Apple Releases Safari 4 Beta Browser

by Scott Beale on February 24, 2009 · 5 comments

Apple Safari 4 Beta

Apple has just released the beta version of their new Safari 4 browser. It’s much faster than other browsers (including Google Chrome) and has 150 new features, including Top Sites, Cover Flow and Full History Search, Tabs on Top.

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filed under Apple

{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }

1 kevin mathieu February 24, 2009 at 9:20 am

Yep Safari 4, a great idea. Too bad one can’t download it.

Maybe Apple could have tested the download page with Firefox first?

Or the back end.

Download = FAIL

The download page requires an email, but there is nothing to click on to start the download.

Reloaded with SAFARI the page now says:
Our apologies but there was an unexpected error with the application. This problem has been noted, and an email has been sent to the administrators. Please check back in a few hours to try the download again.

Reply

2 kevin mathieu February 24, 2009 at 9:23 am

Update. The site and download options now works in Firefox. That was a quick fix.

Reply

3 st vincent February 24, 2009 at 12:24 pm

I gave Safari 4 a spin for a few hours this morning on my dual proc G4.

My quick, seat-of-the-pants judgment: I uninstalled it just a bit ago.

Safari has always been a bit slower than Firefox on my machine, but I’ve stuck with it anyway over the years as I prefer its interface. That said, Safari 4 is eeeeeven slower.

I found Top Site to be very annoying and resource-sucking, I really don’t see it as much of a benefit, and even worse, it gunks up bookmarks; a pet peeve of mine with Safari 3 is that when you call up bookmarks, it takes several seconds to load all the damn favicons, and I’d hoped Apple would fix it in later versions… guess that isn’t happening. Safari 4 is just as bad if not worse.

It was worth a try. Thanks for the info, Scott!

Reply

4 Mark Hines February 24, 2009 at 9:15 pm

Although claimed by Apple as fastest browser, I dont think its qiute that fast! I have used many other browsers and feel that google crome is the fastest of them all. By the way they have added new features such as “cover flow” which I like very much.

Reply

5 Mike February 25, 2009 at 2:32 pm

With just 5 tabs open right now, none of which contain any kind of flash or video, Safari 4 beta is eating up 487k of memory on Vista Premium x86! Talk about a resource hog! I like the sexiness of Top Sites compared to Chrome’s similar “Most Visited” feature, but Chrome is MUCH faster overall. I will give Safari another week before switching back to Chrome as my default.

Reply

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