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jules

OK, this is off-topic, but has anyone tried the new web browser on the block, Apple Safari for Windows XP and Vista? It's very cool, and a lot faster than Firefox and IE.

I can't seem to get it to open new pages by default in a new tab instead of a new window, and I miss the Google toolbar, but I like the speed and the way it anti-aliases text, and I haven't noticed much in the way of compatibility problems.

vdsalchemist · Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 2:08 pm Post subject:

Jules,
I am using Safari now and so far it seems pretty fast but I have one very important issue with it. It uses the same download manager interface like FireFox. You can only download to a single folder for every download. I catagorize my downloads and I place them in multiple folders according to they type of file that I am downloading. Since I am not a big fan of the tabbed browsing anyway that is of no interest to me. I don't like and cannot find a way to turn off the auto type in the adress bar. It keeps trying to overwrite everything I type which is very anoying. Also there is no way to move the bars around. They don't seem to be toolbars at all. As I type this message I notice that the text on the BBCode buttons above are off center and the Attachments Browse button is called "Choose File" and is on top of the Edit box. I guess if I was used to a Mac and had to use a PC then it would be nice to use a browser I was used too but going the other way I see what I think are mistakes in the rendering of the HTML. Fast is only good if everything works right. Otherwise I can live without fast as long as it everything functions correctly. I do like the fact that multilined edit boxes are sizable. My first impression is that it's not worth the time to get used to yet another PC browser. IE 6 works just fine and is supported by the majority of websites out there. Actually I don't like IE 7 either so I guess I am kinda picky about the webbrowser I use. I normally use IE but from time to time I will use Firefox for testing software with.

vdsalchemist · Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 2:16 pm Post subject:

Another thing too... The fonts seem to be in bold. They seem fuzzy and run together. Is there a place to submit comments to Apple about these things. I would hate to try to support this browser with HTML rendering issues.

vdsalchemist · Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 3:02 pm Post subject:

I just got this from CNET News.com When you step out of the confort and security of OS X and dive into uncharted waters you should at least check the tempreture first.

jules · Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 5:19 pm Post subject:

On mine there is an item on the Help menu: Report bugs to Apple. However, I'd hesitate to say the HTML rendering issues are bugs. Apple claims Safari is the most standards compliant of all browsers. At worst, it's possible that the standards are open to interpretation. Just because IE or Firefox does it a certain way doesn't mean it's right.

Personally I like the way fonts are rendered. But I'm using a laptop. There are options that may be better for CRT screens.

The main issues are incompatibilities with utilities like As-U-Type and my own Tech-Pro Safe (my program doesn't recognize when I click on a pop-up

vdsalchemist · Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 7:02 pm Post subject:

Garrett · Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 11:13 pm Post subject:

This is almost exactly how Safari is on Mac OSX too. With the exception of the rather odd borders around some edit boxes and buttons.

I always did like the font rendering of Safari, but it would always lose me with the lack of features, so I'd end up back with Firefox again.

Otherwise, it should make a great alternative on the Windows systems and it's a lot smaller than IE, maybe even the Mozilla family of browsers too. What's Opera clock in at size wise these days?

-Garrett

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1562

The browser is complete garbage IMHO. It crashes constantly, it renders some sites such as engadget completely wrong, you have to triple click the address bar to change urls. If you are going to make a Windows app don't force users to look at the hideous mac gui on a windows application. The browser is very slow to load, it consumes memory like a pig with some javascript websites, doesn't seem to support flash correctly or other plugins. Fonts are very blurly, we already have ClearType which looks 100x better, why try to bring over Mac 'standards' when Windows already has some that are clearly better.

To top that off, the browser has security holes for it already that claim to allow remote execution and denial of service on your machine. This isn't the first time Apple software on Windows is vunerable either - Quicktime allowed remote execution a few months ago. While on the subject of Quicktime - qt runs like garbage on a Vista machine. If Apple had more than the 10 people buying their computers I really wonder how 'secure' they could claim OSX really is.

Please Apple keep your trash off Windows machines. People wanting an alternative to IE can use Firefox, it is a very capable browser and is not prone to the secuirty issues that Safari has, nor the constant bugs.

Garrett · Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 2:49 am Post subject:

Ummm, IE is just as bad if not worse when it comes to resource hogging and security problems. I didn't encounter any of the problems you did. I've been browsing all day with Safari now and not one problem, and no resource problems either. But like any software, mileage may very depending on your system and setup.

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1562

IE7 runs in a completely different security context, much of the problems with IE6 and previous are no longer around. Sure there are going to be security issues but not like they used to be.

Regarding resource usage - IE is loading when you start Windows, either way it is consuming resources whether you want to use it or not - might as well use it instead of consuming even more resources using another browser. Take a look at it's resource usage when playing Flash animation websites and compare it to FireFox you'll see little difference.

