Disclaimer: I’ve been a long-time Firefox user but always willing to experiment so when Safari 4 Beta was unveiled last week, I read a few reviews (including an enthusiastic one by Louis Gray), and then took the plunge.
After using Safari 4 for a few days – and installing 1Password to make it more functional – I have to say Safari has promise but disappoints to the point where it’s going back on shelf for awhile.
The biggest flaw is a bug when using WordPress. When trying to nsert a hyperlink into a post, the screen goes dark and freezes. The only thing you can do is exit the page, which means you could lose everything you’ve written.
The second bug involves GMail. From time to time, trying to access GMail produces an error: Bad Request, Error 400.
Given using WordPress and GMail are two things I do on a regular basis each day, these bugs are unacceptable. Of course, these bugs are puzzling given they seem to be “low-hanging fruit” that should have been caught before Safari 4 made it out of the door.
While I’m being critical, I’m not a big fan of the browser tab bars being at the top of the screen rather than below the navigation bar. (Note: I couldn’t figure out how to move it if that option, in fact, exists).
I do like the “Top Sites” feature that show your 12 favorite sites when you open a new browser tab. As well, the ability to bring back all the Web sites you visited previous by using the “Reopen All Windows from Last Session” option is much-appreciated, although it would be great to turn on the “option” so it happens every time Safari is fired up.
In the scheme of things, my problems with Safari are relatively minor. If Apple fixes then AND maintains Safari’s speed, I would seriously consider migrating from Firefox, which has performing badly recently, particularly when many browser tabs are open.
Technorati Tags: apple, firefox, safari
