Safari 3 on XP: Almost there

I decided to give Safari 3 for XP a try this morning. I’m happy enough with Firefox (plus my extensions) but I usually like Apple’s take on software. I’ve also read that it’s suppose to be faster and more web standards compliant.

Hopefully, there is better tab support and customizability.

Here are my thoughts, first the good:

• Small install file, ~19MB
• Quick install, about a minute or two
• Starts up fast, faster than the latest Firefox (probably due to the extensions I have installed)
• Looks sharp and clean, love the 1px border around the window
• The new webkit loads pages extremely fast, I’m on high-speed cable but this is still noticeable
• Through writing this post, I’ve noticed it has a decent spellcheck, much like the one in Firefox
• Loads pages correctly! My old design would not load but no problems this time
• Flash support is built in, no downloading plugins
• Did I mention it’s very clean?

And the not so good:

• I really wish there was better tab support. Yes you can drag tabs, a feature I rarely use, but there still isn’t a new tab button available for the navigation bar. It takes two hands to operate this version.
• New windows (target=blank) open in a new window. In a few short minutes, I had 5 windows open. I googled and couldn’t find a solution for XP to this problem. I wish there was a preference to force all new windows to open in a new tab. I thought this was the point of tabs, so that we wouldn’t have an abundance of windows.
• The address bar still bothers me: there is no history drop down of sites I’ve recently gone too. I’ve become accustomed to using the address bar as a bookmarks bar. Yes I can USE the bookmarks bar but I like to have a minimal and clean interface.

Final Thoughts:

The way I see it, Apple is playing catchup in the browser market. Even Mac users tend to not use Safari as their default browser. The features I listed as missing or not available should have been in their by default. This was a new version, not a .1 update. Why aren’t their more new features? I love the webkit for quick surfing and the fact that Safari 3  is web standards compliant; however, I don’t see it being used as my day-to-day browser.