Safari 4

Safari 4 has been released in beta stage for quite awhile. This is apparently the first web browser that passed the AcidTest 3. Here’s an overview of some of its features.

Here’s the main window of Safari. The first time you run Safari, you will be greeted with the Top Sites page. Thanks to Top Sites, you can enjoy a stunning, at-a-glance preview of your favorite websites without lifting a finger. Safari 4 Beta tracks the sites you browse and ranks your favorites, presenting up to 24 thumbnails on a single page. You can even customize the display by pinning a favorite site to a specific location in the grid. That locks it into position, so you know just where to find it every time you open Top Sites.

Safari takes tabbed browsing to new heights — to the very top of the browser window — instantly providing more room for you to enjoy the sites you’re reading.

Just like Google Chrome, Safari has its own version of Private Browsing. In this mode, Safari doesn’t save or cache any personal information you enter or pages you visit. It’s as if you were never there.

Find what you’re looking for instantly. As you enter text in its search field, Safari recommends relevant searches courtesy of Google Suggest and lists your most recent searches, presenting them in an easy-to-read list.

Safari offers a in-built download window. Use it to view the progress of your downloads; pause, resume, or cancel a transfer; or find the location of downloaded files.

Safari provides an iTunes-style interface you can use to view, create, and organize your bookmarks. The bookmarks library is organized into collections (folders) of custom bookmarks, your browsing history, Address Book links, Bonjour connections, and RSS feeds. To access the library, click the open-book icon on the left side of the bookmarks bar.

Developer? Safari comes with a whole range of developing tools.

Safari offers a range of developer features such as Web Inspector, Error Console, disabling functions, and many more.

The Web Inspector gives you quick and easy access to the richest set of development tools ever included in a browser. From viewing the structure of a page to debugging JavaScript to optimizing performance, the Web Inspector presents its tools in a clean window designed to make developing web applications more efficient.

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.

With so many browsers in the market for you to choose, its really hard to say which is best. However, Safari is indeed promising of what it can achieve. If you haven’t downloaded Safari, its really worth a try!

From Apple:
» What’s new in Safari 4
» Download Safari