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Safari 3.0.2 released to address Mac and Windows issues
By Stevie Smith Jun 25, 2007, 12:58 GMT
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In all fairness, you should really mention that Safari 3 is a beta release, not a final one.
Beta release or not, the same issues exist in both the Mac and the Windows version. Is everyone also forgetting that Apple has insisted that they built Safari with security in mind from the ground up? Can't we all agree that this just isn't the case? Let's just assume that Macs are less secure than Apple insists, but because so few people use Macs, no one notices or cares. Let's just assume that Apple doesn't have better programmers and developers. Let's just assume that Apple is all show and no substance.
Its a beta and I am extremely happy with it! I ditched IE quite a while back for Firefox and after my recent experiences with Safari will now be losing Firefox to use the much better browser offered by Apple. IE has been out a long time and Firefox has been out for quite a bit now... in the short time I've been using Safari I've had far LESS glitches with it than I've had with the other two. IE and Firefox have always given me problems loading webpages such as myspace and any other pages that are loaded with graphics. Using Safari these pages fly up ten times quicker than I have ever seen them before. Really any page that have audio, flash or any animation on it just works better with Safari. I don't know how to say it other than... its just a better browser. Specifically over IE and Firefox. I haven't used Opera or any of the others, just the three I've listed here Can't wait for the finalized release after beta testing! I know there are people out there who hate Apple. But you will always get that. Lets understand that they are upset that Microsoft just isn't innovative (granted any innovation at all would be welcomed... sorry folks they just don't have it) and they hate to see this other company coming in with really good ideas that work well! I definitely plan on using the final release of Safari for a while and if it goes even half as smoothly as this beta release Apple will have gained a new customer! Microsoft & supporters... its okay to be sore we understand. Cry your rivers of tears and give your shouts of hatred here, let it out. One day Microsoft will realize they are a thing of the past. Go Apple!!!
Firefox will forever be superior purely because of the extension function available.
The Adblock extension, with personal customised filters, means I no longer have any adverts of any sort on any page. The space where adverts would be is filled, and the pages load quicker.
For this reason alone, Firefox will always be leagues ahead of IE and Safari.
Come on, Batman.
Vista was also built for security 'from the ground up'. Didn't stop there from being vulnerabilities.
IE has been left vulnerable to known exploits for weeks while MS dithered.
Neither Apple, nor Microsoft, nor anyone else can possibly deliver software with NO vulnerabilities. It's just not possible with anything beyond a certain level of complexity (not to mention reliance on unknown 3rd party software like drivers).
Bottom line, it is a Beta. It's not going to be as finished or secure as a released product. And even so, Apple has already updated it twice since it's release, even hurrying the 3.0.1 release out due to published vulnerabilities no more severe than ones that MS waits for 'patch day' to fix.
Why don't we just assume that you really don't like Apple?
HA! Mac finally has to play with the big boys and low and behold it has security flaws. Now since more then 10 people get to use thier product they will find that it's not as secure as they thought.
Now I will try it in 2 or 3 months after 10 or so patches have come out. I like FireFox, and haven't used IE for years. And I'm glad they are doing this, compition is good. But iit is so funny that they have security flaws soo soon.
You're right Markgo; Batman seems like just another Apple-hater. Enough with the 'all show - no substance' nonsense. I've said it before; Steve Jobs is not the great universal brain washer (sheesh, for as much as you guys don’t care for him, you certainly afford him a lot of credit & power). And, while I'm at it, most Mac customers are neither morons nor zombies. Any product that sells well has to have SOME substance or the company would do no significant business. Batman, you don't 'get' Macs? Fine. But, don't be so pompous (hey, aren't Apple-ites supposed to be the arrogant ones?) as to suggest that non-Mac consumers are the only 'thinking' consumers out there.
OK - lets start by putting the 'I like Apple' or 'Microsoft' question to the side first - I use both and find strengths and weaknesses in either system type. I have no love for either the big-business strong arming that Microsoft is known for, nor the proprietal tendencies of Apple, but both do whatever job I ask of them. I do admit that hard-core apple users scare me a bit with their zealous arguments - sounds a lot like fundemental religion!
As for safari - 'it's only a beta' is a great excuse. But excuses aren't what I'm looking for in a new (for Windows) and supposedly improved product. From minor issues like screen resizing (when in Rome . . ., guys) to claims by apple that I have found to be slightly more than exaggerated - specifically rendering times. So far I've found that Internet Explorer still loads on my system faster (without a tray applet to help) and that multi-media pages still render much faster in IE than Safari. My example page is starwars.com - lots to download just to bring up the page. On an AMD 2x64 (2.0Ghz cores) system with a broadband connection (average 7.5 Mbits download speed) this page loaded a full 2-4 seconds faster than Safari. While this sound picky it was Apple who claimed this new browser would provide faster rendering than any other browser. Safari was still showing a 'wait' screen while IE was loaded and ready to go.
