Apple's Safari borrows from Google
Apple yesterday released a beta version of its Safari 4 browser which it claims is blazingly fast in comparison with the competition.
Which is very likely thanks to to its new Javascript engine, but the thing most users will notice first is the similarities between Safari and Google’s Chrome browser.
The most obvious of these "borrowings" is the new way in which open tabs are managed. Much like Chrome, which lines up the tabs across the top of the Window, Safari does the same. Traditionally tabs have been placed, in Safari as well as Firefox and Opera, below the address bar. Google was among the first to push the tab bar right into the title bar to make the most of screen real estate.
The other similarity with Chrome is the "top sites" window which displays a selection of the user’s most visited websites in a grid. Chrome didn’t completely invent this idea as Opera has a similar display in its browser, but Apple, in typical style, adds a little more … style.
The top sites window gives a 3D-ish representation of favourite sites and similar to the iPhone interface, allows users to re-arrange the blocks. The interesting addition is the feature that will mark sites that have changed since last being visited with a star. Users can also pin their favourite sites so they remain in place.
User can also use the built-in search to find sites they have previously visited. Much like the iPhone, Safari offers a Cover Flow-like display which flips through relevant pages as users search for previous items.
Beneath the glitzy exterior, Safari 4 also includes support for HTML 5 with its ability to improve the performance of web-based applications and embed multimedia content. But one of the more important additions is the new Javascript engine, dubbed Nitro. Apple says the new engine makes Safari 4 more than three times faster than Firefox and multiples of ten faster than Internet Explorer 7. Against Internet Explorer 8, however, the differential is not so obvious.
In practice Safari feels fast and looks attractive and on a Windows 7 beta desktop was nicely integrated into the overall desktop. The beta version is available for download for Windows and Mac OS X.
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