Safari

By Ian Urie

Now, as some of you may know, this is the premier browser on Mac.
However, the bold Mr Jobs has decided to stir things up by releasing a version for Windows.

The release is a Beta found here
So why install Safari?
Well, the Mac folks will tell you that all is wonderful in their world.
They will also tell you that Safari is faster, better, cleaner and more intuitive than all the other browsers on Windows.
I decided to find out.
The download is an exe file around 8 mb, so it's not all that small compared with the other browsers.



The install is painless and you have to  accept the license as per usual to get to install it.



One of the things that Mac is doing is trying to get you to try more than just the browser, so asks if you want Bonjour as well.
Bonjour is a network tool on OSX to aid network sharing of hardware.



I decided to allow all these to install. Might as well, you never know, they might be extremely worthwhile.

The install took seconds. i was impressed by how easy it all was, albeit, it isn't any different for current windows apps.



Once you start Safari, you'll get the usual warnings form your firewall. I'd let it access the internet, I mean, a browser isn't much use if you don't.




The browser loads fast and page display is accurate and fast as well.
Remember, this is a BETA and it behaves as such.
On my system, the browser is useless as it doesn't display the menus, or allow me to access the url bar.



As you can see above.
Hopefully this will be resolved (or I'll have a dig around Windows to find out why it doesn't load correctly).
On my daughter's machine, the Beta loads perfectly and works well.
All menus display correctly and it comes with  plugins that allow folk to access movie files, sound files etc, the way they would in other browsers.
I've always had a soft spot for Opera, and I can't see this changing with the emergence of Safari.
It is a well thought out browser with lots of nice little touches, such as the go back to search with one click.
It is also very fast, compared with IE, but, then again, so is every other browser.
I haven't tried it out with home banking, which is one of the bugbears for most users with banks insisting on using IE for most things.
Happily, Firefox is usually a good alternative.
I'd have a look at this browser, it looks different and has the usual nice layout that Mac users expect.
Once it has passed Beta testing, I'd expect this to be downloaded by more than a few folk, even if its just the IPod fans.
It's definitely a promising candidate.
From other reports on the Net, this is quite a buggy release.
The good thing is that Mac users expect better, so , it shouldn't be long until the Beta is improved upon.