I have found other annoying problems - like buttons not working on webpages - that slowed me down enough to reload pages in IE to finish my task.
Whether you support Microsoft or Apple, this is not a strong showing by Safari.
Sticking with 'It's only a beta' as an argument - please call me when they are ready for a stable release - or something that really changes the browser market.
Not sure that faster app load time is a useful metric. Since Windows uses IE to deliver the Desktop, all the pertinent DLLs are already loaded. A neat little trick not available to Firefox OR Safari.
I do find that page loads are a bit faster on Safari than on Firefox and a lot faster than IE 6 (can't speak for IE 7--deinstalled it a month ago after too many weird problems). Not dramatic, except in, ironically Outlook Web Access (MS Exchange web mail). OWA is a LOT faster in Safari.
OK, maybe it's just me. Maybe I have read too many articles where the U.S. citizens want someone else to be held responsible so they can remove themselves from that role.
I use computers. Have used coputers for years. I remember when a 'web browser' was called Archie, Veronica, etc. I remember when Microsoft first released IE as an afterthought and I had to buy it from EggHead (the retail store) for $80. I know how viruses, trojans and all are spread. Most of the time I do not run current anti-virus software on my computer yet I rarely get more than a tracking cookie installed on my system (I do update and scan occasionaly when I need to clean someonelses computer.)
Now, with all that said: how much owness needs to be put on the computer user? All you hear is Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple need to improve security and how 'vulnerable' their systems are. Yes, security needs to improve. And what do we see? Security is constantly improving. Can anyone name a period in the last 5 years where either of the 3 companies mentioned above has not released patches/improvements on a regular basis?
Perhaps users should spend a little time educating themselves on how to actually use those magical boxes on their desks.
How fasts would network security improve if both the companies and the users took the time to improve the software?
Just a thought
Batman is right. The beta argument is lame. It doesn't hold up for MS so why should it hold up for Apple? The fact of the matter is that people greatly discount how much the sheer scale affects security. Apple has 5% of the market so only 5% of the people are actively uncovering problems with the products. The other 95% are busy hacking away at Windows (which by the way is easier to code for, supports more hardware and more flexible). With this in mind for them to have claimed that their products are more secure is simply disingenuous. Who cares about Vista? We already KNOW that MS has security issues the topic is Apple. If apple ever grabs more than 25% of the market we can have this discussion again. They simply aren't playing in the same league and will get spanked just as bad as MS has once they are.
'Since Windows uses IE to deliver the Desktop, all the pertinent DLLs are already loaded. A neat little trick not available to Firefox OR Safari. '
I think you are misinformed. Back in the 'active desktop' days you would have been correct, but those days are long dead. IE 7 is very much seperated from the rest of Vista and is in no way used to render the desktop. The MSHTML com object might already be loaded into memory for some other reason (the old Windows Help used it for example, but that is not installed by default in Vista).
'Now, with all that said: how much owness needs to be put on the computer user? All you hear is Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple need to improve security and how 'vulnerable' their systems are. Yes, security needs to improve. And what do we see? Security is constantly improving. Can anyone name a period in the last 5 years where either of the 3 companies mentioned above has not released patches/improvements on a regular basis?'
Volume of flaws patched matters a great deal. A default install of Vista, today, will download patches to 7 vulnerabilities (granted that is without other MS software installed, such as office, just a default vista install). A copy of OS X that was intentionally unpatched since the general release of Vista (it would be even more if it was the actualy November release of Vista) would need to download patches to 104 vulnerabilities. I would say the owness is on the vendor to follow more secure coding guidelines. Yes, patches are to be expected, but right now Apple is actually declining rather than improving in apparent quality and security.
The release of safari exemplifies that. People keep waving the *it's a beta* flag around, but the fact is this is not an internal or controlled release beta. This is a general release to the public and as such, despite being *beta* has a higher quality bar, certainly with regards to security, that must be met. The browser is the two most common and easiest to exploit attack vectors against a machine (the other being email) and any general release browser, however labeled or qualified, has a responsibility to provide some appearance of security. Some of the security flaws found in safari were discovered with publically available fuzzers in a matter of hours. What that tells me is that Apple made no effort to do even a basic security verification of their product, which is not forgivable nor should it be.
I do not run OS X, which may make me a hater in your mind, but I do have Apple software on my machine and I will hold them accountable for any lax security practices because I want them to improve, not because I enjoy ranting against them (I do rant, but it because I want people to pressure the company to rectify issues rather than give them a pass). I am glad that they have responded so quick with fixes for safari; I use it to test some website I work on even though I don't intend to use it full time (the limited execution context of IE 7 in vista provides security that currently no other browser can touch, and that is more important to me than speed or add-ins. It doesn't help that I hate applications that feel they don't need to conform to a platform's UI guidelines). However it was not fit for public consumption, beta or otherwise, and they should have held off until it was. They rushed it out the door for WWDC rather than waiting until it met some level of quality standards and when some arbitrary deadline is held in higher regard than the state of the product there is a problem.
