Safari is kinda interesting, I don't know an awful lot about it yet, but it is kinda plain-jane. Who knows, it might be a good primary browser if it had the groovy features outta the box like Opera has (most importantly autoload previous sessions when starting up the browser, and content blocker), and after it's been tested and officially released. I'm looking forward to playing with Safari some more after it's gone through a couple of revisions.

P.S. Don't flame me with how good Firefox is with all it's plug-ins, I'm talking about browsers that do cool stuff out of the box without looking for/installing/managing/updating plug-ins and having to reconfigure it all every time I format/reinstall.

Just waiting for the rabid Mac fanatics to blast you for saying that their favourite product isn't as flawless as we'd all like.

Another El Reg hack blagging their way through journalism, didn't get in WWDC, awwwwwwwwwww, poor you, don't be so cheap next time and buy a ticket.

"But it also shows that the company is bringing the requisite urgency to providing users with products that are secure."

Or it could be a deliberate act to create yet another opportunity to say, "see, OS X is safe, it's only Windows that gets the bugs," especially since they happen to have the fix immediately.

Fonts still broken, but then again, this is a security patch not a bugfix. Apple are redeemed, but not for long :]

Is it just me or is Safari very basic compared to other browsers on the market. Yeah we loved it back then when Firefox was popular for being this lean mean browsing machine. But now I have my plug-ins for it and it is brilliant couldn't live without some of them and no other browser offers them.

Opera is the same it has some ground breaking features nobody else includes. Seems odd why Apple should even consider releasing such a backwards browser to the Windows market when it's missing even basic features some of us have come to love!

Apple isn't releasing Safari on Windows to get marketshare for Safari, they're releasing it to get people to develop for the iPhone and to have a way of doing site compatibility testing without needing a Mac. They're marketing it as an alternate browser for Windows but it's really just a way to make the Internet experience better for Mac and iPhone users.

Thank you for the million downloads, if you want a real Mac experience, better start saving up and get a real Mac. Too bad El Reg has been blacklisted by Apple, you won't even get discount at an Apple store now ha-ha....

"Or it could be a deliberate act to create yet another opportunity to say, "see, OS X is safe, it's only Windows that gets the bugs," especially since they happen to have the fix immediately."

Paranoid, much?

Not sure if you're trying to be ironic, are used to long delays for Internet Explorer security patches, or whether you made the tinfol hat a bit too snug but, whichever it is, you may want to work on it a bit.

Safari's feature-set looks basic compared to Opera or Firefox+extensions, but not compared to IE. And we all know which browser still dominates. That's the feature-set you need to beat in the first instance.

Safari's advantage over Opera/Firefox right now is that the interface is very straightforward. If they'd come to their senses and quit trying to emulate OS X on Windows they could have a very nice browser.

I'm going to uninstall Safari for now. I'm not convinced by their speed claims and I find the interface to be less usable than IE7.

I didn't like the IE7 beta much either, but the final release is great. I prefer it's approach to tabbed browsing over Firefox's (new tabs open next to parent tab, new tab button is next to existing tabs, thumbnail preview of tabs).

I also like the way IE7 makes it easy to enlarge entire pages, not just the fonts.

I find Firefox's plug-ins are great for web development, especially Firebug. I also prefer the way it handles RSS over IE7.

Safari's tabs are clunky by comparison, with no button available to create a new tab. I couldn't find a way to zoom into the page either. I like to have menus and status bars visible too, and once they're turned on they take up a lot of screen space with no way to drag them onto a single level.

So what's to like? The way the address bar turns blue as the page loads is nice. The standard look (without the menus and status bar visible) is pretty cool too.

When you've finished customising the toolbar, it disappears with a nice visual effect.

Trouble is, none of this is enough for me to justify running a third browser. Sorry Apple. I think I'll wait until you release OSX for PCs before committing to Safari.

Who in the right mind would want to use Safari on Windows (or Linux for that matter) ? Unless you are a die hard Apple cultist, it just does not make any sense. Less features, less compatibility, less stability, less security.. Anyone actually tests or develop for that browser??

After installing the Safari 3 beta with OSX.4, Mail lost the ability to send mail with attachments. Once I reverted to Safari 2 normal sevice resumed.

I've always found safari a pretty sluggish. Far better is Camino, superfast and light-weight. Can't recommend it enough. Also doesn't have that god awful brushed metal.

No! Say it isn't so! Beta software can't have bugs, surely?

Yes! Sure, beta software will have bugs!

