Safari 4 claims to be both faster than IE7 and FireFox, so I figured I would give it a try and a review. My initial take was one of surprise.
I was not expecting to like this browser much at all, but I found a few of the features to be very impressive. The browsing was speedy as advertised, and I really enjoyed some of the auto-installed bookmarks.
I also was satisfied with the way Safari 4 used tabs. I was a bit worried Apple would try to do too much with the tabs. One other cool feature was a “Top Sites” page. This feature had a well laid-out visual representation of my selected top sites. This was also a useful feature in which IE and FireFox had no comparison for.
One more thing I really enjoyed as a power user was the cookie viewer. IE doesn’t have one of these, and I had to download 3rd party software to view my cookies in IE. I did, however, think that the cookie viewer in FireFox was a bit better though.
Lastly, the search bar that was pre-installed was well done. It gave the user the option of searching either Yahoo, or Google. The built in auto-complete was also helpful. I liked the search bar a lot since most browsers try to promote their own search engine with the search bar. Apple realized that most users would be annoyed if Google or Yahoo were not the primary search engine for the toolbar.
Even though I was impressed with Safari 4 to start, there were a few things I didn’t like. The first thing I didn’t like was that most of the menu buttons were on the top right side of the browser. In Windows, the menu buttons usually go from left to right. It took a little getting used to these buttons on what seemed to be the unnatural part of the application.
The second thing that was a little annoying was the auto-complete in the URL bar. I am sure there is a way to turn this off, but by default it is on and it made typing in a URL a little tougher than expected.
There were also a few features missing from this browser that I find useful in other browsers. Drop-down history in the URL bar, drop-down history on the back/forward buttons, and a quick link to my homepage were a few missing features to name a few.
Overall, I am not switching from my primary web browser. I currently use FireFox and I am pretty happy with the way it performs. However, I would suggest checking out Safari 4, especially if you are an Apple fan.
The main reason I am sticking with FireFox is – Safari 4 didn’t impress me enough to switch from something I am used to. Also, I am pretty happy with the web security FireFox offers, and I am a little concerned with web security from Safari 4, since it is new and untested.
Guest Writer: This is a guest post by Dominic Acito, who brings a background as a high level super user, to the Blogging world.
Why not pay a visit to Dominic’s site at Computer Too Slow.