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Apple Safari 3.04 beta

Nov. 20, 2007 Paul Thurrott | Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows

OK, it's still unclear why they're bothering, but Apple is clearly improving Safari 3.x on Windows at a pretty impressive rate. Here's what's new in the latest version:

The Safari 3 Beta for Windows version 3.0.4 Update is recommended for all users running Safari 3 Beta for Windows. It includes new features as well as improvements to stability, compatibility, performance, and security.

New features:

  • Allows windows to be resized from any side
  • Includes an additional font smoothing option ("standard")
  • Adds International text input methods
  • Adds advanced text options (contextual forms, international scripts)
  • Supports NTLM
  • Includes auto-detection of PAC files
  • Supports listing FTP directories
  • Links to proxy settings from Safari (Safari respects the proxy settings in the Windows Internet control panel)
  • Adds cookie management
  • Adds LiveConnect support
  • Includes tooltips
  • Adds spell checking and grammar checking
  • Allows printing of page numbers, titles, margins
  • Improves bookmark collection interface
  • Maintains original order of imported bookmarks
  • Adds an interface for editing AutoFill information
  • History searches now search the full text of visited websites
  • Adds a new preference to manually mark RSS articles as read
  • Includes support for tilt wheels
Just adding support for the Forward and Back buttons on my mouse makes this about 200 percent more usable.

Discuss this Article 11

MaryW
on Nov 20, 2007
"OK, it's still unclear why they're bothering" "Just adding support for the Forward and Back buttons on my mouse makes this about 200 percent more usable" See what they did there Paul?
Fireball1244
on Nov 20, 2007
Paul, when did you decide that hating on Safari was part of your mission statement. You couldn't contain your praise for the browser -- "excellent," "speedy," "well-designed" -- in your review of Tiger. Now, you hate Safari. This seems to track with your sudden dissing of everything Apple in recent years. But still, it's inconsistent and kinda annoying. Paul Thurott on April 14, 2005, talking about Safari 2.0 for Mac: "Overall, I've always been a big fan of Safari, and I'd use it rather than Firefox or IE if it were available on Windows. It's an excellent application." Today, the much-improved Safari 3.0 is "lackluster." Why? Paul never says. But it's from Apple, so, clearly, it must be referred to only with the most superfluous of denigrating adjectives.
notawindowsuser
on Nov 20, 2007
'It's still unclear why they're bothering' The iPhone, thats one big reason, think web apps. One thing that no one has talked about is Safari market share increase dew to the iphone and iPod touch, I'm not saying that people are going to switch to using Safari on their PC because of the iPod and iPhone, but web-logs are going to show a increase in traffic form Safari because of them. 10 million iPhones and 10 million iPods ( I pulled the iPod figure out of thin air, but why not ) in 2008 thats a lot of new users, and then year after year, thats a whole lot of new users.
CCIE 3421
on Nov 20, 2007
Its still another iTurd and only the most rabid of the macboi's will use it on their Macs, let alone using it on windows.
notawindowsuser
on Nov 20, 2007
"iTurd" maybe running on Windows it is, I couldn't say, but according to Apples figures 85% of Mac users run Safari, and last time I looked 85% of Windows users run IE, and quite a few of them still run IE6 and you call Safari a turd?
meatbandit
on Nov 20, 2007
@Fireball Who says Paul hates Safari? Anything but unabashed praise and you guys blow up.
Fireball1244
on Nov 20, 2007
Paul does nothing but denigrate Safari in this post, other recent posts on Safari and recent Apple product reviews. He uses needlessly derogatory adjectives, as he does with all Apple products. From this post alone we get "why are they bothering?", last time we got "lackluster.' In fact, I'd dare Paul to not use excessive adjectives to bash Apple products for the rest of the year. It's possible to be critical without using constant adjectives. Its mostly the 180 degree flip in how he's addressing Safari that gauls me. It just isn't supported by his writing -- he doesn't ever explain why Safari used to be great but now is not. He just changes his whim and pretends that his previous posting never existed. But I guess it's too much to expect consistency from someone who thinks Leopard is akin to a minor Windows Service Pack, while Windows 98, back in the day, was portrayed as an earth-shaking, comprehensive update.
xtreem0
on Nov 20, 2007
What he is complaining about is the fact that it dosent work well on windows. I tryed it and disliked it though on the mac i dont mined it at all. Same with itunes. Terribly slow on my pc but runs without a hitch on the mac. They just make crappy software for windows for some unknown reason. maybe there trying to make windows look worse than it is?
clindhartsen
on Nov 20, 2007
I'd have to agree completely with Xtreem, the overall experience of Safari in Windows isn't specular by large compared to the other alternatives, like Firefox, IE7, or Opera. Also, it may be just be, but overall experience of Apple products (iTunes, Safari, QuickTime) isn't that wonderful in Vista compared to the other products available. Maybe it's just me running Vista on an ancient Pentium 4 2.4 GHz
mike_power
on Nov 20, 2007
I have to agree with Xtreem as well. Apple really have let the quality of their software slip in regards to Windows. Quicktime Pro is the only one that I would say maintains the high quality you would expect. Since the release of the Zune 2 media player the only time I use iTunes now is to sync the occasional podcast with my ipod. I'm a Windows guy but still I was one of the people who installed Safari expecting a Mac like experience that would have me switching to OS X in no time but I certainly didn't get it. The performance and even the look of the UI just didn't come up to their standard. I can imagine what the outcry would've been if Microsoft Office for Mac had followed the same strategy. The difference is that Microsoft don't have an inferiority complex. Want proof of what I mean then look no further than the little blue screens on the Windows PCs in Leopard's Network tool. Pathetic. Apple need to get over it and start giving everyone the best software possible. Final point. I own two ipods, have read the Second Coming of Steve Jobs, have admired the iMac and used the Mac Book Pro. I don't hate Apple far from it. Neither, I'm sure, does Paul. It's just that Apple aren't producing the software quality on all platforms that I would expect and so it's more disappointment in them than dislike of them.
anonymous
on Oct 17, 2008
[...] an interesting post was made today on this site [...]...

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