It will also present a complete feature set for the application

It will be stable enough to allow for testing

It will not be so insecure that it yields to basic crash-test routines

Safari 3 for Windows is none of the above

It is an alpha at best and an incomplete, unstable and insecure release at that; it should not be used by anyone outside of a lab-based or sandboxed environment and it shows Aplle and the pips that pass for Mac apostles in a very poor light

Installed it the other day. hmmm, think I'd like to make the window taller. I'll just grab the border of the window and drag it up then shall I? Oh no, wait, Apple have deliberately turned off that "feature".

Fine when releasing stuff to mac, it is the normal way of doing things, but if you're releasing something on windows you would think they'd try and fit in with the established user interface for that platform - they're only going to put people off this way.

"No! Say it isn't so! Beta software can't have bugs, surely?"

I find this comment extremely insensitive and ill-informed, as a MS user for the last 14 years I am more used to bug infested production release software :)

seriously though, why would anyone flame the first beta of a new version of a product on a new platform? Isn't the point to find the bugs and security issues before going mainstream?

Personally I am looking forward to giving the production a try, if it's good it will make me look more seriously at getting a Mac. This seems like a very intelligent way to getting customers used to the mac look and feel, making development for iphone easier and making more websites compatible with it (i.e. by having a larger market share).

I personally don't like using IE but have to for many apps for compatibility.

If you don't want to get pwnd online, don't use a beta -- period. My experience shows me that for all the so-call backassward usability in IE7, many of my clients aren't even aware half of this stuff exists because the 'usability' is so 'intuitive' in 7. And they don't care about it when it IS pointed out. You can bet your last dollar, euro, pound . . . whatever(!) . . . that I will be installing the commercial version of Safari for Windows on ALL of my clients hardware. Especially when I tell them it comes from Apple who has the record for the safest OS on the planet. See how easy that was?

/rantoff

I found the following comment very, very funny:

Who in the right mind would want to use Safari on Windows (or Linux for that matter) ? Unless you are a die hard Apple cultist, it just does not make any sense. Less features, less compatibility, less stability, less security.. Anyone actually tests or develop for that browser??

Anyone actually test or develop for that browser? As it turns out, no, lots of people don't. And why don't they? BECAUSE IT'S NOT AVAILABLE FOR THEIR COMPUTERS!

Are you beginning to understand why Apple might be interested in offering Safari for the platform THAT THESE WEB DEVELOPERS ARE DEVELOPING ON?

Sheesh.

-fred

These pissed-off security researchers are doing Apple a huge favor; by "targeting" Safari and refusing to inform Apple before posting the bugs, they're just proving that hostile hackers are MORE than willing to target Apple's products - single digit market-share be damned. That totally blows the Microsoft proponent's "security through obscurity" excuse out of the water. And if OS X remains essentially malware free in this hostile environment, it just reinforces Mac's security superiority.

As much as I despise Apple's recent image, I am impressed.

Security patch after *three* days? Of course, it might be a showcase (planting the exploits and then "discovering" them, then patching it) but still it does show that Apple cares about end-user security.

A far cry from Microsoft's stance on ActiveX: "If you want security, unplug your computer from the net". Cue the ever-raising ranks of ActiveX-powered malware and virii.

Safari/Windows alpha is totally b0rked, a friend tried it and it promptly barfed while loading Google. But at least Apple doesn't wait a month for security fixes...

A very disappointing performance, slow to start, freezes, fails to display posted text, crashes, it sucks big time.

And now more security flaws have been found in the updated version as well, if there ever was better advice not to buy Apple products then this is it.

Clearly Apple have been believing their own propoganda, assuming that all they produced was indeed secure when in fact that was far from the truth. Overall, I found that IE7, Firefox and especially Opera outperformed Safari, being more stable, reliable, fast and certainly more secure, and as for the beta nonsense, that I believe was a face saving after thought - just in case!

Apple has had a baptism of fire on Windows, for now they know that every product in this environment will have all sorts crawling all over them looking for a way exploit any design weakness, they're playing with the big boys now.

"Security patch after *three* days? Of course, it might be a showcase (planting the exploits and then "discovering" them, then patching it) but still it does show that Apple cares about end-user security."

Well it might if:

1. They had patched more than just 3 of the dozen or so then public issues.

2. The patches had corrected said targeted issues

3. The patches had introduced less than 3 new issues

Its nice of Uncle Steve to give the crackers a good head start without having to fork out for an overpriced, underspecced PC though. How long before 'you've been iPhown3d' becomes common currency I wonder?

is it me? ihave looked at safari,and it dosent look from my experiences in any shape or form a competiter to ie7.as for being faster i dont't see it.there is 0 on that browser to encourage any one away from windows.poor effort apple