For all those who don't know what Safari is, it is the integrated web browser for Macintosh computers, like I.E is for Windows. And it is now available (in beta version) for Windows users too (works with XP and Vista for sure as I tested it on both). Here is the link to download it :
http://www.apple.com/safari/download/
Like any other Apple equipment, Safari is announced on their website as “the world's best browser”. So i decided to test it and see if I agree with this sentence or not.
On the first impressions, it just looks like any other current browser, IE or Firefox : tab browsing, no problem with importing my favorites from Firefox (I didn't test with IE as I don't use it), predictive completion of the address, integrated google toolbar for quick researches on top right, RSS support.
It displays text in a special font, which is just fine when you browse the Apple.com website (must be optimised for it), but looks in my opinion a bit blurred when browsing any other sites.
The browser layout takes the entire screen, so if you chose the option to hide the windows taskbar at the bottom of the screen, you just can't access it anymore. If you want to launch another software or look to a file while browsing, you have to use « alt + tab » which is not very handy.
So far, Safari is not a bad, nor an especially better web browser. Let us see what's really wrong with it.
As a member of the spawnpoint.com gaming community, one of the first website I browsed with Safari is www.spawnpoint.com. Take a look at the screenshot, and see what I blame Safari for.
On the top of the website, there is a navigation bar where you can browse the “forums”, the “files” that are available for free download, “the blogs”, the new “clans” functionality and the “ladders”... Unfortunately, all you can see in the screenshot is “ladders”, because this navigation bar doesn't display correctly with Safari.
I don't know if this has something to do with safari or the coding of this menu, but to summarize, with this web browser I could simply not browse my favorite website !
The so-called “world's best browser” isn't that good at all, and my conclusion is : there is no point at the moment in using Safari for Windows, unless you are a big fan of anything Apple creates. Remember this is just a beta version, maybe this bug will be corrected in the final version of the software.
Dave / Skydavo
