Safari 3 beta browser for Windows

Welcome to Apple's latest offering for Windows users. The cross platform internet browser ported from Mac - Safari 3 beta for Windows.

For those waiting to get their hands on it, here is the review:

Starting from the start - the Apple website startpage, the first website to be launched took ages to load and after completely loading still displayed the startpage incorrectly and incompletely... maybe their own website was at fault but sure Safari 3 Beta in Windows still has some serious teething problems.

The default interface is nothing to be much talked about. It feels simple and very basic with no advanced customization. The blue scrollbars distract from the main interface which is a dull metal grey. The engraved lettering in the grey is almost unreadable and tiny. Safari doesnt use native Windows gui and it makes a really bad job of being user-friendly.

Clicking Safari's task-button in the taskbar to minimize it does not work. Clicking the tiny buttons in the title bar is a hard thing to do and then you might clicked some other instead. Try maximizing the browser and it will get distorted for a second or two. Safari doesnt obey the global Windows hotkey Win+M which minimizes all open windows. It uses ctrl+m hotkey to minimize.

After minimizing Safari will not restore to the maximized state, so you will have to maximize it again. Safari has another quirk that doesnt allow window resizing by dragging the window edges, but only allows the resizing by dragging the resize handle at right bottom! This is Mac-specific but Windows users will find it troublesome.

The inbuilt search provides search only through Google and Yahoo. Other search engines can not be added. Also search field can not be turned off as it is joined to address bar. This is a step backwards when compared to Firefox / Opera web browsers.

Browsing is a little better as it is fast, faster than firefox. It loads most websites before you can even read the title. However it was definitely slower than Opera, Firefox2 or IE7 on its own website and websites with heavy content are incorrectly displayed.

The page rendering is so awful that sometimes elements are missing in websites which when refreshed will be shown. This shows that much is required to be done before users will accept Safari in Windows. Fonts are thick, shadowed and do not look crisp. Sometimes images load before the text thus simply resulting in waste of time not to mention highly irritating.

The privacy mode is the USP of the browser. Safari has introduced this highly useful feature and one has to applaud its innovative approach. When it is turned on the browser will not save any browsing history, downloads or searches till the it is closed.

Serious work needs to be done in managing of bookmarks. Bookmarks are not imported from other browsers as claimed in the website documentation (or if it did they are not added to bookmarks menu). The bookmarks manager has no trash bin, so recovering deleted items is not possible.

Even Ctrl+Enter doesnt work in the address bar. This is a surprise because almost every browser supports website URL completion. Some links irritatingly open in new windows rather than in new tabs and there is NO option to change this behaviour except for external links.

Also there is a problem with displaying fonts as many users found out. The Apple forums are full of complaints regarding this. This is a result of improper installation of fonts installed by the setup. Though I daresay this will be soon fixed by Apple as this is a Beta setup.

The Result: For Opera and Firefox users this is definitely a trip some 5 years back. If you are looking for a browser with features (atleast the basics) then please look elsewhere. Safari is not to be your choice for browsing in Windows. Safari offers nothing new except private browsing while missing the standard browser features. Watch out for updates soon to this farce.

Why did Apple have to port this app to Windows where users already have great alternatives. Now they will not only have to attract new users but also users who burned their hands trying this half-baked browser. Reading some comments by users on internet, I couldnt help but laugh at person who commented "Apple should show a message in Safari stating 'WORK IN PROGRESS'"...

Read some more comments at macworld forum.

DOWNLOAD INSTALLER HERE (8 MB):