results shown in the demos were rather impressive. The web pages had more of a print-layout look to them without the classic trick of relying on images to cover all the content. This has the potential to completely change the look of the web for the better.

CSS Canvas

I'm still trying to figure out how being able to use Canvas as a style to apply to web elements is useful, but the idea definitely sounds cool. I suppose one could always set a fixed web page background as a canvas, then make it look like they're on an acid trip as they scroll. :-P

I'm downloading the beta now. If it lives up to the hype that Apple is giving it, it will be an amazing piece of software.

Re:Notes on New Features

[AKAImBatman]

I am a fanboi

Right you are! I am a HUGE fan of web standards and the new features that HTML5 is bringing. And because I have experience with browser developers like Apple, Opera, and Mozilla, I trust that they'll do a good job in making the features a reality. Especially since they're the same people writing the standards.

For those who actually care, I've managed to pull up some demos in Safari 4:

http://webkit.org/blog/138/css-animation/
http://webkit.org/blog/176/css-canvas-drawing/
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/cssatten

I must say, I'm impressed! We'll see how well they work in real-world usage going forward.

The browser itself appears to be leaning more toward the UI design of Chrome. Which fits it well, IMHO. The new Coverflow feature is surprisingly slick and doesn't feel tacked on at all. The bonjour integration feels like a new management console for the network. I can surf all the devices and get important information on their location and status. I can even change the settings!

Which makes me wonder if the next version of OS X is going to use Safari-based widgets for network and printer management. Hmm...

At the very least, this is a nice way to surf the network on Windows. ;-)

Re:How does firefox maintain competitive advantage

[Tinlad]

So if Safari has this great performance, how can the FF figure out how Safari does it?

By heading over to WebKit.org and downloading the open source rendering engine it uses?