Apple today introduced the world’s fastest web browser for Mac and Windows PCs — Safari 3.1. In addition to loading web pages 1.9 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and 1.7 times faster than FireFox 2, Safari 3.1 runs JavaScript up to six times faster than other browsers. Available for free download for Mac OS X and Windows, Safari 3.1 is also the browser to support the latest innovative web standards needed to deliver the next generation of highly interactive Web 2.0 experiences.
Source: Apple
That’s quite a claim. I’m busy downloading the new version as i write this and will update this post once I have played around with it a bit more.
7 responses
It may be 1.x times quicker in loading, but its 965.x times harder to get a site working properly in it and way more touchy about its fast javascript that the other two. Ill also download later, will be interesting to see if its true.
Ian: I would tend to disagree with you regarding it being harder to get a site working properly in Safari. I design my sites and initially test them in Firefox, they tend to work exactly the same 95% of the time in Safari, with IE6 and sometimes IE7 being the real difficult ones! But I’ve been doing this for a while now i suppose.
I’m an avid Firefox fan but it has been letting me down lately, with it crashing regularly on my Mac whenever i hit a site heavy on javascript. Safari has never crashed on me.
Have you tried the Firefox 3 beta? It is supposedly even faster at running javascript. It definitely seems faster in my experience so far… but it’s not like i’ve actually timed it =)
Mark: I do find that safari is much quicker and doesnt crash if you run it on a mac. Trying to get it to run code on the windows platform (and understandably) its quite slow and crashes all the time – but im sure thats expected. I, up until now, havent been developing with safari in mind so ive always found it slightly tricky to make it compatable with the ever lovable, and memory hogging, firefox which as you say lets you down on large javascript sites (like netvibes).
Hopefully Beta 4 is much better, and according to first reports it is going to be much better – but only time will tell. Going to install the new safari soon, hopefully it works as well as im hoping it will.
Peter: I haven’t tried Firefox 3 Beta yet, purely because my Firefox version 2.0.0.12 for Mac is crashing on me quite regularly already. I dare try a beta version. That said maybe the Beta version will combat these issues…
Ian: Sorry should have made that more clear, I use Safari for MAC, I’m sure it isn’t as stable on a Windows platform, but I would love to hear from someone who has been using it.
Safari 3.1 is running beautifully on my MacBook Pro. Noticeably faster and no awkward pauses on javascript heavy sites. So far so good.
That’s what I like to hear. I’ve been with Safari since the beginning. Even through many a rough spot when I first installed Leopard. But now Safari is working like a dream…
I’m now busy testing the latest Firefox Beta 2.0b5.
Slick interface, super fast interface, and seems much more stable, even though it’s a beta. I’m impressed.
Very close battle now…