Windows really does not need another browser for developers to support, especially a browser that has for it's entire existence not conform to standards and render pages similar to it's competitors. Safari on the Mac is almost always avoided and Firefox is installed. The browser is a very poor implementation, and there are free alternatives which work much better.

Btw I tested on two computers, one which is fairly powerful and the other a laptop so both computers should be more than capable of running this browser.

- Desktop: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 Ghz, 4 GB Ram, Vista Ultimate, 8800 GTS Nvidia video card, 800 GB Harddrives.

- Laptop: AMD Turion 1.7 Ghz, 2 GB Ram, Vista Home Premium, Nvidia Go Gpu, 120 GB hdd.

Also this isn't a vista issue, I tested using Microsoft Virtual PC running Safari in Windows XP and the same issues apply.

Safari really offers nothing to the Windows world that other browsers already do much better. If you don't like IE there is FireFox or Opera, and if you don't have a problem with IE then use that. At this point what does Safari offer other than incompatibilites with websites, crashes, security holes and inability to follow standards?

Garrett · Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 3:30 am Post subject:

I have never been happy with Microsofts inability to accept and use the html standards as they were intended... MS has always made their own definition of the standards and slapped a label on it saying that they follow the standards when they never have. MSIE is not HTML standards compliant, never was and never will be. Safari is more html compliant than IE will ever be.

Well, we could argue all day on this, but it's not worth it.... Especially over the html standards.

You obviously have a deep hatred of Apple and it's products and will not give any ground on this topic, so there's just no way or reason to further this.

I will just continue to be open about such things as I always have been.

Peace out,
-Garrett

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1562

Actually I don't hate Apple, it's just that their products on the PC have always been terrible. Apple should stick with what they know and not come to the Windows world. I've tried a Mac Pro and it works wonderfully, but trying to bring these apps over to Windows shows just how poor of an implementation these attempts are. It's just the same when Microsoft put out poor versions of IE and Windows Media Player on the Mac. Microsoft should stick to Windows.

Regarding IE, yes Microsoft has always been known to create their own 'standards' and modify existing ones. However in the Windows world like it or not FireFox and Opera both can replicate these non-standard 'standards' and make pages look the same as on IE. Also when a browser holds over 80% marketshare the browser definately can have it's own standards and others must either follow or continue to hold low marketshare. Most html developers make sure their pages work with IE, so again like it or not the way IE renders a page has become a standard even if those html standards are non-compliant.

The issues with Apple software on Windows and with the latest Safari on Windows would not be tolerated if Microsoft released buggy/insecure software on the Mac (you would definately hear about it from every Mac user) so they should not be tolerated by Windows users either. I give some credit that safari is in beta, but I'm not about to beta test software that opens my computer up to remote explotation.

trapper · Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 7:12 am Post subject:

I think the introduction of Safari on Windows is all to do with the impending release of the iPhone.

jules · Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 9:11 am Post subject:

I agree that in the pragmatic sense the world doesn't need another web browser. But competition is a good thing. Microsoft would not be able to get away with a lot of what it does if it had more or stronger competitors. A lot of the UI changes in IE7 were brought about as a direct result of Firefox.

I don't agree that an application should be allowed to dictate standards just because it has a large market share. It may make life easier for web developers to define IE's implementation as the standard, but that's not what standards are for.

I agree that Apple's software for Windows has tended to be dire. I avoid anything that requires QuickTime to be installed on a machine. It's notable that even Apple must realise this, as it offers two versions of Safari for Windows, with or without QuickTime.

I think the issue of security exploits just goes to show how much more under scrutiny the Windows platform is. People criticize Microsoft for writing insecure software, but the immediate discovery of security exploits in Safari suggests to me that Mac OS and Linux would prove to be just as bad if people spent the same amount of effort on trying to find holes in them.

Safari's main advantage over Firefox and IE at the moment seems to be speed. I wonder if the reason the other browsers have become so slow and bloated is the amount of extra checking code that needs to be incorporated in them?

I'm typing this in Safari. The fact that I'm still using it means that it can't be all bad. Most of what I miss compared to Firefox are not native Firefox features but extensions. I don't know if Safari has an interface for extensions but it's unfair to expect there to be any when it has only just been released.

More choice is better as far as I am concerned. I hate the corporatization of computing that has occurred because of Microsoft. I am no great fan of Apple but their resurgence in the market means that things could start to get a bit more interesting again.

vdsalchemist · Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 1:50 am Post subject:

To be honest with ya'll I have been using Safari for a couple of days going back and forth between Safari, IE, and FireFox. I really don't see that much of a difference in the speed. Especially between Safari and FireFox. Safari is not worth the hassle of switching from FireFox or IE under Windows. If I was on a Mac I would probably use it but really I already know how to use a browser so I really don't need a bigginers Browser. Maybe I can get my 10 & 11 year old girls to use it... Oh, I know if my girls mis-behave I can threaten them by telling them that they have to use Safari to play their Disney games Razz