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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."
Anyone know if this is a new engine or just Squirrelfish renamed?
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.
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.
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.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Its like saying you beat the kid with a fake leg at sprinting, or beating the a preschooler at a spelling bee.
Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
http://www.apple.com/safari/features.html - Safari 4 introduces the Nitro JavaScript engine, an advanced bytecode JavaScript engine that makes web browsing even faster. In fact, Safari 4 executes JavaScript up to 6 times faster than Internet Explorer 8 and up to 4 times faster than Firefox 3.1.
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?
Given that this alleges to be a beta version and according to its own EULA:
why do Apple insist on removing any existing Safari 3 install when installing?
If we are supposed to evaluate and develop, then surely it would be prudent to allow a stable version to also be installed alongside for mission-critical usage.
Surely it's a TERRIBLE idea for non-stable, evaluation software to disallow the use of an alternative stable version?
Falling Leaves Animation: http://webkit.org/blog-files/leaves/index.html
Bouncing Box Animation: http://webkit.org/blog-files/bounce.html
Rotate and Fade Animation: http://webkit.org/blog-files/pulse.html
CSS Recipes for Effects: http://developer.apple.com/safari/articles/webcontent/cssrecipes.html
CSS Gradients: http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/documentation/InternetWeb/Conceptual/SafariVisualEffectsProgGuide/Gradients/chapter_2_section_1.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40008032-CH7-SW11
Video tag (requires Quicktime): http://webkit.org/blog/140/html5-media-support/
CSS Gradients: http://webkit.org/blog/175/introducing-css-gradients/
Background Shaped Clipping: http://webkit.org/blog/164/background-clip-text/
Local Database Example: http://webkit.org/misc/DatabaseExample.html
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
- Scrolling this /. page is extremely slow in safari.
- The tabs in the window's title bar is just plain annoying and feels really out of place.
- Just like Google's Chrome this browser also doesn't blend in well with MS Windows UI. It's feels alien to the other programs.
I've tried pointing that out before, but you're probably wasting your breath. The tin-foil hat crowd here at slashdot seems to think that Apple is keeping all the juiciest enhancements for themselves. I know it's not true because I run Safari on my macs and have run some webkit browsers like midori on my linux machines, they're about as fast, certainly faster than firefox. I'd use midori as my full time browser, but it's not as full featured as firefox and is unstable (or was last version I downloaded, like 0.0.21 or so).
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
This is about a completely different iBench. If you look at the the benchmark graphs, you'll note that
Donate free food here
Opera 10 has been out months with these features, and it's javascript speed is very good on REAL WORLD SITES, not just the Webkit optimized SunSpider synthetic benchmark...
Requirements:
Mac with an Intel processor or a Power PC G5, G4, or G3 processor and built-in FireWireî
um, looks like the latest Macbook isn't up to spec. nice one, Apple.
As a developer working on WebKit, this is completely wrong and more than a little insulting.
The versions of WebKit included with Safari releases are built directly from the public tree. There is no secret version of WebKit that Apple fixes bugs in for Safari releases before eventually landing the changes in the WebKit tree. The WebKit tree is Apple's official WebKit tree, and is where all of Apple's development on WebKit for Mac OS X and Windows takes place.
For sake of reference http://trac.webkit.org/browser/releases/Apple/Safari%204%20Public%20Beta contains the exact source code of WebKit that was built and released as Safari 4 Public Beta earlier today. There are no secret changes in the version of WebKit that Apple shipped. The changes are all there in the open for the world to see.