All Webmasters need to have all the browsers available running on their computers.
So far I have IE7, Netscape/Modzilia, FireFox, Opera and now Safari... just so I know what my site will look like for people across the whole spectrum of users. I think I've seen every browser availibe and activly use the top 3 or 4 daily.
Safari has to be the biggest piece of crap browser I've ever used going back to Mosaic and I have a hard time believing that Steve Jobs and company would release this, even if it is a public 'Beta.'
I'm also bewildered at the Mac-Heads who have to keep defending Safari. Look, it's a garbage browser. Can't you people just admit this? I've never had problems with QuickTime or ITunes - those have always been great products for Windows and Mac users... but this 'Public Release Beta.' It doesn't work the way Jobs said it would and it's an ebarrasing joke after his big talk about how great 'Safari For Windows' is.
Why exactly do we even need another browser, besides having a test-bed for IPhone for web-developers like myself?
By far, the best Browser I've used to date is Opera... and I can't understand why more people aren't using it.
In closing - I want to invite folks to convince me why I should upgrade Safari using this latest patch.
All Webmasters need to have all the browsers available running on their computers.
So far I have IE7, Netscape/Modzilia, FireFox, Opera and now Safari... just so I know what my site will look like for people across the whole spectrum of users. I think I've seen every browser available and actively use the top 3 or 4 daily.
Safari has to be the biggest piece of crap browser I've ever used going back to Mosaic and I have a hard time believing that Steve Jobs and company would release this, even if it is a public 'Beta.'
I'm also bewildered at the Mac-Heads who have to keep defending Safari. Look, it's a garbage browser. Can't you people just admit this? I've never had problems with QuickTime or ITunes - those have always been great products for Windows and Mac users... but this 'Public Release Beta.' It doesn't work the way Jobs said it would and it's an embarrassing joke after his big talk about how great 'Safari For Windows' is.
Why exactly do we even need another browser, besides having a test-bed for IPhone for web-developers like myself?
By far, the best Browser I've used to date is Opera... and I can't understand why more people aren't using it.
In closing - I want to invite folks to convince me why I should upgrade Safari using this latest patch.
Well....speaking as a long-time wintel user who has often thought about trying a Mac (but always being put off by the daunting prospect of buying 'mac' versions of all my software titles - if they even exist) I was pleased to hear about the availability of Safari on the Windows platform. At last, the chance to see Apple's 'innovative' style at first hand....and what a total letdown! To be honest, each time I run it to try to compare its performance with IE or Firefox I never ever get past the lack of 'useability' features. It may be me, these features may be there but if so they are very well hidden, but I don't like:
1. The inability to set a 'Start Group' of tabs.
2. Even worse tabbed browsing capability than IE7 (suggest Apple AND Microsoft developers have a look at the Tab Mix Plus plugin for Firefox).
3. Being unable to browse and select bookmarks (I have hundreds) either via a drop-down list or dedicated sidebar.
4. And all the other stuff(e.g. fonts, customisation, resizing) which have already been detailed.
Doubtless all the diehard Mac fans will dump on me for ignoring the 'security and performance' benefits, however I'm a firm believer of the 'PC' being just that - Personal - so if I have a choice between a browser which basically lets me set it up just how I like it or a browser which MAY be slightly faster but is totally inflexible....no contest. I'll check back when the Beta goes live to see if any of these useability features have been improved, but if not then I guess I'll be sticking with Firefox as my browser of choice.
Only one person got it...Safari for Windows was released only because of the iPhone, not to try and go up against all the Windows offerings as far as browsers are concerned.
I have to say that it certainly felt faster than Firefox in the short period I used it, and a hell of a lot faster than IE6/7 that I dumped shortly after realising the open source movement existed.
I won’t use safari for many reasons. I love Firefox’s layout, it’s like the IE6/Netscape layout I grew up on (even if I’m only 16). I love all of the add-ons (by the way Monty, that 'Tab Mix Plus' is great). I don’t like the sterile feel of apple software (same with opera), I prefer the community driven nature of Firefox and most other F/OSS software.
Don’t get me started on IE7, it feels slower (this is an opinion, so don't throw stuff at me) and the rearranged UI feels illogical, like it was changed for the sake of change. The only good thing about it is that it resizes picture with the text in a 'Ctrl-Mouse Wheel'.
I think that web browsers these days are a personal choice (except IE, its use demonstrates ignorance) and that it does not matter about the tests we do to them, and the statistics we throw around, you should be willing to try them out and see which is best for you, after all, they're free...
This piece of crap has a very bad memory leak problem. The windows version doesn't function as it is supposed to. We all know Mac programmers are very amateurish, but this is outrageous. Jeff, take this garbage and run away. We have FireFox, the best browser as of today.
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