Thursday, June 14, 2007

Apple Safari Browser

I was excited when I got to know that Apple Safari browser is available for Windows.
It's in Public Beta, meaning anyone can download and test it but it's not 100% stable. Apple claims that Safari is the fastest web browser on any platform. Safari loads pages up to 2 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2. On the comparison chart, Safari 3 is the fastest in terms of HTML Performance, Javascript Performance and Application Launch compared to Firefox 2, Internet Explorer 7 and Opera 9. I've tested it and I liked the way Safari loads the website while it's still downloading the site. It makes you feel that it's already loaded and it's fast.

We all know Apple develops very stable and easy to maintain products. However, it won't be easy to beat Firefox 2 because of the vast amount of add-ons/plugins currently available. Nowadays you can do almost anything on Firefox 2 browser. I did find plug-ins for Safari 3 but there's only Adobe Flash Player, Java, Adobe Reader, Real Player, QuickTime and Windows Media Player. Mostly used for a richer browsing experience and not extra functionality.

Safari 3 for Windows only runs on Windows XP or Vista with at least 256MB of RAM and 500Mhz Pentium-class processor or better. Windows 98 user would have to miss this great release. One thing I noticed about Safari 3 is it doesn't use as much Memory as Firefox 2 does.

Some of the shortcut keys available in Safari 3 is standard. Here's some of basic shortcut keys that we normally use:
CTRL + T: Opens a new tab
CTRL + N: Opens new Safari Window
CTRL + W: Close current tab
CTRL + Q: Quit Safari
CTRL + [: Back
CTRL + ]: Forward
CTRL + .: Stop
CTRL + D: Add to Safari Bookmark
CTRL + R: Reload page
CTRL + M: Minimize Safari
CTRL + P: Print page
CTRL + ALT + L: Open Downloads Window

Download Safari 3 for Windows below and try it yourself. You'll love it!

Download

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