Resonant Constellation

Today I downloaded Apple’s Safari 4.0 public beta, alleged to be the fastest browser in existence. Having used the previous version of the browser for quite a while, I was ready for an upgrade. What I got, however, was far and away better than I was expecting. I might describe Safari 3 as a slightly modified Firefox clone. This isn’t bad-I like the functionality of Firefox and use it as my supplementary, back-up browser when Safari doesn’t have the correct functionality (example: FireFTP). Safari 4, however, has that peculiar Apple flavor that seems to come in all of their products and includes several very nice touches that I truly appreciate.

The first, and most noticeable, is that this browser is actually much faster than the previous iteration, consistently loading non-cached pages in less time than I’m used to. There’s also the addition of top-of-browser tabs and variable tab sizes (the active tab is larger than inactive ones), as well as a general re-arrangement of the buttons on the navigation bar that just feels more intuitive to me.

The other additions all involve the trademark Apple navigation system, cover flow. This allows you to search through your history and bookmarks with images of the web page above, and a new cover flow-like page called “top sites.” This page takes all of the top sites you visit and displays them in pictorial format in a matrix. When the site changes since you last viewed it, it displays a star in the upper-right corner. So far, I’ve found this very useful.

I’m not as much of an Apple fanboy as some are: I generally like their products, but am often annoyed by their seeming idiocy (see the recent massive bugs found in system updates). Safari 4.0, however, is a solid effort and worth the time if you’re sick of your current browser.