Apple has announced a final build of its version 3 Safari web browser for Mac and PC. But is it worth you even looking at it? The question, of course, is whether it offers anything over and above the well-worn alternatives.

If you use a Mac, you'll likely download it anyway whereas if you're on a PC you probably won't. But put aside your initial thoughts while we pose the real question - whether or not it can outfire Firefox on both the Mac and the PC as well as batter the long-beleaguered Internet Explorer on the PC.

Let's deal with Apple's main claim first: that it's faster than both browsers at rendering web pages. We've always noticed a slight sluggishness to rendering webpages on the Mac but for 3.1 Apple is claiming a 1.9x speed improvement than IE7 and 1.7x over Firefox 2.0. While such figures might seem slightly outlandish, they're actually not in practice.

Pages render noticeably quickly than IE7 especially, which always seems to pause for thought before retrieving a page. Performance is also favourable compared to Firefox 3 beta 4, though since it's still in development we can't really judge it properly. Apple also claims faster JavaScript rendering times than both of the other main contenders.

Bells and whistles

One of the most impressive features of Safari is its integrated RSS engine, which we think performs better than the equivalents on both Firefox 2.0 and IE7. The ability to group bookmarks together on the Bookmarks Bar in drop-down menus is also a Safari boon not replicated in IE nor done so well in Firefox.

In terms of looks, Safari is clean and tidy, but all the dialogue boxes look like they're on a Mac. This is fine if you have to use a PC but prefer a Mac, but if you're a PC-head you definitely won't like it. It's far more in-your-face than even iTunes for this.

Generally Safari is a much more stripped down experience than the feature-cluttered IE and Firefox, but several features in both browsers aren't replicated in Safari, such as web page zooming for accessibility and IE7's easy-print features. However, there are a couple of other features missing from IE, such as form-filling as well as a 'private browsing' feature that leaves no trace of the sites (or should that be sights?) you browse...

SnapBack is also an excellent addition to your browsing experience if you haven't used it before - it means you don't have to keep pressing the Back button, instead taking you straight back to your original search results or a site's homepage.

One of the features we noticed was that you can enable an extra menu in Safari - the Develop menu. This enables you to ask the browser to replicate other browsers on the market as well as different versions of Safari, such as the iPhone's browser (though we still couldn't get it to download BBC iPlayer files, sorry) as well as disable different elements of a rendered page.

Standards, standards

Speaking of development, Apple says that Safari 3.1 is the first browser to support the changed video and audio tags in HTML 5 and the first to support CSS Animations as well as CSS Web Font support enabling developers to create new fonts for sites and force the browser to download them. Microsoft has already stated that its intention for IE8 is that it will improve RSS, CSS, and Ajax support - which will also be improved in Firefox 3.0.

Compliance is the name of the game in the browser wars these days. Safari is the first browser to pass the Acid2 benchmark from the Web Standards Project but the forthcoming IE8 and Firefox 3.0 browsers are well on the way to getting this compliance. For more on the technical aspects of the browser, check out this PDF.

Apple is also bigging-up its font rendering technology designed to smooth web fonts. However, we don't like it and we're not sure you will either - certainly if you're used to a PC - as it's too soft.

One criticism levelled at Safari when it first arrived in beta version on Windows was that it would provide increased opportunity for hackers. Indeed, there were several security scares. But once again the crooks have shown that they aren't too fussed about the minority of users, and have left Safari alone. Don't necessarily expect this to continue though.

Whether Safari can get a niche in the market depends on whether people swallow the speed advantage. If they do, then some of the smaller players could find themselves superseded in terms of market share.

So should you download Safari 3.1? Mac users certainly should, even if thus far you've been a Firefox convert. As for using it on the PC, we think that if you're an entrenched Internet Explorer or Firefox devotee than you won't find anything much of interest here. Unless you want your web pages to load a darn sight faster.