Apple releases Safari 4

One of the early announcements in this morning's keynote was that Safari 4 is now out of beta! You can download Safari 4 for yourself (Mac or Windows) from Apple's site. Apple is touting Safari 4 as the fastest web browser around, besting IE 8, Firefox and Chrome in speed tests.

As with the Safari 4 betas, Safari 4 passes Acid 3 tests with a 100/100 -- the first (and only cross-platform) browser to achieve this level of standards compliance.

The big news for users of the Safari 4 betas is that the tab orientation has been changed. In the beta, tabs were on the top of the application window, now they are below the URL field, just like in previous versions of Safari. I'm a fan! I also like the snazzy updates to the "loading" notification and the RSS indicator.

Safari 4 has way too many features for me to list, so I'll just point you to Apple's page that details everything. The HTML 5 media and offline support, CSS 3 web fonts and CSS animations are some of my favorites.

Safari 4 is fast, thanks to the new JavaScript engine. It also integrates with both your Mac or with Windows, and the new Cover Flow History View for viewing your web history, or Top Sites for seeing what sites you visit most are totally, totally slick.

Download Safari 4 here and then come back and tell us what you think! Remember, any third-party InputManagers like Saft will need to be updated if you want to use them with Safari 4.

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Source: http://www.apple.com/safari/download/

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WWDC Internet Tools Software Update Apple

One of the early announcements in this morning's keynote was that Safari 4 is now out of beta! You can download Safari 4 for yourself (Mac...

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Deak Wooten

Safari 4 has been crashing my system over and over. It particularly doesn't like me using iTunes at the same time. Sadly I'm back with Foxfire.

June 30 2009 at 6:56 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

marcintosh

For reasons beyond my control I am using Adobe InDesign CS2 (v4.0.5) under Tiger 10.4.11. Heads up to anyone else in my situation, Safari 4 killed InDesign CS2. It crashed on launch. And getting rid of Safari 4 borders on impossible, so be careful.

June 17 2009 at 2:14 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Drew

gmail and safari still don't get along. gmail has so many glitches on safari. I'm doing back to Firefox until Chrome is released.

June 17 2009 at 11:14 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Matt

Anyone else notice the new? PDF loading overlay. Never noticed it in the beta and wasn't there in safari 3... was it?

June 13 2009 at 8:20 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

greglocke

I actually liked the tabs at the top. Is there a way to set this back to the top?

June 12 2009 at 1:03 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dan Fever

Hate the 'Loading' box. Takes longer to load. Hate the tabs on the bottom. I miss the old 3. It seemed to bring images up faster

June 10 2009 at 2:25 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

cgsprite

Fast it may be but I still find Camino faster. side By Side tests show Camino takes less than half the time as safari on both cached and non-cached sites.

i will stick with Camino.

as for the tab placement from the Beta I also perfered them above the add bar.

June 10 2009 at 8:12 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jesse

I am having trouble quelling my anger over Tabs on Top. Obviously they were a little difficult to get used to at first but now I am PISSED that they are gone. I can't get over how upsetting this is to me. I'm sure i'll get over it but it doesn't make ANY sense to tease us with it and give NO option to change.... Okay.... breath....

June 09 2009 at 6:18 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

gilbyrocks

Add one more to the Tabs on Top group. Also, Keywurl plugin isn't working with the new release (not a Safari problem and Keywurl will release something new).

Until then, any way I can "downgrade" back to the 4.0 BETA??

June 09 2009 at 2:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

gelliott

Given the amount of our lives we spend in browser windows, maximizing useful screen space is just as important as maximizing the space in my tiny New York apartment. I have never rejoiced to much in response to software as when Safari 4 beta came out. Like a kid in a candy store. The easy ability to remove the usually-useless address bar with command pipe is great.

But the best improvement: Tabs on top, getting rid of useless title bar grey space!!!

Please bring back the tabs on top option. Please!

Honestly, it can't complicate the software much to default to the old wasteful bottom tabs and include a preference box for the rest of us space-loving tabs-on-top folks.

In the meantime, I'm back to Firefox, and hoping for Chrome soon.

June 09 2009 at 11:36 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply