Safari is a big deal on the Mac, but it has never been a major player on PCs. That's partly because of good old-fashioned Apple arrogance, and partly because Safari didn't do Firefox-style extensions. That's finally changed.
Safari 5 offers both an extensions API and some interesting tricks up its sleeve, especially when it comes to HTML5 features.
It includes geolocation, draggable items and the ability to watch video in full screen and with closed captions.
There's also a new JavaScript engine that promises blistering performance, and the browser adopts Chrome-style DNS pre-fetching, scanning for links in the current page and performing address lookups so that clicking on a link loads a page more quickly.
The new Safari is fast, but not as fast as Chrome. Apple's browser raced through the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark in 625ms on our test PC, but Chrome was slightly faster at 598ms. That said, you'd struggle to tell the difference when performing real-world testing.
The most dramatic new feature is Reader. Whenever you visit a site that's overly stuffed with adverts, the Reader icon appears in the address bar. Click it and the page clutter is removed, with multiple pages joined together and images shown inline. The effect is rather Microsoft Word document circa 1997, but there are a number of extensions that can make it prettier.
We're sure site owners are already looking for ways to block it in the name of making sure people see their thrilling banner adverts.
Battle of the big five
Safari 5 is more bad news for IE9. Microsoft's competition has never been tougher, with superb browsers available not just from Apple but from Opera, Google and Mozilla too.
But whether Safari tops Chrome is largely down to personal preference. It's a decent browser and Reader is handy, but until there are more extensions, we think Chrome has the edge.
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heatherholmes
February 4th
1. When I found out about Safari 5, I have to admit, I was doubtful. The past versions of Safari, while being okay, have not been the best browsers available. But, after doing a little research and reading a few reviews, I thought, 'Well, okay, it does sound promising. I'll give it a try.'
That was earlier this afternoon. I'm using Safari 5 right now. It may be too soon to tell, but I think this browser, with a few tweaks, is great.
The speeds are quite fast. They were very fast the first couple of hours, but, and this may just be me, it seems to have slowed down somewhat now that I've had it for a while. It's still good, though, don't get me wrong.
It has some great features- it may not be as cutting edge as Chrome, but it's on its way. As I said, with a few adjustments, this could go to or near to the top.
It's easy to use. Within the first few minutes I had all the controls and links figured out, and was running it just as easily as I would with my previous browser, Google Chrome.
I've only tried the Reader option once, but from what I saw, it was pretty good. Bad news for some advertisement companies, perhaps, but good news for anyone who likes to skip past pointless ads, as I'm sure most people do.
All in all, I like this browser. It's better than I had expected it to be, and I'm glad I downloaded it. I recommend it.
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