Safari for Windows

Anyone else giving it a try? I'm posting from within it now. Seems nice enough.

 

The initial release of Safari for Windows had some major security flaws...which I understand have now been fixed. BTW these flaws didn't exist in Safari for Mac.

Safari is based on the KHTML rendering engine used in the "Konqueror" web browser/file manager used on the KDE desktop for Linux/Unix.

As a Linux user I've tended to use Konqueror more as a file manager than a web browser but now it's also a pretty good web browser too.

Some other web browsers that Windows users might want to take a look at:

K-Meleon. It's based on the Mozilla "Gecko" rendering engine. It's very small and lightning fast! It's only available for Windows.

Sea Monkey. This is the successor to the old "Mozilla" web suite...which in turn used to be Netscape before it was "open sourced".

Sea Monkey runs much faster now than Mozilla used to. It's "cross platform" and includes an e-mail programme, IRC programme, and a very basic web page creation tool called "Sea Monkey Composer". Some of the "extensions" that are available for Mozilla Firefox will also work on Sea Monkey because they have a similar code base.

Flock is "cross platform" and also based on the Gecko rendering engine and in fact is quite similar to Firefox. Flock is designed with some special features for blogging and photo sharing sites. Some extensions have also been written for it.

Opera is proprietary software and even though I'm a "free and open source software" guy, I have a soft spot for Opera. Opera is "cross platform" and includes an e-mail programme, RSS feed reader and a bittorrent client. They have these add-ons called "widgets" that are sort of similar to the "extensions" available for Firefox.

Just recently they added in a neat feature called "speed dial"...sort of like "bookmarks on steroids". The idea is that most folks have half a dozen or so websites that they visit on a regular basis. Rather than just put them into your bookmarks, you can put up to nine websites on your default "speed dial" page. So..."one click access" to your favourite websites!

Firefox...I think most folks on here are aware of Firefox...the "creme de la creme" of free and open source web browsers.

The bottom line is that if you're a Windows user you don't "have" to use Internet Explorer. You've got choices! Try them out and you'll likely find one that you like way better than IE.

 

Since I do a couple of web sites for myself and then my boating club "United States Sail & Power Squadron Portsmouth New Hampshire " I personally check my web pages in all browsers.

I recommend 1024 rez but realize others like 800 x600 or even higher. So when I add or change a page I check it with different browsers because they are not all compatible.

I currently use, IE7, Netscape, Avant, Opera, Safari and Mozilla. I've experienced no problem with any of them but prefer IE7 against my better judgement.

N1YDX - Lee

 

Day 2, it's still ok. Takes a little getting used to. Kind of sparse as far as features go though.

 

turns out they do exist in safari for iphone (!!)

 

IE7 finally introduced tabbed browsing and will properly view .png graphics. But I still hate the new user interface. IE6 was horrible. When on a Windows box (at work) I find that these days I'm using K-Meleon...it's very "lightweight" and fast. I really like Firefox but as new features are added and you add extensions, it too starts to "bloat".

One neat test to do with a web browser is the "acid2test". You can try it here. It tests how well various browsers render web pages.

My understanding is that Safari, iCab (for the Mac), Konqueror (after 3.5) and Opera (post version 9.0) are the only web browsers that "pass the test" right now.

I guess it depends on how many web users you want to have "side scroll" when they view your site. Most users have moved to 1024x768 screen resolution and so it's reasonably "safe".

Yikes!!!
What I recall reading about the initial security flaws on Safari for Windows is that the flaws were really quite obvious ones that should have been caught before a "public" beta was released. Maybe Apple should have called it an "alpha" release instead of a "beta"

As for the iPhone, I don't even have a cellphone now because I think they're too expensive. Canada has one of the most uncompetitive cellphone markets of any developed country...just three companies (Bell Canada, Telus and Rogers) run the whole show. I understand Apple will be teaming up with Rogers in Canada.

 

I use Opera on the wife's computer (using that one now). Depending on what I'm doing on my computer in the shack, I'll use Opera, Firefox, or Safari at the moment. IE7 if I must. The computer at the FD uses Thunderbird for email, and Firefox as the defaults. If it wasn't for the NFIRS software I'd switch the FD computer to Linux just to see how long it would take someone to realize they weren't on a Windows system any longer.