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.
10 Comments
Hmmm, I’m not encountering any slowdowns with Firefox and I would need a very compelling reason to replace it with Safari or Chrome, etc.
That being said, I became a Firefox convert because I decided to try it out just to see what all the fuss was about. For now, I’ll let you be the guinea pig.
Mark, moving the tabs (and other Safari 3 features) can be re-enabled or changed using hidden preferences: http://swedishcampground.com/safari-4-hidden-preferences
Mark:
Thanks for tips.
Gary: I’ll happily be your Safari guinea pig.
I’m a little surprised at your comments re Gmail, Mark, since I now use Safari exclusively to handle my Gmail screen. It’s much faster than Firefox, which is my ‘work’ browser, and I prefer it to Chrome that might have been an equally fast Gmail handler. I’m finding this two browser arrangement fits my needs really well.
Barry,
You’re right; GMail is faster in Safari. I could live with the error message but the fact the hyperlinks don’t work in Wordpress is troubling.
Mark
Should you feel the need to back out of Safari 4 and go back to 3.2.1 then here’s how:
http://www.markwheadon.com/blog/2009/02/how-to-back-out-of-safari-4beta/
Cheers,
Mark
I used it for a while, but switched back to Opera 10. I recommend to try it out, it’s faster than Safari 4 and loves wordpress
I dont think you should base your entire opinion of safari based on just the beta. I used firefox for a very long time till 3 came out. Then i made the permanent change over to Safari. I use 4 and deal with the problems mostly because i enjoy all he new features. There are a LOT of issues, but they will be fixed by the time its out of beta.
i just tired safari 4 beta and was disappointed.
When i installed it, my msn messenger wasn’t working properly and i could check my hotmail, whenever i went on the hotmail page it just froze.
i strongly suggest people wait until apple fixes all the bugs with the beta version before trying 4.0.
I only have 512K RAM and Safari 4 beta ate up most of that and then hung XP. I think I'll stick with FF3.